About Chi Coltrane (Speakers Corner) by Chi Coltrane:
In the early Seventies, when Chi Coltrane was seen and heard in Europe on TV singing her hit "Thunder And Lightning", the critics believed that they could once again celebrate a Lady of Rock. People in the USA, spoilt for choice when it came to great vocalists, were hoping to find someone worthy of following in Janis Joplin’s footsteps, but the blond lady at the piano was judged somewhat warily: a great voice and a forceful keyboard style were not enough to rock one’s way from Chicago’s clubs into the top line-up of America’s best rock and soul singers. It was however, these years of singing live that prepared Chi Coltrane’s way to creating an impressive recording presence, which is well demonstrated in this album. The producer put together a studio group that set Chi’s youthful, powerful voice on fire with its soul-like brass section. Tender emotions are found in the more tranquil numbers: "Goodbye John" is full of yearning, and the ballad "The Tree" glows with heart-warming woodland romance thanks to contributions from the horns. But Chi’s voice comes over best in numbers such as in "You Were My Friend", or in exhilarating Gospel songs ("Go Like Elijah"), where she can belt out the text and lend it further weight with powerful chords on the piano.
Musicians:
- Chi Coltrane (arranger, piano, organ, vocal)
- Ben Benay, Dean Pars (guitar)
- Larry Knechtel, Steve Lefever, Lee Sklaar (bass)
- Jim Gordon, Ron Tutt (drums)
- King Erison (conga)
- Victor Feldman (percussion)
Recording: 1972 by Eric Prestidge
Production: Toxey French
About Speakers Corner
At the beginning of the 90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the situation was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and, of course, Speakers Corner all maintained a mutual, unwritten ethical code: we would only use analogue tapes to manufacture records.
During the course of the present vinyl hype, many others have jumped on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source to master from: CDs, LPs, digital files, MP3s – or employed existant tools from the 80s and 90s for manufacturing.
A digital delay is gladly used when cutting a lacquer disc because tape machines with an analogue delay have become quite rare and are therefore expensive. When cutting the lacquer, the audio signal is delayed by one LP revolution against the signal, which controls the cutter head, and for this a digital delay is very often employed. Of course, the resultant sound signal is completely digital and thus only as good as this delay.
We should like to emphasise that Speakers Corner Records on principle only uses the original master tape as the basis for the entirely analogue cutting of lacquer discs. In addition, the pressing tool is newly manufactured as a matter of principle. We have one digital recording in our catalogue (Alan Parsons / Eye In The Sky“), but even in this particular case we used the analogue tapes for cutting.
We only employ existing tools for manufacturing if an improved result is not forthcoming, e.g. the title Elvis Is Back, which was mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, or several titles from our Philips Classics series, which in any case Willem Makkee cut from the original masters at the Emil Berliner Studios in the 90s. It goes without saying that we only used the mother and that new tools were made for our production.
To put it in a nutshell: we can ensure you that our releases are free from any kind of digital effects – excluding the exception above – and that the lacquer discs are newly cut.
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