Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe

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   Just a few mastering notes to pass along.

The first CD I have that includes the song is Time-Life's Classic Rock Vol. 15 1967 Shakin' All Over (1989).  Here, it has noise reduction (listen for the absence of hiss on the fade), and has the left and right channels reversed.  Not good.  The same analog transfer (NR and all) is used on:Heartland/Warner Special Products' 2-CD Hooked On A Feeling (1995)
Two years later, Time-Life's Superhits Vol. 5 1967 (1991) seemed to use the same source tape as Classic Rock, but swapped the left and right channels.  I thought that it might have somehow omitted the noise reduction (or maybe performed one more analog step that added a small amount of hiss?), but it still sounds pinched and muffled on this disc.  Unfortunately, there are a bunch of CDs that all use the same analog transfer as Superhits:Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 8 1967 (1991) - digitally identical
Reader's Digest's 4-CD American Pie (1998)
Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Country Vol. 7 Golden '60s (1998)
Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 14 1964-1969 (2001)
Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 20 The Folk Years Yesterday's Gone (2002)
Time-Life's Classic Country Queens Of Country (2003)And if that's all you had to go by, you'd think that the song just sounded pinched and muffled.

Until Bill Inglot (or someone at Rhino) unearthed a significantly better source tape for the song, for Rhino's Billboard Top Pop Hits 1967 (1995).  Plenty of glorious tape hiss, and now you can hear all the reverb!  Plus, the fade extends farther than all the other discs listed above.  I avoid hyperbole in posts here on the forum, but this one really is a night-and-day difference, compared to everything above.

The version on Cema's cheapie Rock-N-Roll Greatest Hits Vol. 3 Late 60's (1995) seems to use the same source tape as the Rhino disc, but adds noise reduction.  Boo.

My recommendation, by a country mile: Rhino's Billboard Top Pop Hits 1967 (1995)

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crapfromthepast Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 14 September 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 27	Post Options Post Reply Quote crapfromthepast Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe Posted: 17 November 2019 at 11:50pm
	Just a few mastering notes to pass along. The first CD I have that includes the song is Time-Life's Classic Rock Vol. 15 1967 Shakin' All Over (1989). Here, it has noise reduction (listen for the absence of hiss on the fade), and has the left and right channels reversed. Not good. The same analog transfer (NR and all) is used on: Heartland/Warner Special Products' 2-CD Hooked On A Feeling (1995) Two years later, Time-Life's Superhits Vol. 5 1967 (1991) seemed to use the same source tape as Classic Rock, but swapped the left and right channels. I thought that it might have somehow omitted the noise reduction (or maybe performed one more analog step that added a small amount of hiss?), but it still sounds pinched and muffled on this disc. Unfortunately, there are a bunch of CDs that all use the same analog transfer as Superhits: Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 8 1967 (1991) - digitally identical Reader's Digest's 4-CD American Pie (1998) Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Country Vol. 7 Golden '60s (1998) Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 14 1964-1969 (2001) Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 20 The Folk Years Yesterday's Gone (2002) Time-Life's Classic Country Queens Of Country (2003) And if that's all you had to go by, you'd think that the song just sounded pinched and muffled. Until Bill Inglot (or someone at Rhino) unearthed a significantly better source tape for the song, for Rhino's Billboard Top Pop Hits 1967 (1995). Plenty of glorious tape hiss, and now you can hear all the reverb! Plus, the fade extends farther than all the other discs listed above. I avoid hyperbole in posts here on the forum, but this one really is a night-and-day difference, compared to everything above. The version on Cema's cheapie Rock-N-Roll Greatest Hits Vol. 3 Late 60's (1995) seems to use the same source tape as the Rhino disc, but adds noise reduction. Boo. My recommendation, by a country mile: *Rhino's Billboard Top Pop Hits 1967* (1995)**
	There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past.

AutumnAarilyn Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 22 August 2019 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote AutumnAarilyn Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 November 2019 at 12:15am
	My recommendation is: The Girl from Chickasaw County-The Complete Capitol Masters 8 cd set.

garye Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 02 August 2017 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote garye Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 December 2019 at 9:42am
	AutumnAarilyn is right. The Girl from Chickasaw County not only has the best sounding version of "Billy Joe" but also Bobbie's classic 1970 hit, "Fancy" including the 3:15 Mono Radio Edit of the single, which was hard to find for years.

crapfromthepast Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 14 September 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 27	Post Options Post Reply Quote crapfromthepast Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 November 2024 at 10:01pm
	Mono The 45 is mono, and doesn't seem to exist in the digital world. Stereo The song started appearing on some relatively common compilations in 1989. I've noticed that many of those tracks base their masterings on some earlier release. I don't have any earlier releases for this particular song, so I'll just document some of the early CDs where "Ode" appeared. In 1989, the song appeared on a 10-track collection from Capitol called Bobbie Gentry's Greatest!, which is a CD release of a 1969 LP. The song appeared on three cheap-looking discs in 1990, all on Curb: 60's Hits Country Great Records Of The Decade Vol. 1, 60's Hits Great Records Of The Decade Vol. 1, and an 11-track Bobbie Gentry Greatest Hits. The song appeared on a 10-track multi-artist compilation from Capitol Records Nashville called All Time Country Classics Volume 1 in 1991, and a nice-looking 20-track multi-artist compilation from Capitol called When AM Was King Fiftieth Anniversary (1992). I don't have any of the above. EDIT: I found a file labeled "Curb CD" in Mark M's folders. Yay, Mark! I've updated the info below to include the Curb info. I edited the following info to correspond to what we determined later: 1967 stereo mix has reverb, other mix is dry. (Edited Dec 2024) 1967 stereo mix The 1967 stereo mix has a significant amount of reverb. Listen to the reverb on the word "plow" at 1:19. The strings are panned to close to the center - listen around 0:56. If you look at the waveform, the level of the vocals looks normal. The oldest CD I have with the 1967 stereo mix is Rhino's Billboard Top Pop Hits 1967 (1995, RE-1 reissue but I'm not sure that a non-RE-1 disc exists). There's another analog transfer that's almost certainly from a CD released 1995 or earlier, but I don't know which one. It seems to use the same source tape as Billboard. It appears on: Cema's Rock N Roll Greatest Hits Of All Time Vol. 3 (1995) - has added noise reduction Time-Life's Classic Country More Great Story Songs (2002) Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Country Vol. 24 Great Story Songs II (2002) Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Country Hard To Find Hits (2003) Time-Life's 2-CD AM Gold Hang On Sloopy (2021) An outlier that isn't based on any of the above masterings: Capitol Nashville's The Girl From Chickasaw County The Complete Capitol Masters (Box Set) (2018) - sound is similar in reverb to Billboard, but EQ isn't as bright Non-hit remix, likely first appeared on 1990 Curb CDs We don't know for sure that this remix first appeared on the Curb CDs, but that's my assumption here in this post. The Curb version has very little reverb overall. The vocals are relatively dry, and have a much greater dynamic range than the rest of the instrumentation. If you look at the waveform, the vocals seem huge compared to the guitar. The strings are panned slightly to one side - listen around 0:%6. The same analog transfer as the Curb CDs is used on: Time-Life's Classic Rock Vol. 15 1967 Shakin' All Over (1989) - has left/right channels swapped Time-Life's Country USA Vol. 17 1967 (1990) Time-Life's Superhits Vol. 5 1967 (1991) Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 8 1967 (1991) Heartland/Warner Special Products' 2-CD Hooked On A Feeling (1995) - left/right channels swapped Reader's Digest's multi-CD American Pie (1998) Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Country Vol. 7 Golden '60s (1998) Time-Life's 2-CD Treasury Of Folk Music Vol. 4 Folk Rock (1999) Time-Life's Spirit Of The '60s Singers And Songwriters (2000) Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 14 1964-1969 (2001) Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 20 The Folk Years Yesterday's Gone (2002) Time-Life's Classic Country Queens Of Country (2003) Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Country Vol. 26 Queens Of Country (2003) Ace UK's Chartbusters USA Vol. 3 (2003) - left/right channels swapped TM Century track no. 00003050 Time-Life certainly knew how to repackage. An outlier that isn't based on any of the above masterings: Ode To Bobbie Gentry (2000, UK release) - sound is comparable to the Time-Life releases above, with very little reverb My recommendations (Also edited Dec 2024) For the mono 45 version, you'll need vinyl. For the hit 1967 stereo mix, go with Rhino's Billboard Top Pop Hits 1967 (1995). As noted above, the version on The Girl From Chickasaw County The Complete Capitol Masters (Box Set) (2018) sounds nice, too. For the non-hit "dry" stereo remix, you can grab any of the three 1990 Curb CDs. Edited by crapfromthepast
	There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past.

davidclark Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 17 November 2004 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 23	Post Options Post Reply Quote davidclark Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 November 2024 at 5:35pm
	When I listen to the mono 45 mix, I hear the reverb on "plow", and in general the song has reverb. I do hear the difference on the two stereo mixes, one rather dry, the other with reverb. The question remains, did the stereo LP match the 45 reverb, or was it the drier mix.? If Ron's conclusion is correct regarding the Curb CDs beting a dry stereo LP, perhaps those later CDs have it mixed with more reverb to better match the 45? I would really like to hear the original stereo LP. Anyone have the stereo LP to confirm?
	dc1

NightAire Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 20 February 2010 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote NightAire Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 November 2024 at 9:01pm
	Do David's notes suggest that the mono 45 is a dedicated mix rather than a stereo fold-down?
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RichM921 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 30 October 2007 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote RichM921 Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 November 2024 at 9:17pm
	When I worked on air at an oldies station in the ‘90s, we had two versions. On GoldDisc 405 was the reverb version, and on GoldDisc U4 was the dry version. The one that the station chose to play was the dry version. But I always thought the reverb version sounded much better, so I would always substitute that version when the song came up on the log on my shift.

davidclark Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 17 November 2004 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 23	Post Options Post Reply Quote davidclark Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 26 November 2024 at 8:27pm
	I found this what is stated as a dub of the 1967 (stereo) LP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYZu6kcdY9E It has the reverb, so I've concluded, for myself at least, that the reverb mix is the original (the stereo pretty much matching the reverb of the mono 45) while the dry mix is a later version - as to WHEN it was first issued, I don't know that. [added later] ... Oh, and our very own Mark Matthews had determined the mono is a fold-down, so that means that dry mix is NOT the original LP. Edited by davidclark
	dc1

crapfromthepast Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 14 September 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 27	Post Options Post Reply Quote crapfromthepast Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 27 November 2024 at 6:02am
	I think I'm convinced that the reverb mix is the 1967 mono mix from the 45, and the dry mix is a non-hit stereo mix that may have first appeared on the 1990 Curb CDs.
	There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past.

eriejwg Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Music Fan Joined: 10 June 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 45	Post Options Post Reply Quote eriejwg Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28 November 2024 at 5:31pm
	I tried folding the reverby stereo mix and compared it to a 45 dub from YouTube. The folded stereo mix didn't sound like the 45 posted on the 45 Prof's page.
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