Neil Young - Neil Young - 1969 - 24/96 and 16/44.1 - 180g Vinyl - Official Release Series 4 Disc Box - 2009 - Reprise 517934-1

From the opening instrumental charm of The Emperor of Wyoming, to the fuzz-toned urgency of The Loner and I've Been Waiting for You, to the haunting background vocals of The Old Laughing Lady, this album makes for a compelling listen.

The mastering duties for each of these titles were undertaken by Chris Bellman, of Bernie Grundman Mastering. Bellman, who mastered Neil Young's Greatest Hits vinyl, as well as each of the live Performance Series titles for vinyl, is by now well acquainted with Young's work, and was a natural choice for this undertaking. He went back to the original analog master tapes for each title.

Review by: Michael Fremer
2010-01-01

When Buffalo Springfield broke up, Neil Young set about building his solo career. The high-production work with Jack Nitzsche that had created classics like “Expecting to Fly” and “Broken Arrow” brought Neil back to the producer/keyboardist/orchestrator, who gained fame working with Phil Spector but the results on Young’s eponymous debut album were not as memorable. In fact, many critics and fans alike back in 1969 considered the album a disappointment and a misstep.

The “overproduction” charge was compounded by two issues: first was the original mix that buried Young’s voice, second was the label’s disastrous choice to master using the Haeco-CSG system. Invented by Howard Holzer, A&M’s chief engineer, Haeco-CSG was about cost cutting not sonic improvement.

By the late ‘60s, stereo had taken hold among album buying youngsters but most rock was still heard on AM radio or FM in the car, which was mostly monophonic. Stereo records played back monophonically usually produced terrible results: folding stereo down to mono upped common L/R information by 3 dB, which is major. That means vocals placed in both channels so they’d appear in the phantom center channel would be way too loud in mono. Not many rock singers of the era needed that kind of exposure, so Holzer invented a system to deal with the problem.

Unfortunately, his solution was to phase-shift common L/R right information so that it didn’t get the 3dB boost. Imagine, though, what happened to image focus and soundstage clarity! It produced a sonic mess that ruined many releases of the era, including Neil’s debut and Roots The Everly Brothers’ superb “comeback” album that inexplicably hasn’t been reissued yet on vinyl.

Neil remixed the first album, made sure it was mastered without Haeco-CSG and put a wide banner with his name on it at the top of the front cover in an effort to save the debut but it was too late. The album never recovered. Relatively rare original pressings with the first cover, mix and Haeco-CSG processing were quite collectible for a time, going for hundreds of dollars. I’m not sure what the going rate is today.

Time has actually been kind to Young’s debut. “The Loner” and “I’ve Been Waiting For You” are fuzz-tone laden standouts. “I’ve Loved Her Too Long” maintains its warm grip and even the surreal, Dylanesque overreach of “The Last Trip to Tulsa,” with Young’s acoustic guitar center stage and his voice off on the right channel, arrives nicely burnished through the time tunnel.

What you’re really interested in hearing about is the sound quality of these reissues. But first a word about the packaging: Warner Brothers has gone to the trouble and expense of using deluxe paper over cardboard jackets that are authentic to the originals, though there are barcodes, new catalog numbers and updated mastering credits— all tastefully and respectfully done. All original posters and inserts are included. Pick up the new Harvest and you’ll be hard-pressed to tell it from the original, so perfectly does the new, thick outer paper stock match the original.

What’s very different about these reissues though, is the sound: I have multiple originals of all of them, including both the original Haeco-CSG version of the debut album and the re-do (obviously, though Warner Brothers and Young went with the original cover, the second mix was used) and I have to tell you, these reissues, mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman and pressed at Pallas in Germany sound far superior to the originals

Track listing
01 - The Emperor Of Wyoming
02 - The Loner
03 - If I Could Have Her Tonight
04 - I've Been Waiting For You
05 - The Old Laughing Lady
06 - String Quartet From Whiskey Boot Hill*
07 - Here We Are In The Years
08 - What Did You Do To My Life?
09 - I've Loved Her So Long*
10 - The Last Trip To Tulsa


Personnel
Neil Young - guitar, piano, electric piano, harpsichord, pipe organ, vocal
Jim Messina - bass
George Grantham - drums

with
Ry Cooder - guitar
Jack Nitzsche - electric piano
Merry Clayton - vocal
Brenda Holloway - vocal
Patrice Holloway - vocal
Gloria Richetta Jones - vocal
Sherlie Matthews - vocal
Gracia Nitzsche - vocal

Recorded at Wally Heider Recording, Sunset Sound, Sunwest Recording and TTG Recording, Hollywood, Aug.-Oct., 1968
Produced by David Briggs & Neil Young, except
*Produced by Jack Nitzsche, Ryland Cooder & Neil Young
Originally released on Nov. 12, 1968
Partially remixed and fully remastered second version with title printed on cover released in Jan. 1969

Recording Procedure
Recorded using a Linn Sondek LP12 turntable,
Origin Live power supply,
Linn Ittok LVII tonearm,
Goldring 1042 MM Cartridge,
into Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Special Edition Phono Stage
Chord Cobra 3 Interconnect
to Edirol R-09HR @ 24bit / 96kHz wav
Click Repair wav reverse - Declick 5
wavelab5 for track splitting
Adobe Audition 3.0 for manual click removal > flac

Flac Frontend > wav
iZotope RX advanced 1.21 for resampling and dithering to 16bit / 44.1kHz
Flac Frontend - align on sector boundaries > flac