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Beautiful songs beautifully recorded.

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I’m feeling a little sentimental this evening so if you’d like to share some beautiful songs beautifully recorded then Jesus is just alright with me.

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  3. Kirsty’s original is damn near perfect, Tracey Ullman’s version continues the legend (with added Paul McCartney in the video), this version though … I have my reasons
    (the word “sentimental” made me do it)

    Katrina Leskanich – They Don’t Know

      • And Tindersticks’ Sleepy Song, recorded live in Abbey Road around a Soundfield microphone “to a 3M 996 tape at 15 inches per second.”

        See also Cowboy Junkies Blue Moon Revisited, recorded in a church round a Calrec ambisonic mic.

        I am a bit of a microphone nerd, but my recording partner in crime has the full-blown disease.

        • There was a time when the original Trinity Session LP was seldom off my turntable, but I don’t remember that one…I’ll have to have a rummage and dig it out again.

          This was the standout for me at the time…

          • Blue Moon Revisited wasn’t on the original vinyl album, it was a single, and on the album CD. There’s a more recent 2LP remaster with it, and Working On A Building, added.

  15. Joe Jackson’s Body & Soul is one of my fave albums, and Be My Number Two is my fave song on it. Like the Cowboy Junkies tune above, mostly recorded in a church with a Calrec ambisonic mic.

    • Joe Boyd producing and John Wood engineering. A winning combination.
      I particularly like Sandy Denny’s other song “Autopsy” from that album. Featuring my favourite Richard Thompson guitar solo. Succinct.

      • Engineering: John Wood is pretty much a guarantee of quality.
        I have a number of records where his name has guaranteed the purchase, and not just the obvious island/witschseason mafia either. My first sight of Clive Gregson was a centre spread in MM, when Chris Welch waxed eloquently about Any Trouble, and interviewed Gregson. When he said that he chose John Wood to engineer their debut, I knew it would be good. And, reader, you know, it was. Is.

        • John Wood is an engineer’s engineer. No fancy microphones, no flashy outboard gear. He spends his time getting the available equipment to sound its best, sets the mixer so that it sounds great with all the faders set level, and hits ‘record’. Dull but effective.

          I know someone who was trained by him and he’s surprisingly opinionated, most of it in the “the old ways are the best” category. I am minded to agree.

  17. Fresh from YouTube lockdown land this morning. From the amazing Stanley Dee.
    A spanking new cover recording of a Steely Dan rarity. An outtake from “The Royal Scam”.
    “Here At The Western World” was the first track on side 3 of The Dan’s “Greatest Hits” double album released in ’78. It was put on the B-side of a New Zealand release of Kid Charlemagne that year and also on a limited edition DJ promo 12″ in the USA (same track on both sides).

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