It was the first Four Seasons vinyl album of the 60s in STEREO ONLY ( Valli’s Solo album ‘Timeless’ had appeared in only the stereo format in June that year )and was a celebration of their incredible run of hits during the decade. 28 tracks re-mastered in glorious stereo using the best sound engineering technology of 1968.(One track ‘Ronnie’ was re-channeled (pseudo) stereo). A real collectors item then and surprisingly, even more now.
Today we believe the MASTERS of this album may not exist at all and the UNIQUE STEREO mixes and Takes (10) are simply not available on CD in some cases.
Paul Urbahns takes up the analysis of this landmark album……
“ED was a big improvement over the stereo quality of even the Gold Vault Of Hits album previously issued by Philips in 1965. Strange as it may seem, the first album, Gold Vault Of Hits on Philips contained their most recent material: yet, of the 12 songs on that album, half of the songs are presented in mono indicating at that date there was no stereo masters for Let's Hang On; Rag Doll; Ronnie (still not in stereo anywhere); Silence Is Golden; Dawn (Go Away); and Girl Come Running. Whereas the 2nd Gold Vault Of Hits (Nov 1966) which featured the older Vee Jay masters was all stereo. Just so happens these mono Gold Vault of Hits recordings also seem to be the ones Crewe had to remix for ED.I used my old notes I have on a stereo discography I did quite a few years ago, so the following list shows where some of the tracks were previous available in stereo.
Two track that confuse me are Big Man In Town and Save It For Me which according to my notes had previously been issued in stereo on the Gold Vault of Hits (vinyl edition) but many fan reviews of this album(ED) indicate these two songs were unique mixes originated for this album. A recent detailed review has confirmed this. Here is our assessment of the mix sources.......
EDIZIONE D’ORO (Two disc set by sides)
A1 Sherry [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:30
A2 Big Girls Don't Cry [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:25
A3 Connie-O [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:28
A4 Walk Like A Man [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:21
A5 Candy Girl [2nd Gold Vault of Hits]
A6 Marlena [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:32
A7 Peanuts [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:20
A8 Ain't That A Shame [ALTERNATE TAKE] 2:33
B1 Dawn (Go Away) [ALTERNATE TAKE] 2:11
B2 Stay [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 1:58
B3 Big Man In Town [ALTERNATE MIX] 2:44
B4 Alone [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:50
B5 Save It For Me [ALTERNATE MIX]
may also be stereo on Gold Vault of Hits 2:36
B6 Girl Come Running [ALTERNATE TAKE] 3:00
B7 Ronnie [[Rechanneled]] 2:25
C1 Rag Doll [UNIQUE STEREO RELEASE] 3:00
C2 Bye Bye Baby (Baby, Goodbye) [Gold Vault of Hits]2:32
C3 Toy Soldier [Gold Vault of Hits] 2:28
C4 Let's Hang On [ALTERNATE TAKE] 3:09
C5 Don't Think Twice - The Wonder Who [Big Hits of Bacharach, etc] 2:59
C6 Working My Way Back To You [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:51
C7 Opus 17 (Don't Worry 'Bout Me) [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 2:33
D1 I've Got You Under My Skin [2nd Gold Vault of Hits] 3:37
D2 Tell It To The Rain [New Gold Hits] 2:32
D3 Beggin' [New Gold Hits] 3:48
D4 Silence Is Golden [First Stereo Release] 3:03
D5 C'mon Marianne [New Gold Hits] 2:23
D6 Watch The Flowers Grow [First Stereo Release] 3:33
D7 Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow [First Stereo Release] 3:13”
Paul's analysis is we believe the definitive track sources listing.
There is evidence that Philips had not done a very good job of managing the library of Seasons recordings during the mid-sixties. When Bob Crewe came to assemble this masterpiece we can see he couldn’t find some tracks and in some cases used unique alternative takes.
Stories at the time circulated that the Four Seasons had returned to the studios to record again some of their past hits but today we do not believe that was the case. At this point in time we believe Crewe tried to reconstruct stereo versions of the hits from existing multi-track tapes. Unfortunately some of these multi-tracks did not contain all the vocal parts, or contained vocal parts previously dropped from the hit single versions. Crewe we believe had his engineer search the then master tapes to find STEREO versions or to RE-MIX from multi-track to create the NEW MASTERS.
ACE Records of London attempted a re-issue of this album in 1996 and asked the Four Seasons Partnership (under the terms of their contract) for the masters and an opportunity to access the original master tapes. Trevor Churchill told us at the time of his intense frustration at the attitude of the Partnership and the difficulties encountered. It was a contract they regretted very much at the time although their CD issues represent probably the best Four Seasons re-issue catalogue on CD.
ACE’s reissue of the original albums in two-fer format series is to be complimented for issuing all the albums in the best stereo quality to be available on CD. Arguably many of these CD’s are examples of excellent mastering(but not all)
The re-issue of the Edizione D’Oro album on CD should have been a landmark in the series but it was a big disappointment.
Not wishing to duplicate the existing stereo versions available on other CD albums in the series, as illustrated in the chart above for source material for the original ED album, ACE assembled a collection of mono versions of the songs. These mono versions had previously not been available on CD. Unfortunately, since some mono masters were not in the Partnership collection, they did use some fold downs (from stereo) in the collection. Of the 10 known alternative versions or unique stereo mixes on the original 2 album set only 3 managed to appear on this CD issue with ‘Watch The Flowers Grow’ and ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ getting cut for time reasons along with ‘Tell It To The Rain’. In all other respects it was an all mono CD. Surprisingly the ACE CD reissue today, typically sells in the $150 to $200 range, if you can locate a copy.
Two opportunities were(have been) missed by ACE and The Four Seasons Partnership since the advent of the CD. Firstly the issue of all the hits as the MONO 45s and also the reproduction of what was an excellent sounding stereo album which Edizione D’Oro was with some stunning unique mixes really well mastered(and pressed in the case of the UK vinyl). But as many of the Masters are missing the only source would have been vinyl and that approach has been a ‘no-go’ for all except Northern Soul aficionados (eg Goldmine Records)
Fortunately this album has now been re-mastered from vinyl(UK pressing) to preserve this unique sounding vinyl epic and preserved in our library. Now we will move onto the MONO masters of the 45s as we heard them back in the early 60s and see how many we can recover to good quality sound.
Casey Chameleon
Great job on analyzing the tracks. I do believe Beggin' sound a little different than the new Gold Hits version. It seems like there is a bit more echo on the lead vocal making it a little richer sounding, but this is only my opinion .
Posted by: Leonard | 06/30/2012 at 10:49 PM