Yeah, that was my first clue that something was up, when I listened to SOLID BRASS when it first came out. Something sounded different about "So What's New" - it wasn't the same as on my old WHAT NOW MY LOVE album. It was missing some reverb on the trumpet, but mostly on the whistling.
Then on side two, "What Now My Love" sounded strangely different too, less reverb. Then when GREATEST HITS 2 came out, those two were still dry, and "Brasilia" just sounded flat-out wrong.
In the early 80s, I stumbled onto a yard sale where a ton of TJB albums were being sold for 50¢ each and they looked nice and clean. So I took them home for a freshening of my own library. These all had hardly ever been played. And this is where my WHAT NOW MY LOVE story gets a bit strange.
Every now and again, of course, I'd play GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2 and lament the missing trombone fills on "Brasilia". One day, I dug out the newer, cleaner, WHAT NOW MY LOVE album to hear the real "Brasilia" - and it didn't sound any different at all. Did I imagine these trombone fills? Was I going crazy? This weird-sounding "Brasilia" on GH2 sounded exactly like the "Brasilia" on my WHAT NOW MY LOVE LP. I chalked it up to some craziness, maybe the way I heard it on TV or in concert, but those two surely were the same.
A few years later, the WHAT NOW MY LOVE CD came out from A&M, and I've already detailed my shock at "Plucky". But it also had those dry tracks that I'd first heard on SOLID BRASS and GH2. So once again, I tried to figure out the mystery of "Brasilia". At home I listened to the LP of WHAT NOW MY LOVE, this same one that was nice, fresh, vinyl from that yard sale, and no, "Plucky" sounded normal. So did "What Now My Love" and "So What's New". It was just "Brasilia" that still sounded odd. Same way on the new CDs of GH2 and SOLID BRASS that were available around that time. I must have imagined those trombone fills, but it sure sounded like sometime was missing.
Flash-forward to the late 90s and my encountering this site and all of its knowledgeable TjB fans. A discussion about this very subject led me to head to the basement to rescue some other, lesser quality copies of WHAT NOW MY LOVE. That's when I finally found the old version of "Brasilia" with the trombone fills, and I felt vindicated. My mind wasn't going crazy. These LPs were all different.
It turns out that the nice, clean WHAT NOW MY LOVE from the yard sale was a hybrid between the wet and dry versions. Side One was the old, familiar wet version, and Side Two was the dry version. They must have renewed the Side Two stamper while leaving the old Side One stamper alone - at least for the run of pressings that this was from. That's how we know of hybrid versions - I have one.
Then on side two, "What Now My Love" sounded strangely different too, less reverb. Then when GREATEST HITS 2 came out, those two were still dry, and "Brasilia" just sounded flat-out wrong.
In the early 80s, I stumbled onto a yard sale where a ton of TJB albums were being sold for 50¢ each and they looked nice and clean. So I took them home for a freshening of my own library. These all had hardly ever been played. And this is where my WHAT NOW MY LOVE story gets a bit strange.
Every now and again, of course, I'd play GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2 and lament the missing trombone fills on "Brasilia". One day, I dug out the newer, cleaner, WHAT NOW MY LOVE album to hear the real "Brasilia" - and it didn't sound any different at all. Did I imagine these trombone fills? Was I going crazy? This weird-sounding "Brasilia" on GH2 sounded exactly like the "Brasilia" on my WHAT NOW MY LOVE LP. I chalked it up to some craziness, maybe the way I heard it on TV or in concert, but those two surely were the same.
A few years later, the WHAT NOW MY LOVE CD came out from A&M, and I've already detailed my shock at "Plucky". But it also had those dry tracks that I'd first heard on SOLID BRASS and GH2. So once again, I tried to figure out the mystery of "Brasilia". At home I listened to the LP of WHAT NOW MY LOVE, this same one that was nice, fresh, vinyl from that yard sale, and no, "Plucky" sounded normal. So did "What Now My Love" and "So What's New". It was just "Brasilia" that still sounded odd. Same way on the new CDs of GH2 and SOLID BRASS that were available around that time. I must have imagined those trombone fills, but it sure sounded like sometime was missing.
Flash-forward to the late 90s and my encountering this site and all of its knowledgeable TjB fans. A discussion about this very subject led me to head to the basement to rescue some other, lesser quality copies of WHAT NOW MY LOVE. That's when I finally found the old version of "Brasilia" with the trombone fills, and I felt vindicated. My mind wasn't going crazy. These LPs were all different.
It turns out that the nice, clean WHAT NOW MY LOVE from the yard sale was a hybrid between the wet and dry versions. Side One was the old, familiar wet version, and Side Two was the dry version. They must have renewed the Side Two stamper while leaving the old Side One stamper alone - at least for the run of pressings that this was from. That's how we know of hybrid versions - I have one.