fleetwood mac - oh well

so i've never heard the original 45 versions of pt 1 and pt 2

but...


in my itunes, i've secured the original UK tracklisting of THEN PLAY ON, and i've made my own version of 'oh well' a and b sides from the cd version, to put in my itunes as the 45 a and b side



what i did to make pt. 1 was to fade the track down right around 2:21, so that it fades before the nylon string guitar comes in

then to make pt. 2, i edited out evertything before 3:22 and before out, to get rid of the first minute of part 2 that was erroneously duplicated when they made the album version.

so am i close to the 45 version, or was there other differences?



also

was this 2 seperate tracks they had, or was it always their intent for them to be pt 1 and 2 of the same song?

 

bump

 

Well, Well

There's a Sony blues comp that includes only Part 1 and a German Reprise label best of lp that includes a supposedly roughly patched together complete version, and I just picked up the Warner label Big Ball double-lp set that features a mono version that clocks in at nine minutes. They promise a stereo version (in 1970) if ever one is available. The two parts are commonly listed at 3:29 and 5:39 in length. I'm under the impression that only a single chord is repeated on the complete cd version, not an entire minute.

 

the 9 minute mono version is prolly the same one on the US version of THEN PLAY ON (on my cd it's mono and 9.03)

pt. 1 is only 2.22

the first minute of pt 2 (on THEN PLAY ON) is definitely an exact repeat

with the extra minute taken off, it's about 5.40

 

Well Well Well Oh Well

Oh Well is not on the original UK tracklisting of Then Play On. You must have taken it from a US tracklisting (2nd version). That is the current CD worldwide. The original UK version has never been on CD, unfortunately. This has been discussed here before. Do a search. Oh Well was first only released as a single, and I doubt that it was ever recorded to be joined together as one track. Even the European Greatest Hits LP (and CD) has Oh Well as two separate tracks. Big Ball was the first release as one track, followed shortly by its inclusion on the second version of the US Reprise LP. I don't think a true stereo version has ever been released.

 

If you want to combine the two parts into one long version, you have to invert polarity on one of the parts (part II preferably?) to combine them smoothly. And yes, there is a ca. 1 minute overlap where the waveforms of the two parts are the same (but with inverted polarity on one). The finished version is pretty much exactly 8 minutes long. Just putting together parts I and II without cutting out this minute is rubbish.

 

i know this already (see my original post)

i made the UK tracklisting of THEN PLAY ON in my itunes, and want to have the 45 versions of 'oh well' also

 

i'm trying to make the 45 versions out of the full length combined version (see my original post)

 

Speaking of "Oh Well", if you haven't already heard it, don't miss Joe Jackson's cool cover of this track, from the '90's.

Chris C

 

You can create the original UK version of Then Play On. The missing 2 tracks "One Sunny Day" and "Without You" can be found on a European compilation titled "The Best of Fleetwood Mac".

While not even the original UK LP is that great sounding, it's a shame that this album has never been given a proper CD reissue. It's one of my top 5 favorite albums.

 

I found an unusual US LP issue of Then Play On last week.

Picked it up because it looked really clean and thought I'd A/B vs my copy which was a 2nd issue full tan Reprise bought around '72 I'd guess.

Well this was also a 2nd full tan label, but interestingly it had the UK song titles listed in the gatefold, but the LP itself was the same as the normal US sequence. I had to look at the labels a couple of times just to make sure this wasn't some freakish US issue of the original UK. Alas, it was not. I know the first press US were on the 2 tone label so I was surprised to find this abberation. I'm guessing this might be a record club press.

Unfortunately, it had more surface noise than mine (though it looked NM and has a beauty of a cover). My copy plays better and is still in surprisingly fine shape so I'm sticking with it.

 

This album really needs a deluxe re-issue, with a stereo remix of Oh Well, both parts 1 & 2.

 

When I was a dj on WVW-AM we only had one copy of this 45....when it got near the end of side 1, I'd start the second turntable, heel the control knob as far over as it would go and pickup the record off the first turntable and slap it on the second dropping the needle in place with hardly a pause. The suction of my hand on the disk was all that was needed to pick it up...my colleagues were amazed.

The first place I found this whole song on cd was the 4 disk Fleetwood Mac box set: The Chain. The lp version of Then Play On I had circa 1969-70 did not contain Oh, Well but a friend in Kentucky had a copy of the LP which did contain it...weird.

 

I can't really help answer your question, sorry. Just though I'd give the thread a bump and say that I was watching "My Name Is Earl" the other day and this song came on. The studio version at that. My jaw dropped, I love this song.

 

Yes, a truly great song...I have it paired with Grand Funk's I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home on a cd playlist of long songs.

 

Whoops! I misread you post. In any event, there is really no reason to recreate the 45 versions on CD, as the 45 versions have already been released on the European CD reissue of Greatest Hits. I wouldn't be surprised if it is still in print, and even if it is OOP, it shouldn't be too hard to find.

 

No, you can't. You can recreate a song listing resembling that of the UK version, but not the original LP. This has been discussed at length in another thread. Several songs on the LP have never been released in that form anywhere else. For instance, there are a couple of tunes that are longer on the UK TPO, than they are on any other release, including the first US pressings of TPO. Some are cross-faded. I'm not even positive that the versions of "One Sunny Day" and "Without You" on Best are the same versions as on TPO. There are more than one version of each of these tunes floating around.

I will second the motion that a deluxe treatment of this LP is long overdue. Complete with all the contemporary 45's and a definitive Oh Well. Oh, mastered by Steve, too! Hey, I can dream, can't I?

My brother and I have compiled our own version from a needle-drop. We also created an Oh Well from the 45 versions, and switching from Part One to Part Two using software that uses thousands of a second. We eliminated the minute overlap this way. I know where the "switch" is, and I still can't tell that it is there! Sounds great!

 

"He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats." B.B. King on Peter Green

 

A double lp with the original UK-tracklist plus the 45 version of Oh well would be nice!

 

So am I understanding this thread correctly? That the 8:59-long track of "Oh Well" on the Reprise CD of Then Play On isn't really the "proper" full-length version?

 

I don't know that version, but if that has been taken from parts I and II, it is 57 seconds too long, meaning that the first 57 secs of the "quiet Spanish guitar section" are repeated...

 

here's what i think

on the CD and US album 2nd pressing and on....
the first part of the song goes from 0:00 to about 2:21
the section from 2:22 to 3:22 is duplicated from 3:22 to around 4:22 or so
(try layering them, it's an exact copy of that section)
then from 4.22 or so on to 9.03 it's the actual part 2

here's the deal
on the original uk 45, at the end of the fast part, the slow part comes in just like on the CD version, and plays for about a minute and fades
on side 2 of the 45, it comes in right at the 3.22 mark and plays to the end

so, if you put side 1 and 2 of the original 45 version together, you basically get what's on the LP version, since the last minute of side a of the 45 is a duplicate of the first minute of side b!!!!

 

That is correct! What probably happened is Reprise, in the US, wanted to add Oh Well to the running order of Than Play On, as it was a huge hit on FM radio in the states. Sales on the first US release of TPO (a bastardized version of the UK tracklisting) probably weren't setting the world afire, hence the redo. I'm sure someone at the top said "Put Oh Well on there, pronto!" and some poor engineer just cobbled the two sides together, not realizing there was a minute overlap. And that is what we have been stuck with all these years.

 

There some US pressings of Then Play On out there pressed by Specialty (look for the large S with the r and c in the dead wax) that sound excellent. Best sounding version of Oh Well I've heard.

 

Wow, you learn something new every day around here!