Dakotas Play The Shadows (sort of....)

[Arpeggio]

After years of searching I finally tracked down a USA only CD ("The Best Of Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas") from waaaayyy back in 1991. The attraction for me was the mixing into stereo (by Ron Furmanek - from the original master tapes) for the very first time of 16 of the 25 tracks. So far so.....etc. The previously unreleased "I'm In Love" (Lennon - McCartney) features about a minute or so of studio chat / banter (including John Lennon who was present at the session) as Billy J gamely tried to capture a reasonable vocal 'take'. Meanwhile lead guitarist Mike Maxfield can distinctly be heard (just off mic) 'noodling' around with little riffs / breaks / fills from "I'm In Love". After a couple of 'breakdowns' and while Billy J chats to both John Lennon and George Martin, Mike (as this was the 32nd take!!!!!) clearly getting a bit bored suddenly breaks into "Theme From A Filleted Place"!! It's only a few seconds (& Robin MacDonald can be heard humming along in harmony) - but there's no mistaking it!! Not surprsingly, both Mike & Robin were big Shadows fans. Really obscure bit of trivia & that track is only available on the far from common USA CD (EMI CDP - 7 - 96055 - 2). Just great if you want to hear "D Y W T K A Secret?", "Bad To Me" and "I'll Keep You Satisfied" in stereo. Just thought that someone might find the extremely tenuous Shadows connection interesting.

Rob

[KurtFroberg]

Hi Rob,

Seems like the track is available on the album EMI Legends Rock ´n´Roll - The Definite Collection.
That album is also available on Spotify.

Regards
Kurt

[RayL]

Hi Rob

"Mixing into stereo" - but mixing from what? Bad To Me entered the UK charts on the 1st of August 1963, so the session couldn't have been any later than July of that year when surely EMI still only had two-track recording?

Not only that, but (as we know from the Beatles material of that time) George Martin often used the technique of placing the voices on track 1 and all the instruments on track 2 so that he could compress them together for a harder sound on the final (mono) single. So what was on the 'original master tapes' that Ron Furmanek remixed?

(A personal Billy J. Kramer / Dakotas / Beatles story from that time)
In the summer of 1963 I was a very junior trainee with the BBC based at Broadcasting House and allocated to Studios and Outside Broadcasts. This meant that every day was a different show - 'Workers Playtime' (with Nicholas Parsons!) from the canteen of Petters Diesel Engine factory in Staines, Glyndebourne opera, the Edmundo Ros Club in Regent Street, etc. One day I was allocated to a studio in BH where Billy J.Kramer and The Dakotas were recording. I remember asking Mike Maxfield how on earth he did his 'flying fingers' lead line on Cruel Sea and he very kindly corrected my feeble efforts by showing me the right way to do it. Recording just down the corridor was that up-and-coming group, The Beatles, but I was not able to get away and poke my head into that studio so I missed my chance of seeing The Beatles recording - by a few yards!

Ray

[Arpeggio]

Kurt...that is indeed the CD. "I'm In Love" has only been released in mono in the UK and with all of the studio chat etc (c. 1' 12") left off.

Ray: The tracks range from "D Y W T K A Secret" (recorded 21 / 3 / 1963) to "You Make Me Feel Like Someone" (rec 15 / 6 / 66)

There are 25 tracks. Billy J Kramer's debut LP "Listen", released in November 1963 was available in both mono and stereo. Of course - you're right in that it was a very basic, 'primitive' stereo - more often than not with Billy J's vocals placed either to right or left & the instrumentation vice versa -with very little, if any, deviation from that.

Of this CD's 25 tracks "I Call Your Name" (27 / 6 / 63), "Pride" (16 / 7 / 63), "I Know" (22 / 7 / 63), "Tell Me Girl" (23 / 9 / 63), "From A Window" (29 / 5 / 64), "Second To None" (7 / 5 / 64) and "T & B & Planes" (22 / 3 / 65) had all appeared in stereo in the UK (a few on the aforementioned LP). EMI had mistakenly (!!!!) thrown out the master tapes for "Little Children" and "They Remind Me Of You" and so they will forever be in mono.

As for the rest - this is what it says on the sleeve: "....mastered at Abbey Road from the original 2 and 4 track master session tapes and 1 and 2 track master mixdown tapes."

Plus....with the exception of the 9 songs mentioned above: "All tracks are presented in stereo for the first time. Songs remixed by Ron Furmanek and Mike Jarratt"

Hope this helps. They do sound superb and you can hear so much more detail re: overdubs etc.

Rob

[RayL]

Thanks, Rob. As you have the session dates, were Little Children and The Dakotas' Magic Carpet recorded around the same time? They both use the same technique of doubling guitar and piano (to sound like one instrument). As the pianist for both was presumably George Martin (he often played keyboard on sessions that he produced - he's on a lot of the early Beatles stuff) and as he wrote Magic Carpet, I wonder if Little Children came first and George was so taken by the sound he could produce that he wrote a tune around it?

Ray

[Arpeggio]

Hi Ray,
You're quite right about George Martin playing piano & keyboards on all of the Billy J Kramer / Dakotas and Dakotas recordings. By recording the piano at a slow speed and then double tracking it and then speeding it all up the 'wound piano' sounded like a sort of 12 - string guitar. "Magic Carpet" (original title "Tibet") came first I'm afraid. I think that it was released in late October 1963 and was probably recorded during August / September '63. "Little Children" wasn't recorded until 23rd January 1964.

Rob

[Arpeggio]

For Ray (who may give us more 'chapter & verse' as befits his expertise) & other 'stereo buffs'. The first 5 tracks of the CD, recorded between March and July 1963 do indeed feature the extremely basic 2 - track stereo sound (think the Beatles' "Please Please Me" album in stereo). However (until Ron Furmanek's efforts), "D Y W T K A Secret?", "I'll Be On My Way" and "Bad To Me" had never been mixed into even that very basic stereo format. So - tracks 1 - 5 have Billy J's vocals on the r/h channel (clearly his voice is always double - tracked) - with guitars / bass / drums / piano etc on the l/h channel. Occasionally drums can be heard on the l/h side - but I assume that's just sound / echo somehow 'bleeding' through (??). Now, I don't claim to understand the technicalities of how it might have been done (February 1991) - but the backing vocal 'Oooohs' on "D Y W T K A Secret" & "I'll Be On Way" do appear to be almost central, likewise the guitar solo on the latter. Somehow that has been 'pulled away' from the l/h channel & at least gives the illusion that it's central. As previously stated the session master tapes for "Little Children" and "They Remind Me Of You" were accidentally tossed into a builder's skip c. 1974. Apparently (true story), Ron Furmanek tracked down the building firm and discovered that the skip rubbish (& other hardcore / rubble) had been used to fill a pretty large hole during a road building project not too far away. He actually tried to get permission from the relevant authorities to have the road dug up in order to retrieve the tapes!!!

The remaining 18 tracks were recorded from September, 1963 onwards. "I Know" and "Tell Me Girl" still have the basic 'L' & 'R' channel structure - but the former has additional piano in the centre of the stereo image and also the lead guitar solo break. In the latter the centre remains 'silent' - only filled by the lead guitar solo break. Every other track on the CD has the lead vocal firmly in the centre of the stereo image - with lead guitar / overdubbed guitar / rhythm / bass / drums / piano / keyboards / backing vocs / brass / orchestra etc split more or less equally between the l/h & r/h channels. In most instances the lead break (whether guitar or keyboard) is in the centre channel. On a few tracks additional voices and instruments are also placed centrally behind Billy J's voice. Strangely - on "We're Doing Fine" and "You Make Me Feel Like Someone" - the centre becomes 'congested' and one channel (Left & then Right respectively) remains 'empty'.

Hope all of this might make some sense to our more technically minded members & those with experience of sound recording.

Rob

[RayL]

Hi Rob

I'll understand better what was done in the later mixing when I've heard the record, but as far as those first five tracks are concerned, George Martin has confirmed (I've got the tape somewhere) that such recordings were never intended to be listened to as 'stereo'. These two-track tapes were the penultimate stage in the production of a mono master. It was after GM had left EMI that it was decided to reissue the early Beatles albums. Apparently they went to the vaults, found the two-track tapes and thought "Well, if George Martin (the most famous record producer in the world) made these, they have to be used just as they are". (They didn't check with GM). It seems the same mistake has been made with these Billy J. tracks.

Rob (and Jim as well), would I be right in saying that Norrie Paramor didn't use this technique with Cliff and The Shadows? Am I also correct that there was a period at EMI when separate mono and stereo mixes were done at the same session using separate equipment and many of The Shadows early recordings (the ones that are in true stereo) were made this way?

Ray

[JimN]

It was after GM had left EMI that it was decided to reissue the early Beatles albums. Apparently they went to the vaults, found the two-track tapes and thought "Well, if George Martin (the most famous record producer in the world) made these, they have to be used just as they are". (They didn't check with GM).

Sorry, Ray, that just isn't correct, though I sometimes get the impression that George Martin wishes that it were correct.

All the Beatles albums that were recorded whilst GM was still an EMI staff member were in fact issued in stereo whilst he was still working there, though in the early days, the stereo release was always a little later than the mono release (a short-sighted policy, I would suggest).

The "Please Please Me" LP wasn't pressed in (and didn't sell in) all that many copies in stereo. But then, not many record-buyers had stereo equipment or even knew the difference, and some of the ones who did would already have bought the mono version because it was available sooner. However, "PPM" in stereo (Parlophone PCS 3042) is renowned for being a valuable 1963 collector's item.

Why George wants these myths peddled, I don't know, but that one is definitely a myth.

JN

[Arpeggio]

Hi Ray,
I'm sure that there are others on the forum much better qualified to comment than I am. Norrie Paramor was far more experienced than George Martin in the period 1958 -1963. Plus of course he was an orchestral leader, arranger and conductor. George Martin went on to greater things (with the Beatles ) in his career. Plus, Norrie was a senior figure and he had bigger budgets at his disposal. Plus, of course, before the Beatles - Cliff Richard & the Shadows were EMI's biggest stars.

Norrie's approach to recording was vastly different to George Martin's - although (especially early on) Norrie was more concerned with getting the all important mono recordings - especially for singles. For most teenagers LPs were luxury items and stereo LPs even more so. Nonetheless, Norrie was pretty shrewd as Cliff & The Shadows were really the first UK Pop Music acts to start selling LPs in serious quantities. Stereo was beginning to become important and Norrie took notice. To that end, yes - it's well documented that quite often Norrie would have both mono and stereo machines running simultaneously during many sessions. I assume that this wasn't possible for every single recording session - but Norrie apparently did it whenever possible - although he would always concentrate on the mono versions first. The fact that George Martin just split the voices / instruments hard left / right was clearly his decision because (as you said) he was never thinking of stereo at all. Yet the facility was there. Take Cliff's very first live album. It was taped live, simultaneously in both mono and stereo - so it was definitely possible even by February 1959. Just take "My Babe" as one example - Cliff's vocals clearly 'centre' in the stereo image with Hank & Bruce on the right and Jet & Tony on the left. Crystal clear and true stereo. Even right at the very beginning you can hear the fans screaming left, right and centre too. So -with both Cliff and the Shadows early stereo recordings the separation was clear but either the vocals or Hank's lead guitar were generally 'placed' in the centre of the mix. Norrie also built up even more complicated tracks by using composite tracks and superimposition. By late 1963 he was using overdubs in the now more commonly accepted sense of the word. I think that will do for now!

Bests....Rob