Linda Ronstadt - Ooh Baby Baby

For the compilations I have, I found three distinct analog transfers for the song.

The oldest is for Warner Special Products' 3-CD Secret Love (1987), where it sounds a little bright but otherwise quite nice. The same analog transfer is used for:

• Warner Special Products' 2-CD Night Songs (1994).

There's a better analog transfer on Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 10 1978 (1990), which sounds really fantastic. Very smooth EQ, terrific sound on the snare. There are digital clones on:

• Time-Life's 4-CD Great Love Songs Of The 70's And 80's Vol. 1 Then Came You (1991; digitally identical)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Body Talk (1994; digitally exactly 0.4 dB louder)

And finally, there's the version on Greatest Hits Vol. II, which sounds quite muffled and unnatural to me. The snare has no life at all.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of differently EQ'd digital clones of GH 2, none of which breathe any life back into the song:

• Time-Life's 2-CD Body Talk Vol. 3 Moonlit Nights (1996)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 5 1978-1979 (2000)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Ultimate Love Songs Collection Love Is You (2004)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Soft Rock Vol. 2 Ride Like The Wind (2006)

I don't have any of the more recent Linda Ronstadt collections, so I can't make any recommendations for or against those. Of the CDs I have, I recommend Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 10 1978 (1990) for "Ooh Baby Baby".

Edited by crapfromthepast

LunarLaugh wrote: I'm wondering if "Sounds of The Seventies" was a possibly digital clone of the 80s CD of Linda's "Living In The USA" album.

Please send me a rip of the "Living In The USA" version, and I'll be happy to compare and report my findings.

Thanks to LunarLaugh, I can confirm that Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 10 1978 (1990) is indeed a differently EQ'd digital clone of Asylum's '80s-era release of the full-length LP Living In The USA (copyright 1978, released on CD in 1987, according to Discogs). Interestingly, the Time-Life CD hastens the fade on the end of the reverb tail, so that Living In The USA actually runs longer than the Time-Life CD. But the volume levels on Living In The USA are very low, with about 6 dB of headroom.

Since my original post 8 years ago (!), I've heard the version on The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt (2002), which sounds excellent. It's comparable in sound quality to the Asylum/Time-Life discs, includes the full tail of the fadeout, and has much higher volume levels. The volume levels on Very Best Of are just a little too high overall, and most tracks show a little clipping. "Ooh Baby Baby" is quiet enough so that there's very little clipping.