1967 Homemade Dorm Recording... of Carol Duke (later of "Marvin Gardens")!!*

This is what I call The Dorm Tape 1967. The facts are simple and frankly taught me a lot about simplicity in recording (and later, photography). I heard a girl singing and playing guitar down the hall in my dorm at UC Santa Cruz. She was hitch hiking through and needed a place to crash. I liked the sound I heard coming down the hall and I decided to try recording her. So I grabbed my reel to reel Sony 350 recorder, a modest piece, and two really crummy dynamic mikes that were part of the kit. I hand held them a foot or so from the guitar and her mouth ( left right more or less) and just let her sing. She was sitting on a dorm cot and I was standing in front of her monitoring the levels on the Sony while holding the mics. Kind of awkward. My life moved on and now 44 years later(!), I pulled it out, digitized it and decided to add it to the YouTube archive of material from my alma mater. What I learned is that simple ain't so bad: musicality counts for a lot and a lot can be done with simple equipment...and common sense. Hope you enjoy.

 

Wow, enjoyed that a lot. Thanks for sharing. Definitely one from the time capsule. I liked her cover of Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.

 

No idea of her name?

 

I have no idea who she is. Literally one of the many young people on the road when I was young. I am hoping that by some serendipity she or someone who knows her will hear this . It HAS been a LONG time...thanks for the appreciation!

 

Searching for Sugarwoman.....

 

Nice quality recording considering what you were working with. And agree with your conclusions that a lot can be accomplished with little - as long as you use your ears and pay attention to optimum placement of mics to best capture the sound in the room, and then of course getting a good level to tape.

The opening "The French Girl" was especially nice - interesting that Bob Dylan recorded it as well in a certain pink house in Woodstock that very same year using not too dissimilar equipment...

 

This is gorgeous. Thanks for posting it.

 

Very cool.
Maybe she's still out there somewhere. If the girl was was 20 in 1967... she'd be 67 years old this year. Yikes. Who knows where the time goes.....

 

This is awesome

 

I really appreciate all the feedback. As you can imagine it pops a lot of memories listening to it. I can see it!

 

Sounds very much like 1967. And I say that as a complement. Very nice.

 

Very nice!

 

Are you hearing it in Stereo?
Driving me nuts. On my iPad the YouTube link plays back in MONO. On my iPhone and computer the link plays back properly in stereo. I do not understand. It is in glorious two channel stereo on YouTube ! And if I go directly to YouTube on my iPad rather than clicking the link here, its in stereo.

 

On my iPad it's playing back in MONO. But it is in STEREOso if you are using an iPad and phones and only getting mono go to YouTube directly and search for
dorm tape UCSC 1967

 

Playing in stereo for me on a PC.

She coulda been a star! Vocals remind me some of Gale Garnett.

Thanks for posting.

 

Simply an amazing story. Thanks for sharing. Simple ain't bad. Simple is good. And so are happy accidents and off the cuff recordings.

If only some major musical artists had not moved beyond simple and into wretched excess.

Would you consider a lossless download for us to enjoy?

 

I would be happy to. Now when you say lossless, the best I am probably going to be able to do is the original WAV or 192 mp3 as I had "issues" doing the transfer. Tell me where and how to deliver a huge file and I will give it a shot in a few days or describe any issues trying!

 

We're you able to hear it in stereo?

 

What's weird is when I go to YouTube directly it plays back in stereo. Only mono when I click through on my posting....thank you very much for the compliment. If you have a fix for the mono/ stereo issue I would appreciate it. I have tried everything!

 

that's interesting. you may have uncovered a bug in xenforo and/or ipad mobile safari (it's actually not the same version of the app as iphone mobile safari). I did hear it in all its panned glory on my iphone playing the embedded video.

 

WAV would be great. What sample rate did you use? I'm assuming you did not do track splits based on your reply.... That can be done in Audacity. Some options for delivery are posting on archive.org or just putting links up on Dropbox, if you have an account.

 

Very nice!

 

I LOVE the version of 'I still miss someone.' I only knew the Johnny Cash versions from San Quentin and Folsom; I always find them moving- so that was a VERY nice surprise.

I've never heard anyone do Just Like Tomb Thumb's Blues, except Dylan; this is a revelation and it's really sweet.

Thank you for uploading this and posting this here. And it would be wonderful to have this downloadable too, I'd certainly burn it to CD!

 

Beautiful, and good recording quality too! Better than iphone.