Bellamy Brothers - Let Your Love Flow

I'll start with my recommendation: Rhino's Billboard Top Hits 1976 (1991), which should surprise no one, since I'm so vocal about how good these early-'90s Rhino collections sound. The song runs 3:15 here. The LP and 45 version are the same.

There are a bunch of discs that use the same analog transfer as Billboard:

• Time-Life's 4-CD Great Love Songs Of The 70's And 80's Vol. 2 Let Your Love Flow (1991; digitally 0.6 dB quieter, but shaves about a half-second off the tail of the fade)
• Rhino's Have A Nice Day Vol. 18 (1993; digitally identical)
• JCI's Only Rock 'N Roll #1 Radio Hits 1975-1979 (1996; truncates fade - avoid)
• Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 30 #1 Hits Of The '70s '75-'79 (2000; digitally identical)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Seventies Music Explosion Vol. 4 Magic (2005; digitally identical)

I found two other analog transfers that aren't quite as good as Billboard:

• Time-Life's 2-CD Echoes Of Love (1991; runs a little too fast)
• Warner Special Products' 2-CD Rock Revival (1991)

The Bellamy Brothers re-recorded "Let Your Love Flow" at some point, and this rerecording found its way onto a few compilations, including Madacy's Rock On 1976 (original 1996 release; it was replaced with "Love Machine" on 2004 rerelease). If you find a 2:48 version of "Let Your Love Flow", avoid it - that's the rerecording, and it's awful.

And then, there are two outliers that I can't quite identify: Silver Eagle/MCA's 3-CD Shades Of Love (1989) and Simitar's Number Ones Lovin' Feelings (1998). Both discs feature a version of the song that's definitely the original recording, but sounds like a late-'80s remix that was intended to mimic the original 1976 mix, sort of like Stevie Nicks's Timespace remixes but done better. This version sounds spectacular in a side-by-side comparison with the Billboard disc, and (to my ears) sounds too good to be a mix from 1976. Starting with the second verse, there's a tamborine hit on the snare for most of the rest of the song. The tamborine is present but relatively muted on the Billboard disc, but positively sparkles front-and-center on this outlier version.

Anyone know of any remixes on a Bellamy Brothers CD from the late '80s? Curb Records, perhaps?

Edited by crapfromthepast

I emailed Ron this info and he asked I post here for
posterity.
I carefully analyzed the master we're calling the "late
80's remix" and what I am hearing is it's just a very
differently mastered version of the same mix. The newer
master has some very carefully created compression
applied to it and has a punched-up EQ. I actually really
like what they did to it, and funny enough it sounds very
similar to the treatment I gave it when adding it my
digital library.
It would have been nearly impossible for them to take a
16 or 24 track and re-create all those subtle little
guitar notes placed the same way, with the same reverb
and placement of every track in the new mix.
As for the multi-track, I doubt they even had it
available anymore by the late 80's because the extremely
weird early-90's techno mix on Curb has all the extra
tech production added to the original mix, they had no
isolated tracks to work with.
That's my take on it.

MM