Winstons-"Color Him Father"

Jim are either of your copies vinyl pressings?

Both of my current copies are styrene but I can confirm that a previous copy I owned was on vinyl, and had the vocal off to one side (i do not remember if it had machine stamped matrix numbers but I would assume it would be a Columbia pressing on vinyl....they were doing vinyl pressings during this time so it's possible). On an old external hard drive I have that doesn't work, I did have a dub of this specific 45, but I don't remember what it timed out to...at this point i won't know, either... but that pressing certainly does exist.

I have the Metromedia reissue with "Love Of the Common People" on the flip side.
Both sides stereo and yes lousy vocal mix.
"Color Him Father" is such a terrific song because you don't realize where its going until the last verse.
A tribute to a stepfather.

The interesting thing about the B sides of each pressing is that they are different stereo mixes as well. In fact for the pressing that has the vocal off to one side the mix is basically mono with a little reverb in one channel...while the other pressing has a distinct wide stereo mix.... I wonder if that would make a difference in how much a given pressing would sell for.

Jim, I have the Metromedia Trophy Series reissue 45 with the wonky vocal-in-the-right-channel stereo mix. When summed to mono, the vocals are down the Grand Canyon a few hundred feet. That right-channel vocal is also fairly wet, whereas the far more up-front vocal on my mono DJ 45 is drier.

Unfortunately, my DJ 45 (which has a second Metromedia logo with "PLUG SIDE" beneath it on the right side, both in red) was a firsthand "learning opportunity" for my MD predecessor at our college station: remove record from sleeve before writing on it. He found out the hard way that styrene is severely allergic to the alcohol in black permanent markers, and the "306" file number he'd written on the plain white sleeve branded itself forever into the record. :(

It's possible that the DJ 45 is simply the vocal-centered second stereo mix stock copy Tom mentioned, summed to mono. But having never heard that stereo mix, I can't say one way or the other.

(UPDATE: In comparing the mono DJ 45 with the centered-vocal stereo track on Rhino's Soul Hits Of The '70s Vol. 1 CD, the vocal on the mono DJ 45 is noticeably drier than it is on the stereo Rhino track, summed to mono. Both vocals do have reverb, but there's definitely more on the Rhino track.)   

Edited by Yah Shure