🎵 AotW Classics Baja Marimba Band's Back

Listen around 0:36..."Dance." Might be more later in the song.
 
Cripeys! It's just a quick burst. No wonder I never noticed it, let alone tried to identify it.
 
Streaming services are slowly building a Baja catalog/library.
They really have been. Amazon and Apple have studio albums that are also available on CD, with Amazon having one more than Apple (Greatest Hits) . The ones they don't have are the ones that are not available on CD. I'm not sure why some were never digitalized, maybe they are copyright protected. I have been looking for these studio albums on CD with no luck (Baja Marimba Rides Again, For Animals Only, Watch Out, Fowl Play, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, As Time Goes By, New Deal).
 
Here's the sad thing. After the Universal fire in 2008, there's no guarantee any of these even exist anymore. Were the original session tapes destroyed? The 2-track master? Any production masters for the record pressing plants? Were copies of any of the masters sent to other countries for distribution (like Japan, UK, Germany, etc.) preserved? We have no way of knowing and given the lack of documentation, Universal apparently has no clue either.

I listened to a few samples of the digital version of Baja Marimba Band's Back and it is not good. The whole thing sounds muffled. The LP isn't much better though--it's just a product of poor mastering or recording. (I've honestly never heard an album on the Bell label that wasn't flawed in some way.)

The Greatest Hits digital version, however, is pure rubbish--don't give that dishonest company a dollar or stream it. It was sourced via a needle drop and someone applied very heavy noise reduction to it, giving it a weird, muffled sound that is nothing like the LP. Reminds me of those $59 "click repair" software packages that companies used to sell.

The other releases are legitimate--that leaves their first album (Baja Marimba Band), Those Were The Days, Fresh Air, and Naturally (the non-A&M album from the 70s). Those three A&Ms are not recent releases either, and all were sourced from Japan. (They were all predated by CD releases many years ago.)

Our official YouTube channel has many of the unreleased Baja records posted. Even piped through YouTube's lossy algorithm, the tracks sound better than what is found on the digital Greatest Hits.
 
Some of the tracks can be sourced digitally on that 3CD set from Timeless. Rare now, but excellent sound.

Also the Japanese Digitally Remastered Best had four tracks that were excised from the one Steve assisted on the American release.
 
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