Re: Jim Reeves - RCA Living Stereo
Larry, I can't speak for anyone else, but you certainly didn't bore me! I found everything you said to be quite fascinating! Not only that, but you said some things that I've been suspecting for many years now. For example, how we are often told that each CD that is released on various artists are from the original master tapes. I never believed that to be true. If you know anything about the Elvis releases that have been re-issued since the early '90's, you would know what I mean. There was a man named Ernst Jorgensen that was given the job back then to comb the vaults at RCA and various places to locate all the master tapes on Elvis and any unreleased material that may still exist. He has done done quite an impressive job over the years, and most of the releases that were put out are excellent. However, I can't even count how many times I purchased an Elvis CD with a sticker on front claiming that the songs were re-mastered from the first generation master tapes, only to read reviews years later claiming that some of these master tapes have yet to surface! I've always believed these claims to be merely a marketing ploy to sucker the fans into buying all these releases, and I see you agree with me! I'm sure the same can be said of Jim's recordings. I find it very doubtful that a lot of Jim's releases on the RCA CD's are from the absolute first generation masters. It's been common knowledge now for a long time that the people at RCA seem to have very little interest in restoring Jim's recorded catalog of songs, yet we're supposed to believe that they ever bothered to painstakingly locate all the original masters for the releases they've put out?! I found it very interesting as well how you described wha6t it takes to preserve these old tapes. I've often wondered how these recordings can still sound as good as they do after so many years! It must take a lot of care to preserve these tapes as well as they have! Thanks for all the interesting insight on this subject!
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