Billy Joel's "Cold Spring Harbor" — fan restoration

I don't know if Jamie still reads this board, but he did an excellent job on this.

 

I agree and appreciate the effort. CSH is my favorite Billy Joel album, as of now. Not necessarily because it has better songs. I'm just pretty much sick of his catalog, due to exposure over the years. Maybe it's living near New Jersey/New York, but Billy's music is still inescapable round these parts. I have to dig way into his work to rekindle the enjoyment I once had: "Got to Begin Again" or later obscure stuff like "The Great Wall of China" are examples of the only things I've wanted to listen to from him, for a long time now.

 

I'm on the opposite side of the country, but Billy is still pretty unitiquous here on classic rock and oldies radio, and was inescapable during his hitmaking heyday. I grew up on him, because my mom is a huge fan, and grew to love him once I developed my own tastes.

 

Yeah he's a terrific songwriter and performer. I was a fan from the beginning; I anticipated and bought Streetlife when it came out, and really went zonkers over Turnstiles, playing it for anybody who came around the house (and over the school's P.A. system ).

 

Thanks for the link, it sounds great compared to the "Alvin" version that I'm used to. I listened to it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

This is the first time I have heard the original version of the album, and I clearly prefer it over the 1983 remix. Some of the instrumentation may sound over the top top to some, but that symphonic second half of Tomorrow Is Today is simply great. I also like the drums and bass on She's Got A Way which mas mixed out in 1983. A shame that there is no official CD release of the original mix from tape source with correct speed.

 

Hey y'all, this is my video! Fellow Billy Joel: Completely Retold (and apparently once-upon-a-time SHF user) Jamie Tate posted this fantastic vinyl rip of Cold Spring Harbor. It was stitched together from 8 separate drops, all of which were sourced from NM copies of the album, three of them sealed. The rip itself sounds great on its own.

When making this enhancement, I used iZotope RX 4 for click repair. It's an incredibly powerful program, I seem to get better results with iZotope than I do with ClickRepair. I then bounced the clickrepaired files to uncompressed WAV and reversed the RIAA EQ in Audacity. Those WAVs were brought into Sony Vegas Pro 13 for pitch correction, since that pitch shifter is higher quality and easier to use than any others I've found. Those uncompressed WAV files were sent back to Audacity to be re-RIAA EQed, and those uncompressed WAVs were then compressed to FLAC and MP3 for Internet release.

The 1971 vinyl pressing runs approximately a half step faster than it should. This is due to a mistake made when cutting the mother record, Joel claims the machine was running too fast. Many turntables could be adjusted so it'd run at the proper speed but the damage was done and the album pretty much flopped. There's a story confirmed by Joel himself that he threw a listening party for the album release and when he heard the sped up recording, he ripped the record off the turntable and flung it down the street like a frisbee.

Artie Ripp, the hack who ran Family Productions and produced/mixed Cold Spring Harbor, wanted to reissue the album in 1983 after Joel had gotten very popular. However, the original master tapes were lost, so he went back to the studio and remixed the album from the multitracks. Several new parts were recorded and changes were made to the arrangements. Strings were added to She's Got a Way, drum parts re-recorded for Everybody Loves You Now, Falling of the Rain, Turn Around, etc. He completely cut off the jam at the end of You Can Make Me Free. And most heinously, he removed the spectacular orchestration that you hear in Tomorrow is Today.

Joel's voice was high to begin with on the original tapes, so Ripp tried to compensate by lowering the pitch of several songs. She's Got a Way on the '83 mix is between F# and G when it should be G. Everybody Loves You Now is roughly in the key of B when it should be C. As someone lucky enough to have perfect pitch, the '83 mix is damn near unlistenable. I have a personal copy on my PC, a pitch-corrected version of the Doug Sax CD release from the 80s that I use when I feel like hearing those mixes. As for Joel's voice lowering over time, I have no comment on that. Smoking maybe? I know he used to smoke a decent amount. Cigarettes, the voice killer. If you want confirmation of this, listen to the Sigma Sound concert. High voice Joel is a weird, weird thing. He doesn't really sound like himself until Turnstiles.

In my enhancement, I corrected the pitch using a digital piano for reference, and my own ears. The results were pretty good. Other than that, there was absolutely no EQ done to change the tonality of the album. I didn't feel I could do a good enough job, but I will admit that it could use a bit less on the lows and lower mids. The original record is a bit woolly-sounding.

By and large though, I prefer the '71 despite its many warts and flaws. Unfortunately no amount of remastering will fix the faulty sound of the '71 - it was poorly mixed, poorly produced, and poorly cut to vinyl. You can even hear it here: with the best equipment and digital processing, there are times where the whole thing sounds like a mess. Much of the album seems to have been cut too hot, especially Turn Around and Got to Begin Again. Only a remix would save the original arrangements, and nobody knows where the hell the multitracks are now. Ripp was a massive con artist and should be ashamed of himself. I hear he's not doing so hot these days financially so I suppose he got his just deserts.

I'm glad y'all like it, but pretty much all the credit should go to Jamie Tate for a spectacular needledrop.

 

All I can say is thank you and thank Jamie. I've been hoping for decades Billy would release something like this himself, but I don't think he cares enough for the album to do it.

This, for me, is now the definitive Cold Spring Harbor.

 

Michael,

Jamie Tate is the MAN. He also was a great SHF'er back in the early days.

Thanks for the post and the details. It's a great job all around.

 

This is a great job.

I must admit, I actually prefer a few of the remixes. "Everybody Loves You Now", in my opinion, has much more dynamic and exciting drumming on the remix. Also, I like how the piano was mixed up; it gives more emotion to the song, imo.

Also, while "You Look so good to me" is not much of a fan favorite, I find the remix to have a better vocal take, better bass mixing, and better organ mixing. On the original mix, Joel's vocal sound like he's bored, the bass is too heavy for such a "poppy" song, and the organ is buried.

However, I'd agree that the original mixes are better in other cases. "Turn Around" had a nice surf rock flavor on the '71 mix; on the '83 mix, it's been turned into bland 80s MOR. And "Tomorrow is Today" had great orchestration that was removed for whatever reason on the remix.

 

Wow! Thank you for sharing this. Sounds like a different album. I knew that the album was remixed, I just had no idea of the extent of the remix.

 

Great stuff. I'm wondering if Tate's original raw (well, stitched together) needledrop circulates? Would love to hear that as well.


It's a shame this can't be reissued. If the original masters were lost over 30 years ago I suppose there's no chance of ever finding them now. I'd love for them to turn up though. Actually, I'd love for just one of the actual LPs to turn up! I'm on LI so I keep telling myself I'm in the right place, but the only time I've ever seen one in the wild I wasn't even sure if it was counterfeit or not, so I left it… one day…

 

The masters were apparently found and delivered to Ripp's office sometime in the 90s. The chances of them being used for a re-release is slim because Billy still hates the album.

Looney Tunes in West Babylon had a copy not so long ago, as did High Fidelity in Amityville. They pop up every now and then, but they're almost always in miserable shape.

Anyway, the original needledrop can be found here, in 24bit/96kHz FLAC:
MEGA »

 

Thanks a ton for that! Can't wait to give this a real good listen.
Every time I stop in I always have a look but no such luck. I never ask for special requests or anything since I hate to do that, and I can typically be patient anyway but maybe one of these days I'll ask to hold one aside if another manages to turn up in decent shape, they know they've got a guaranteed sale.


I'm sure the rights situation behind this album is a complete mess that may never be sorted out, but the important thing is that the masters are extant and hopefully being stored well. I think a thorough examination of those tapes would be interesting and give a better idea of what actually happened with this record in mastering. The master either runs at 15ips or it doesn't!
I'm not sure if I buy the whole thing about tracks being off by different amounts. That's something that would be very unlikely to happen if not deliberately. For that to happen, the original mixdown machines would have to have been running at different speeds, and that would also imply the album was mixed across different days, where the mixdown machine was off by varying amounts. That would imply nothing actually happened in mastering at all.


I doubt Ripp still owns the rights to this material, as I think a simple re-release would have been warranted if he was in a bad place financially. That said, with that kind of motivation, maybe he can be convinced to give up those tapes for the right kind of project (and price)

I'm not so sure Billy hates this album so much as what happened to it. I think he realizes there is some fan demand, at least from the fans who actually know it exists. And I think after almost 50 years now he'd be willing to have this album made right after so long. Probably more a rightsholder issue more than anything to do with him. If he really hated the material he'd have pulled the horrid '84 version off the market long ago, or maybe never even have let that one happen in the first place.

 

There are a couple of videos on Youtube of Billy discussing this album and apparently he just won't think about it ever since he heard the wrong speed LP in 1972 - too bad.

 

A fine album with beautifully atmospheric cover art and title.

 

Just looking through past listings on eBay, seems that a contemporaneous UK press on Philips sold not too long ago. Never seen one of those before. Presumably it was mastered at a different studio, and on different equipment. It could really shine a light on what exactly happened to this recording. Is it possible that release has been around for 40+ years and actually plays at the right speed?

 

I saw the Phillips pressing on Discogs and thought about buying a copy just to see what it's all about. Certainly worth checking out. According to a comment on Discogs, the Phillips Germany release also plays at the wrong speed. That being said, the US matrix reads:

• Matrix / Runout (Side 1): FPS 2700-A-17 NEW [Triangle with IAM stamped]
• Matrix / Runout (Side 2): FPS 2700 B 17 RE [Triangle with IAM stamped]
• Label Code (Side 1): FPS 2700-A
• Label Code (Side 2): FPS 2700-B

While the Phillips Netherlands pressing reads:

• Matrix / Runout (Runout Side A): AA 6369 150 1Y 1 670
• Matrix / Runout (Runout Side B): AA 6369 150 2Y 1 670

I believe things are starting to form a bit more clearly now... If there was an issue with the original master tape itself being dubbed at the wrong speed, then even if the original master tape was accounted for, a remix would be necessary.

 

If the original US master is banded and from different mixing sessions then that would explain the speed discrepancy between tracks, and of course a straight dub of the assembled master would show the same issues - like the Philips Germany cutting master. It could also explain why a simple recut was never ordered. All very strange but starting to make a lot more sense.

It would be very possible for a skilled cutting engineer to even alter the speed of the original tape "live" between tracks, if that's really where the problem originates.

 

Billy's entire catalog is long overdue for properly done Legacy Editions. I was not impressed with The Stranger or Piano Man, at all. Cold Spring Harbor is worthy, too. 2 discs...original mix and remix, demos, 1972 Mar Y Sol festival multitrack live recording.

 

I've got the Netherlands pressing and it is sped up. I found it cheap and took a chance of it being at the proper speed. Not a dissapointment, but if I knew it was the same as the others I would've passed.

 

Bravo on this. I have a few of the original (US and Canadian) copies of this album, and am familiar with the 1983 version. I also have a promo copy of the "Tomorrow is Today" single. In fact, the 1983 version was all I knew for years, you can imagine my surprise when I finally heard the actual tracks! Where did this orchestra come from?

Anyway, we're talking a lot about Joel's voice here, but everything in this update makes more sense: the feel and pace are totally different and right: even "Nocturne". I know this is a Captain Obvious statement, but the original was so rushed; at the time, I didn't think it was rushed because it's all I knew. This version takes everything down a notch and the whole album just makes more sense.

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad that people are interested in this record - and the mysterious story behind it - in 2016.

 

Artie Ripp is still working in the music business, allegedly. Perhaps someone could contact him and beg him to release the original mix?

 

So I take it the Hi-Res download on HDTracks is also sped up then? I haven't listened to this album before so I may as well listen to the original before this fan rendition which has certainly piqued my curiosity.

 

I highly doubt that the HDTracks version is the original mix...