johnny cymbal mr bass man

my commercial 45 for the johnny cymbal song 'mr bass man'
issued as kapp 503 does not list a run time on the label
but actually runs 2:34 and does NOT have the count-
off........all the db entries do not have a qualifier on
it, but the mono 45 has lots of re-verb while the stereo
version is completely dry......pat, you may want to re-
qualify the stereo entries as some other version, but NOT
the 45 version.....was the song originally issued in mono
on the album version or stereo?

Edited by edtop40

I thought I might have had this on one of the three K-tel LPs I have from the '70s, but it turns out that "Mr. Custer" is on two of them. Must've been cheaper to license than the Bass Man. ;)

BTW, the MCA 60043 reissue 45 on the black label with the rainbow uses a Kapp-era stamper and does have the correct 45 version with the reverb. However, the sound quality is much more muffled than on the Kapp 503 stock copy I have, but with some substantial top end EQing, it can be healed to match sound of the 1963 Kapp 45.

If anyone is daring, there is a Japanese stereo EP on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/360586695637

Edited by TomDiehl1

P.S. A lot of the MCA reissues of Kapp Winners Circle 45
singles (themselves often from original metalwork) are from
stampers with high numbers of pressings on them. Which
explains the dull muffled sound.

The 1963 hit was mono.

As of 2024, no proper CD releases in the US include the mono version.

The first CD to include a stereo version is MCA's Vintage Music Volumes 5 and 6 (1986). It includes a count-off, has no reverb on the vocals, and runs 2:40. I don't know what's on the stereo vinyl LP Mr. Bass Man; the Vintage Music discs have a few new remixes, and this might be one of them. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's Rock 'N' Roll Era Vol. 29 Sixties Rave On (1990) - cuts off count-off, tail of fade is about 3 beats shorter
• Time-Life's 2-CD Lost Treasures Of Rock 'N' Roll (1991) - cuts off count-off, adds reverb, tail of fade is about 9 beats shorter
• MCA's 2-CD Wacky Favorites (1993) - tail of fade is about 5 beats shorter
• Taragon's (1995) - adds reverb, narrows soundstage, tail of fade is about 4 beats shorter
• Time-Life's Wacky Favorites Weird And Wild (1998) - cuts off count-off, tail of fade is about 5 beats shorter
• Time-Life's 2-CD Glory Days Of Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 5 One Hit Wonders (1999) - cuts off count-off, adds reverb, narrows soundstage, tail of fade is about 3 beats shorter
• Mr. Bass Man The Best Of (2010, download from Qobuz) - adds reverb, narrows soundstage, tail of fade is about 3 beats shorter
• TM Century track no. 00007179 - cuts off count-off, adds noise reduction

There's a mono version, labeled as "Master", on Mr. Bass Man The Acetates (2017, download from Qobuz). This version runs about 0.3% faster than Vintage Music, cuts off the count-off, runs to the same point in the song as Vintage Music, and seems to have roughly the same amount of reverb as Vintage Music. To my ears, it sounds like a high-quality fold-down of the Vintage Music version, but I have a hard time detecting small differences in reverb.

There's another mono version, labeled as "Alternate", on Mr. Bass Man The Acetates (2009, download from Qobuz). This mono version runs at the same speed as Vintage Music, but cuts off the count-off, includes significantly more reverb, and fades about 30 beats sooner.

The version on Eric's Hard To Find Jukebox Classics 1963 (2014) runs about 0.5% faster than Vintage Music, cuts off the count-in, has lots more reverb, and runs about 16 beats shorter than Vintage Music. This is labeled in the database as "45 version". Can someone steer me toward what the difference between the "45 version" and "LP version" is, aside from the difference in reverb? There's a YouTube post by The45Prof that says that the mono 45 and the stereo versions of "Mr. Bassman" use differently-sung vocal takes. I don't hear a difference between the Eric and MCA discs, although I certainly might have missed something.

There's a version with a completely different vocal take (including different lyrics) on Ace UK's Golden Age Of American Rock 'N' Roll Special Novelty Edition (2003). Here, at 0:26, the lyrics are "you're distinctive/with the b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b". The Vintage Music version has "with a b-b-b-boom-boom/and a d-d-d-boom-boom-bom". Rerecording? Not sure.

Edited by crapfromthepast