Long Cool Woman In a Black Dress promo

To avoid starting a new thread, I'll post this here:

What is the difference between the single and LP versions of The Hollies' "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)"? Is the single just faded early?

But are you going by the actual 45, Doug, or by the Dick Bartley CD that claims it contains the single version?

Single and album version of Long Cool Woman sound alike to me except the early fade on the 45. The only version I hear any difference on is the DJ mono version. Vocal seems significantly lower. The song was released commercially in mono on the Memory Lane series with the typical ZSP lettering but that mono mix does NOT feature the lower vocals.

Bill Cahill wrote: I noticed recently that my DJ copy of the Hollies Long Cool Woman sounded different on the mono side. It's either a different mix, or it was just mastered VERY BADLY. Sounds like the vocal is buried down deeper into the song. Interestingly, the "Memory Lane" Epic reissue single of the song is also mono, but that sounds like the stereo single "summed" to mono. So if any of you have the DJ copy, does it sound like a unique mix to you?

I'd neither run across this thread nor had ever listened to either side of my DJ 45 before, so you definitely piqued my curiosity, Bill. I fully agree; this one's a real clunker. I'd call it a very bad mix.

The net result of the mono mix is that not only are Allan Clarke's lead vocals more buried in the mix, they sound a bit wetter, too. This may be because the reverb on the stereo side tends to be a bit stronger in the right channel, resulting in a somewhat drier overall sound when folded to mono. On the mono DJ side, the reverb is more noticeable. Burying the wetter-sounding vocal doesn't exactly sound like a winning formula for making the track stand out more on 1972 AM radio. Because it was Epic's decision to release this only-intended-as-an-album-track as an American single, I wonder whether it was CBS or EMI who was responsible for the mono DJ 45 mix.

The other thing that falls flat on the mono DJ 45 is the record's signature pair of dual drumbeats during the intro. A fold of the stereo mix still manages to keep them prevalent, but the mono DJ 45 mix moves them back in the mix and mires them in additional reverb. The added wetness might have worked, had the beats been forward in the mix. As it is, they don't stand out at all, whereas they should grab your attention (Exhibit "A": Andy Kim's "Baby, I Love You." BOOM!! BOOM!!)

The actual time on my mono DJ 45 side is (3:01), although the last second or two has a lot of tape hiss.

Bill, the Hollies and Ten Years After mono DJ 45s were given the CBS Mono Magic Box treatment probably because only the two-track stereo mixdowns were sent across the pond from EMI and Chrysalis, respectively.

If the CBS shop rules mandated no folddowns on mono DJ 45s even for outside production jobs like these, smoke and mirrors had to have been involved.