rascals groovin

The harmonica seems to disappear in sections on the 45
version (and I think the 45 might be a little slower).

And also, the mono LP has the original harmonica solo as well. Stereo LP harmonica to my ear grates.

Does anyone have a copy of the single of this that has the song in Spanish on one side & Italian on the other? Dunno if it was ever released commercially, but one station I worked at had it on a promo. We'd play it once in a while. I'd be curious to know if that had the same production as the English single.
Somewhere I have a dub of the Spanish side, but don't currently have a working reel-to-reel deck.

Just about all the CD versions of this song sound pretty good. All but one use low-generation source tapes. All have great dynamic range, reasonable EQ, and no evidence of added noise reduction on the fade. Not many 1967 tracks are this fortunate to have gotten such a good treatment on CD.

Stereo

The first CDs to include "Groovin'" used the stereo version. (Recall that the first batch of CD compilations, in the 1986-88 time frame, used as much stereo and as little mono as humanly possible.)

The earliest CD with the stereo version is Warner Special Products' The Ultimate Rascals (1986). The original pressing of Ultimate sounds great. Barry Diament is uncredited in the booklet, but mastered the original release. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's Classic Rock Vol. 5 1967 (1988) - left/right channels swapped and tail of fade is 2 beats shorter
• Atlantic's Hit Singles 1958-1977 (1988)
• Silver Eagle Records' mail-order 3-CD Woodstock Rock (1989) - left/right channels swapped
• JCI's Only Rock And Roll 1965-1969 (1994) - left/right channels swapped
• Heartland/Warner Special Products' mail-order 2-CD Hooked On A Feeling (1995) - left/right channels swapped and tail of fade is 1 beat shorter
• Rhino Handmade's 6-CD All I Really Need: The Atlantic Recordings (1965-1971) (2001) - it's on Disc 2, which is the Groovin' album
• Time-Life's 2-CD AM Gold Good Lovin' (2021) - left/right channels swapped and tail of fade is 2 beats shorter
• TM Century track no. 00006797
• TM Century track no. 0020503

At some point, someone at Warner Special Products commissioned a remastering for Ultimate. We're not really sure when the reissue came out, but it has a copyright date of 1986 just like the original release, and has an "RE-1" in the matrix number. Bill Inglot mastered the RE-1 reissue. Compared with the original release, the RE-1 reissue is mastered with more top end (like the late-'80s Rhino releases), uses the (in my opinion) superior mono version of "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore", and lets "It's Wonderful" play to its end rather than fading early. For "Groovin'", the original and RE-1 reissue likely use the same source tape, but different analog transfers. The RE-1 reissue actually has the tail of the fade being 2 beats shorter than the original release. The same analog transfer as the RE-1 reissue is used on:

• Warner Special Products' release of the full Rascals album Groovin' (1988)
• Time-Life's 25 Years Of #1 Hits (1991) - tail of fade is about 1 beat shorter
• Rhino's promo Atlantic Remasters Collection CD Sampler (1992, PRO2 90127)
• Time-Life's Superhits Vol. 14 The Late '60s (1992) - left/right channels swapped and tail of fade is 1 beat shorter
• Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 14 The Late '60s (1995) - left/right channels swapped and tail of fade is 1 beat shorter

There's a different analog transfer on Disc 3 of Rhino Handmade's 6-CD All I Really Need: The Atlantic Recordings (1965-1971) (2001), which corresponds to the Time Peace/The Rascals' Greatest Hits album. Here, it runs about 3 beats shorter than the original pressing of Ultimate.

There's one more analog transfer on Heartland's 2-CD Real Rock (1987) that has a narrowed soundstage and sounds pretty bad. It's likely from a high-generation source tape. Avoid.

So at the end of the day, after all of the above releases, there are really only two masterings in serious contention for the stereo version of "Groovin'": the original and RE-1 reissue masterings for Ultimate. Those two are responsible for 16 of the 18 different versions I have for the stereo "Groovin'".

Overall, I prefer the original release of Ultimate for this song, because the EQ is a little tamer for the high end (the treble boost is a bit excessive for the tamborine and the chirpy sounds), and because the tail of the fade extends 2 beats longer. (I found a 2013 from the Steve Hoffman board in which I argued for the RE-1 reissue. I don't remember if I put this much effort into the A/B test back then. Regardless, I've changed my mind (at least for the song "Groovin'" and I now stand firmly behind the original release. Gloat if you must. :) )

Mono

Because the stereo mix is so wide for this track, I greatly prefer the mono.

There is a fine analog transfer on Rhino's Summer Of Love Vol. 1 (1992). This analog transfer was then promptly forgotten, because...

There is another fine analog transfer, apparently using the same source tape, on Rhino's 2-CD Rascals Anthology 1965-1972 (1992). You'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference from Summer; both sound excellent. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Rhino's Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits 1967 (1993, RE-1 reissue only; replaces "Good Thing" by Paul Revere And The Raiders from the 1989 release)
• Rhino's Rascals single-CD Very Best Of (1993)
• Rhino's promo Rock The Dome (1994; PRCD 7101)
• Rhino's Sixties Rock Classics Vol. 3 (1994)
• Disc 5 of Rhino Handmade's 6-CD All I Really Need: The Atlantic Recordings (1965-1971) (2001), which corresponds to Original Singles
• Varese Sarabande's Rock & Roll The First 50 Years: The Late '60s 25 Top 10 Hits (2005)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Flower Power Groovin' (2007)
• Real Gone's 2-CD Rascals The Complete Singles A's & B's (2017)

The Spanish and Italian versions are in mono. Both appear on Disc 6 of Rhino Handmade's 6-CD All I Really Need: The Atlantic Recordings (1965-1971) (2001). The same analog transfers for both of these are used on Real Gone's 2-CD Rascals The Complete Singles A's & B's (2017). Both use the same production as the stereo English version (harmonica comes in later than on the English mono 45).

My recommendations

Unless you pick Real Rock, you'll be pleased with just about every CD release of the song. For my own personal library, here are my choices.

For the mono version, go with Rhino's 2-CD Rascals Anthology 1965-1972 (1992).

For the stereo version, go with Warner Special Products' The Ultimate Rascals (1986, original pressing). If you *really* want to perfect the sound, you can resynch the left and right channels by one sample and drop the volume of the right channel by 3 dB. That will center the lead vocals perfectly.