Captain Tennille - Love Keep Us Together

For the search engine, the biggest chart single of 1975: "Love Will Keep Us Together" by the Captain and Tennille.

It's a remake of a Neil Sedaka song from 1973, which appeared in the US in 1974 on the Sedaka's Back album. On this song, Sedaka's backing band is 10cc. Neat!

The oldest CD I have with "Love Will Keep Us Together" is the A&M Captain And Tennille Greatest Hits (copyright 1976, unsure of exact release date). It sounds just fine here - pretty good source tapes, excellent dynamic range, reasonable EQ, a small amount of hiss on the fade, and no evidence of noise reduction. There are a few compilations that use the same analog transfer as Greatest Hits:

• Priority's Seventies Greatest Rock Hits Vol. 9 #1 Hits (1991; way too loud and clips severely)
• Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 22 1975 (1996; digitally exactly 1.5 dB louder)
• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 41 Pop Nuggets Early '70s (1996; digitally exactly 1.7 dB louder)
• Simitar's Love Rocks 4 Songs Of Love (1998; about 4.5 dB louder and clips a lot)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 17 1973-1975 (2002; digitally exactly 1.5 dB louder)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Seventies Music Explosion Vol. 2 Escape (2005; digitally exactly 1.5 dB louder)

There's a different analog transfer on Warner Special Products' 2-CD Feel Good Rock (1989), which seems to be from higher-generation source tapes than Greatest Hits. It also truncates the fade. The same analog transfer is used on Warner Special Products' 2-CD Good Times (1991), with its absolute polarity inverted. Greatest Hits and its clones sound better than these two.

Bill Inglot did a new analog transfer for Rhino's Billboard Top Hits 1975 (1991), and it sounds significantly better than everything listed above. Better source tapes than Greatest Hits, and also excellent dynamic range, reasonable EQ, a nice long tail on the fade, and no evidence of noise reduction. There are a few discs that use the same analog transfer as Billboard Top Hits 1975:

• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 36 More AM Nuggets (1994)
• Razor & Tie's 2-CD Super '70s (1995; absolute polarity inverted, which is no big deal, but truncates the fade)
• Razor & Tie's 6-CD 70 Number One Hits Of The 70s Vol. 6 (1998; digitally identical to Super '70s after 1:04)
• Madacy's Rock On 1975 Midnight Blue (1998; absolute polarity inverted, which is no big deal)

Finally, there's a new analog transfer on Hip-O's Ultimate Collection (2001). I don't like the sound on this disc - it's a little compressed/limited compared to the others, with a bass-heavy EQ. Ultimate also has a Spanish version of the song, which hit the middle of the Hot 100 as a single in 1975.

My recommendation for "Love Will Keep Us Together": probably the least expensive disc in this post - Rhino's Billboard Top Hits 1975 (1991)

Edited by crapfromthepast