About United (Speakers Corner) by Marvin Gaye:
Marvin Gaye, who in the pioneering days of the Motown recording company had already lent his voice to the »Sound of Young America«, teamed up with another vocalist from the brand-new Motown roster in several of his productions. After "Take Two" with Kim Weston in 1966, Gaye and the newcomer Tammi Terrell proved to be a further powerful duo, and they would have surely made more than just three records together had Terrell not died tragically at the age of only 24.
On the album "United" the photogenic duo offer three hits with "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough", "If I Could Build My World Around You" and "Your Precious Love", which catapulted the album towards the top of the pop charts. And that’s exactly where it belongs, since the tremendously popular but schmaltzy duet "Somethin’ Stupid" crept into the line-up of the otherwise groovy soul numbers. But no matter! This evergreen from the 60s is just as popular nowadays as it was then, whether performed by Frank Sinatra or Robbie Williams.
Musicians:
- Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell (vocal)
Production: H. Fuqua and J. Bristol
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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