[Slowhand] John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers Recordings (Nicholas Aleshin)

[John Mills]

There's not many wide-mouth frogs around here.

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Seriously folks, I have to put my hand up.

I bought the original UK Decca Mono version, in '67, which I loved until the day it was stolen.
It wasn't until '82, whilst I was in a record store in Washington DC, that I found a copy of the stereo version, out-of-print in the UK for many's the year.
I bought it on CD when it first emerged and then thanks to DN's ministrations, the Stereo+Mono version.

Latterly, I managed to get hold of an MFSL version and a couple of days ago, a rip from the original mono album at 24bit; 96kHz. Burnt to a video DVD, it's probably got the best sound of all for that blistering guitar. Mayall *is* correct when he states that it was meant to be heard in mono; the artificiality of the stereo field detracts from the listening experience.   

The following is from Prof. Stoned, who performed the rip:
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One of my favourite albums of the ol' master J.M. (together with 'A Hard Road').
For those who don't know this yet, this is as good as E.C. ever got as a guitarist.
Plus he made his vocal debut on this record.

A short explanation why I think this vinyl rip is so badly needed:

When this album first came out in 1966, there was only a mono mix.
At the time, monophonic was still the most popular format in the UK and 
with the expected sales for this LP in mind the record company thought a true 
stereo mix was unnecessary.
However, the album proved to be far more popular than initially expected 
and so in 1969 Decca ordered an unnamed house engineer to do a stereo remix. 
The album had been recorded on 4-track but still a lot of the magic of the original mix 
was lost in this remix and the engineer used Mayall's organ track in Hideaway 
which had been deliberately omitted from the original version. 
The stereo version just doesn't have the ballsy sound of the mono.

The stereo remix was consequently used for every LP and CD reissue ever since 
until a new remaster appeared in 2001 that had both the stereo and mono mixes. 
Unfortunately, the mastering by Jon Astley was pretty awful (nearly all dynamic range 
was sacrificed for more volume and it wasn't a very dynamic recording to begin with).
The 2CD Deluxe edition from 2007 (containing both stereo and mono mixes plus extra's) 
should have set the record straight, but once again the recordings were mastered 
pretty hot and also some digital noise reduction was added, 
resulting in a somewhat sterile and airless high-end. 
It should be said that the 2007 remaster arguably has better EQ than the original 
but I decided to leave the sound alone on this one. 

The bonustrack first appeared on the compilation 'Blues Anytime vol.2'
on the Immediate label in 1968, but had been recorded three years earlier (with Clapton).
'On top of the world' is a great catchy track and it was supposed to be the A-side of a 45rpm 
for Immediate coupled with an early take of Double Crossing Time but it never came out.
It was released officially on CD on a couple of Immediate compilations 
and a 'first-time-ever-in-stereo' remix appeared on the Deluxe Edition.
The mono mix here was ripped from an original UK press of 'Blues Anytime vol.2'.

The records were professionally and carefully cleaned in three steps using Audio Intelligent's 
Enzymantic formula, Super Cleaner Formula, and Ultra pure water on a VPI 16.5 
(using VPI brushes) and Nitty Gritty mini-pro 2. 
I spent a lot of time manually declicking the wave file (after Click Repair had already been 
applied with a medium setting) to make sure the cleanest and most natural sounding result 
possible was achieved. However, due to the age and the condition of the source it
was not possible to achieve a perfectly clean result. No EQ.
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Google: "Prof. Stoned Mayall"