George Baker Selection

The LP states a time of (3:49) but I discovered that information is not correct and the 45 and LP version are identical so I removed the comment 45 version.

Gordon: You may be onto something.

Check out the label for this 45. The time shown is 2:37. Not sure if it's a re-recording or the history of them on this label.

Looks like a Canadian issue. "Little Green Bag" is on the flip.

I have two stock and four promo copies (hey, the folks at the local WEA office said "help yourself to whatever 45s you want," and boy, did I.) All copies list the time as 3:27. The promos all have the full :43 intro on both the stereo and mono sides. Matrix numbers on all four promos are identical; stereo TAA-6856-S-1B and mono TAA-6856-1A.

The stocks also have the :43 intro. Machine-stamped matrix # is TAA (scratched out numbers) S-1C , followed by hand-etched 6856.

The Stardust 45 reissues I've bought over the years were usually the original versions, though not always of the best sound quality. Ditto for some of the earlier Underground yellow label reissues. However, the yellow-label Underground 45s licensed from Capitol were the real deal. I'd bought the T-Bones' stereo "No Matter What Shape" (Underground 1050) years ago, but the B-side turned out to be the treasure. "Half Past Midnight" by The Staccatos (the label credits the group's later name, The Five Man Electrical Band) was in crisp, true stereo, and even ran a bit longer than the original Canadian Capitol / US Tower 45s.

EdisonLite wrote: It could be that the Boston radio stations all edited it down exactly the same exact way, and that that was all I knew. But I know when I got the song on CD the first time, I expected the intro to be a certain way, and it surprised me to hear it twice as long.

WRKO was notorious for doing custom edits of songs, that may be what you remember. Wasn't there some edict from their national PD about song length? I rarely listened to WVBF so I don't know what they played.

Sorry to be hauling this one back to the front, but I have some new info on this song.

I just picked up a DISKY series, one of which is titled "Best of 1974-1975" and my first discovery in it is a 3:47 version of this song. The only differences are (1)it's got a :20 second longer intro than the 45 and my vinyl LP and (2) it's about 1.4% faster than the 45. When the edit is made and the speed is corrected, the 45 version is indeed 3:27, as is my vinyl LP version. Perhaps that is the USA LP/45 version, while the 3:47 version is the UK version. Don't know. Maybe someone can shed some light on that. I didn't know that a longer version even existed till I picked up this Disky series, which I hope will provide me with several more unknown nuggets.

Since it is an import, it'll probably never appear in the DB, but the info should probably be changed to "45 & LP edit" or something. Incidentally, to create the 45 edit, simply take out from :39.185 to 1:02.767 and then slow it down.

Now...how to we create that DJ edit??