Tommy James 40th Anniversary CD

TallPaulInKy wrote: (they did not ship metal masters to other plants, as a general rule)

The only TJ&TS Roulette 45 I have that was NOT mastered by Bell Sound is "Hanky Panky", and that's most likely because the song was recorded at WNIL, and not in New York City. From "Say I Am (What I Am)" onward, every one of them, whether manufactured at RCA in Rockaway or Indianapolis, or at Columbia, was pressed from metal parts sourced from lacquers cut by Bell Sound Studio in NYC. The recording sessions took place at Allegro Sound, then the mastering to disc was done at nearby Bell Sound. Because no plants west of Indiana were contracted by Roulette, it may have been more economical to send the metal parts, instead of paying each of them to provide custom mastering.

Shelley Products was used on occasion, but neither they nor Columbia was ultized after "Out Of The Blue", leaving RCA as Roulette's only pressing plant for 45s through the early '70s.

TallPaulInKy wrote: The reason the DJ copy is the definitive one, is because normally it is the one approved by the producer, they were generally pressed in the same plant.

In most cases, the "A" and "B" sides on the promos and stocks were the same, other than the difference in labels. The promos were the first ones out of the chute, obviously, but that didn't necessarily make them any more "definitive" than the earliest stock pressings, given that both configurations were made from the same metal parts within each plant. Between Ritchie Cordell and Bo Gentry, then Tommy, I seriously doubt that any of them, as producers, approved promo runs and stock runs separately. They simply signed off on "the single."

TallPaulInKy wrote: So best not to get too excited about a couple seconds difference.

Perhaps that may be true of the rest of the world, but such minutiae is the very point of many of the discussions on this site!

My gripe about this particular CD release was that there were a few songs that didn't sound the same as those lacquers that were cut by Bell Sound. "Ball Of Fire" was a real letdown. The compilation producer could have compared it with the tape and said, "Hey, we need to kick up the bottom end so the tape on that song matches the power of the 45."     

Bumping this up because...in Yah Shure's post detailing the differences between this CD and the original singles, he says that "Gettin' Together" is the same speed as the commercial 45.

Pat's notation says that it is slightly faster.

I searched and didn't find any followup from Yah Shure or others.

So...is Pat right?