Fleetwood Mac - Then Play On - Unplayed Orig. UK Cutting + 1 bonus
16bit/44.1kHz (Redbook Audio for CD burning)
01. Coming your way
02. Closing my eyes
03. Fighting for Madge
04. When you say
05. Showbiz blues
06. Underway
07. One sunny day
08. Although the sun is shining
09. Rattlesnake shake
10. Without you
11. Searching for Madge
12. My dream
13. Like crying
14. Before the beginning
Bonus:
15. Oh Well
These mixes do appear officially on CD but in a soundquality far inferior to this source.
All tracks are stereo except Tr. 15 which only exists in mono.
Producer: Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green uncredited) & Mike Vernon (Tr. 7 & 10 uncredited)
Engineer: Martin Birch & Mike Ross (Tr. 7 & 10 uncredited)
Recorded: De Lane Lea, Holbern, London. Summer 1969 & Tr. 7 & 10 CBS Studio, New Bond Street, London. Oct. 6, 1968
Hardware:
- Technics 1210mk2
- Jelco SA-750D Tonearm (w/ JAC 501 cable)
- Audio Technica AT-33PTG
- Pro-Ject Tube Box SE-2
- Yamaha CA-1010
- RME ADI-2 A/D Interface
Software:
- Audition 3.0 used for adjusting DC bias. editing. (incl. manual removal of clicks
and pops.. adding gain and making the cue points.
- Click Repair 3.5.3 used with setting Cl: 20. Cr: 0
- CueListTool v1.7 & Mediaval CueSplitter used for generating the .cue's & .m3u's.
- MBit+ dithering and Sox Resampler used for converting to standard wav format.
Transfer & Restoration by Prof. Stoned
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Prof. sez:
Now, this is one that I've been meaning to do for no less than 6 years! Over that period, I've been through
a dozen of copies to find that one 'impossibly' clean playing copy that for a long time I thought did not exist.
Yes folks, finally you won't have to listen to that botched up dreadful sounding CD anymore.
Then Play On was the final album made by the infamous Peter Green-led line-up of Fleetwood Mac and is almost
unanimously considered their best effort.
Ever since this album came out, it has seen many different configurations and a shoddy re-release policy overall,
thanks to FM's long-time record company Reprise, who since the enormous success of Rumours have
been very wary of shifting the focus on any version of Fleetwood Mac that did not include Stevie Nicks.
But even before Rumours, Reprise had already done considerable damage to the reputation of this album.
The original release in the UK from September 9, 1969 had the above track-sequence minus 'Oh Well' which was
to be released on September 26 as a 45rpm. At the time it was common in the UK that single tracks
were not to be duplicated on an album.
The first US album was slightly different in that it omitted Tr. 07 & 10. Those songs had already appeared
on a compilation specifically designed for the US market in 1969 called 'English Rose'*.
But then in early '70, 'Oh Well' became a minor hit in the States and Reprise quickly pulled their original LP
to replace it with a new 11-track version that included 'Oh Well' but omitted Tr. 04 & 12.
This version was maintained until it went it out-of-print on vinyl in the late 80's and must have outsold
the original on a scale of 20/1.
The second US version also found its way to Europe where the sequence was used for a German budget re-release
with cheap looking sleeve design in 1973, replacing the superior original German version (identical to UK)
and dominating the European market ever since.
By this time, the original sequence was only still available in the UK but the beautiful original gatefold
sleeve had been replaced by a generic black sleeve which bore no similarity to the original, although the
gatefold was reinstated in the 80's.
In 1988 Reprise released the only CD version of TPO thus far. It has proven to be one of the most glaring examples
in the history of CD remastering. The US Reprise division used the production master of the second US version
(which means 4th generation) and added the two songs that were omitted from the first US version.
Tr. 7 & 10 were presumably not available to Reprise due to an old agreement, as these tracks had been recorded by
FM's former label-boss/producer Mike Vernon in October 1968 when they were still under contract with Blue Horizon.
The running order of the CD makes no sense at all. The sound is harsh, there are tape drags and a blanket of hiss.
To top it off, the tape was played on a machine with a wrongly aligned playback-head azimuth, resulting in a
completely off-balance stereo image.
Not that the original recording was a sonic masterpiece. There is distortion on the mastertape (likely because
the levels on the multitape were recorded too hot) and there is also quite a bit of hiss.
But be that as it may, this here is FAR better than what is on that godamnawful CD.
As noted, I've searched for more than six years to find a copy of this that met my quality criteria.
In 2006 I bought a visually near mint copy which initially prompted the idea for this project.
Unfortunately, it had some audio issue's during Closing my eyes that couldn't be masked with digital software.
I have bought about 8 near mint looking copies since (original and reissue) and none of them
matched the reasonable low level noise of my first copy. Nearly all of them were UK copies. I tried one or
two early US copies too, but even though they may have had a louder volume signal, they didn't live up to the
soundquality of the UK's. Same goes for the original German press, which has a recessed sounding high-end
and boosted low-end.
The low volume signal on this record is truly problematic. The reason for that lies in the extremely long playing
time (over 53 minutes), a deep low-end, modest high-end and very soft passages in which every bit of
surface noise is heard, including pops, crackles & -worst of all- rumbling.
All UK copies from the 60's and 70's contain the same cutting done by PYE in 1969. Both the original PYE
pressing from 1969 & the later ones by Kinney Group were pressed on notoriously poor vinyl.
All this together gives you an idea of how near-impossible it is to find a UK copy that is actually reasonably
silent during delicate tracks such as Closing my eyes & Although the sun is shining.
But in November of last year (at the great record fair in Utrecht) I finally found the ultimate upgrade;
a still sealed 2nd UK copy for no less than 8 euro's. That copy was used for the majority of this recording.
Only a few short snippets were taken from two other UK copies, due to some irreparable artefacts.
And then there is the bonus track, 'Oh Well'. This track was transferred from a original UK 45 copy that was
unplayed before I bought it. The song was split up in two parts on the original single, with Side A having
the beginning of the quiet second part of the song tacked at the end. This minute is repeated on side B,
which consists of the whole 2nd second opus but then of course without the crossfade on side A.
Predictably, this fact was overlooked when Reprise decided to make one long track out of it for the 2nd US LP
version, nor was it ever corrected on any other Reprise reissue that featured the track since.
In fact, only the 1998 30th anniversary CD version of the UK Greatest Hits on Columbia gets it right.
I have carefully edited the two sides together, bringing the playing time down to just over 8 minutes.
What I can say about the music that hasn't been said yet? Well, this album has always been very dear to me
from the age of 12 and I'm very pleased that I was able to complete this project and have it sound the way
it does here. Both Pete Green and Danny Kirwan were sublime guitar players, the former probably being my
all-time favourite. But Greeny was not just a guitarist with the finest feel and the most brilliant tone,
he was also an extraordinary composer and his musical versatility is best presented on this album.
I hope he's in a good place now (same goes for Kirwan).
All the records used for this projects 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 and
Nitty Gritty mini-pro 2.
I manually declicked 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.
As clean as the main copy may be, it still proved to be an enourmous labour-intensive job to clean the recording
in the digital domain. I have read once that the original master was plagued with clicks (probably from
recording too hot) and that Martin Birch spent a whole night trying to edit these out, much to the band's
amazement and gratitude, so the recording as it is heard here may well be cleaner sounding than the original tape.
Took me a long time to do this right, but this classic recording definitely deserves it.
Enjoy!
(* The versions on 'English Rose' are the same mixes that that appeared on TPO but "One Sunny Day" was slowed down
one semitone on TPO, possibly to give it a heavier feel.)