Indiana Wants Me

Brian W. wrote: Diana Ross's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." One appears to be the full length LP version, mixed to mono, but the other is a 4:05 radio edit that has never before appeared on CD.

Curiously, what's the difference between the 4:05 version and the commercial single? I don't have the promo single of this, but I don't recall the short version played on the radio as being any different than the stock 45.

Bill Cahill wrote: Then to confuse matters further, sometime in the 1980's on the Motown Yesteryear 45 series issued a true stereo version with the vocal in the right channel. Very oddly mixed and no siren on the intro. But not all the Motown Yesteryear 45s have that stereo mix, you have to keep buying them until you find one and the time is wrong, it lists the album length. <snip> Indiana Wants Me Yester Year 45 reissue: (TRUE STEREO) 3:35 on label but matches the 3:01 version in edits, but is 3:02 and is true stereo. Also slightly faster than the mono 3:01 version but not as fast as the LP version. If you want to spot it by looking at it, the biggest difference I see is MOT 549 on label, not Y 5491, deadwax Y 5491- A D2 P2 D2 717 M11-13A FH-3H.

Paul C wrote: My copy of the Motown "Yesteryear Series" re-issue 45 is in stereo (and not just the sound effects). The label states the time as (3:35) but it actually runs (3:01). After a by no means thorough comparison between it and my copy of the original (3:01) 45 (which is mono), I can't detect a difference. Unfortunately this series, especially the stereo recordings, has horrible sound quality. I recall reading a letter to the editor in Billboard in the late 1980's in which a dealer stated he would no longer stock Motown re-issue 45s after receiving numerous complaints.

I didn't previously realize that I had the stereo reissue, so I gave it a belated spin:



Deadwax differs slightly from Bill's copy: Y549F-A-D2-P2-D2-717M11-13A FH-3H

Many of us know about Motown's typically awful pressing quality. Well, this one creates a new, sub-sub basement level. The mastering job on the flipside, "Gotta See Jane", is of early-'70s vintage, but "Indiana" was freshly-mastered on my mid-'80s reissue. The entire "Indiana" playing surface is covered with hairline cracks that resemble a marble surface, whereas "Jane" is much smoother. There's a large lump of recycled plastic in the aggregate that produces a noticeable thump toward the song's end.

Once the needle hits the fan... er, record, it gets interesting. To confirm what Bill mentioned earlier, this is, indeed, an odd-sounding mix. I verified channel connections using a Shure test record, and R. Dean's vocal is entirely in the left channel. The siren SFX in the bridge do not pan back and forth like they do on the LP version; here, they are entirely in the right channel.

This is a very wide mix, and about the only things that are centered between the channels are the punctuating strings that follow the line, "I wish I had you to talk to." On the mono 45, these strings are mixed more toward the background, but here, they are quite a bit louder.

Not that the song's sound quality was ever really stellar, but on this stereo reissue, there is a very high amount of distortion on Taylor's vocals; much more so than on the mono 45s.

Tnink I'll stick with the (M) and (E) versions of this one.

Edited by Yah Shure

That's why I always seek out Motown promo copies, when possible.

One example I remember, in radio in 1980, the beautiful intro to the Billy Preston & Syreeta track, "With You I'm Born Again." The stock copy sounded like someone had an open mic nearby popping popcorn. Horrendous. Luckily, even though a small station, we were serviced with promo copies.

Quiet intros like that on Motown, with engineers tuning Optimod's as they felt sounded best, could really bring surface noise out. Don't know about any of you radio folk back then, but we didn't clean each 45 before cueing and playing.

Sorry to threadjack, but here's a question (since the only radio station I ever spent considerable time in was all carts back then and I didn't spend much time with the music director).

When record labels issued copies to radio stations who actually played the vinyl (or even used it for carting), did they generally service only one copy and if a record became unplayable for whatever reason it was incumbent on the station to request additional copies? Or did they service multiple copies, just in case?

To add to my post, usually the jocks in smaller markets played the vinyl themselves and ran their own boards, unlike the big union stations like CKLW, WLS and the like.

Usually, the station's Music Director was responsible for carting up the music. I even remember working at a couple stations where the Music Director wound carts from scratch.
I remember doing that too. I seem to recall this winding unit had a stopwatch on it so you knew the exact length to wind it for a song.