ETTA JAMES: New post

  “In our latest visit to Rock’s Backpages – the world’s leading archive of vintage music journalism – we bring you an interview with the late Etta James, by Cliff White for NME in 1978” “Thanksgiving Day in November will be my silver anniversary: 25 years since I cut my first record and I haven’t […]

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BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Britten to America – video interview with Sir Mark Elder

Gramophone Magazine: As his centenary year draws to a close, we can look back at some wonderful new recordings of Britten’s music: Philip Hingham’s disc of the Cello Suites (Delphi an), Oliver Knudsen conducting The Rape of Lucretius at Aldeburgh (Virgin Classics), Ian Bostridge recording Britten’s songs with Antonio Pappano and Xuefei Yang (EMI Classics), […]

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A daily dose of Hughes; Jimmy Hughes aka James Michael Hughes

  Decca Get It WRONG! Today, when you sample vintage recordings on CD, some of the classic Decca recordings now seem a bit over-lit and rather obviously multi-miked. They’re still very exciting to listen to, but the engineering seems a wee bit obtrusive and gimmicky. Conversely, recordings which on LP once seemed slightly reticent and […]

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BEETHOVEN: How his symphonies changed the world

Phillip Clark writes: Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer who, more than any other, changed music, the sound of music and what it is that composers do, wrote nine symphonies that jolted music out of itself. Life could never – would never – be the same again. The “classical” rationality of structure, harmony, form, melodic development […]

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A daily dose of Hughes; Jimmy Hughes aka James Michael Hughes – “Better Sound – Where Did It All Go Wrong, George?”

At some point – and it’s hard to say exactly when – a significant majority began to lose interest in sonic upgrades and technical improvements. It’s my belief the process began sometime in the late 1980s, though the trend would not become obvious until the early ‘90s. CD certainly rejuvenated the hi-fi market in the […]

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