Well…..Oh...What a year!!!!!!!….for me personally a milestone, with the birth of my first great grandson [to my 25 year old grandson]…..and the release of the Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons Box Set exactly 25 years on since I first received an ‘unreleased’ track ‘One Man’ which set me on the search for the ‘lost’ masters wherever they may be. 25 seems to be my lucky number???
‘Working Our Way Back To You’ is an iconic release and now discounted by 24% is a bargain for any ‘true’ collector of the group and Frankie’s career. Those who have followed our ‘4 Seasons On Saturday’ at our MowestChameleon You Tube Channel will be aware of the campaign to get all of the tracks and the fraught ‘process’ with Bob Gaudio and Snapper Music. Notwithsatnding that the Box Set is loaded with ALL of their album releases and 30% of rare, LIVE, or unreleased tracks. But not everyone today appreciates or think it is good for an artists career of recording to be ‘trawled’.
In his Critic’s Notebook Jon Pareles of the New York Times ….today writes “Hey, Pop Stars: Think Twice Before Messing With the Past…….whilst, he says, there are good financial reasons to revisit old or released material [and new technology is making it easier]…...he thinks “most trips back in 2023 resulted in diminishing returns”.
Well although he uses examples….his argument is based on record company or owners choices rather than ‘fans’. He states that…..”Musicians keep getting tempted to revisit recordings they made long ago, and in 2023, flashbacks from The Beatles and Taylor Swift drew worldwide attention.” [Ed – Notably he did not notice our Box Set of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons , “Working Our Way Back To You’.]
He goes on to say…..”Some temptations are technological; others have business imperatives. Wielding the latest digital tools, some powered by artificial intelligence, musicians and labels have been busily exploring their vaults and hard drives, many of them thoroughly convinced that they now have a better idea of how their older music is supposed to sound. Do they? Recorded music is many things: an expression, a structure, a physical performance, a series of decisions large and small, an artifact of memory and emotion, a souvenir of a particular time. But all of those aspects end up as a waveform, which can then be treated like any other information. The digital era and its computer-engineering paradigms have made that information infinitely malleable: just a starting point for version 2.0, 3.0 and beyond. A.I. is only going to make things more complicated as it reconfigures all the information available online. But with music, an update isn’t necessarily an improvement. It might be an anachronism or a betrayal instead.
One of the hardest decisions for any artist is knowing when something is finished. That choice might be made after endless deliberation, on a deadline, on a whim, under the influence — who knows? In the vinyl era, that decision was usually final, give or take alternate mixes for singles, radio and clubs. Listeners reacted to, and bonded with, the music in its fixed form. Digital loosened things up — at first out of necessity, as vast analog catalogs were transferred to new formats, and then more innovatively, as musicians reveled in the possibilities of vastly expanded multitracking, sampling, editing and even glitching. Digital possibilities are only going to scramble things further, untethering artistic products from their original inspirations and proportions. Oil paintings are being remarketed as environments. Albums are getting a new round of spatialized Dolby Atmos remixes. A.I. will be generating countless variations, pastiches and fakes. But amid the flood of new versions, let’s not forget to identify, recognize and celebrate the originals.”
A very succinct analysis, but one that that doesn’t apply to our work and input to the Snapper Music Box Set. We related to such risks back in 2018 when we started the Master Tape research and how we selected and collected ‘originals’ and variations of them as originally ‘completed’ based on the access we had. Bob Gaudio did the same with the Motown ‘Unreleased’ but only gave us 13 of 30 completed. Artistic selection ….or a commercial decision? We may never know although we continue to ‘campaign’ on Facebook for the rest.
So in our forthcoming podcasts we will review the Bonus Tracks and why they were selected. But that was the past and we still want to access and research the 200+ Tapes remaining in the LA storage and the 29 Master tapes from the Motown Tape Index. We are the best at it and a ‘free resource’. BUT given our experiences, we need to preserve what we have…..and next year [2024] will be about archiving and passing on the ‘DIGITAL ARCHIVE’ we can access NOW. Our Plans for next year are equally ambitious.
We are compiling a new library of the ‘BEST MIXES’ of tracks for future generations of fans, and as no-one at the Four Seasons Partnership has made any effort to ‘engage’ with me re the work done over the last 25 years….or to accept and put resources into the preservation of their work, then we will seek a philanthropic source such as a University or a ‘NOT FOR PROFIT’ storage facility for preservation [as the FSP Tape Archive is in a ‘dire’ state and a partly ‘unresearched’ facility]. The NEW Digital Archive we have constructed is derived from Master Tapes and Original Vinyl Sources digitized to studio professional standards. Not all of the Snapper Box Set achieves the high standards I want for fans future releases [whenever] and so we have supplemented [replaced] inferior product with previous releases from the Master Tapes on previous CD releases[Re-Mastered for archiving]. Also within the Archive will be Digitally Extracted STEREO balanced Mixes of the originals of some of the 1964 Masters such that ALL of the album Masters are in BEST MIX STEREO. ‘My judgement’….accepted….but technically a best to date master of each track in TRUE modern STEREO, without damaging the ‘integrity’ of Bob Crewe’s originals.
The Archive Library currently includes…..[A Work In Progress]
Vol 1 Pre- Four Seasons Tracks [Original German Studio Dubbed Masters]
Vol 2 Four Seasons 45 Versions 1960s Mono Masters Archive [To be revised 2024]
Vol 3 Snapper Box Contents Essential Collectors Masters 2023 SET[as issued June 2023]
Vol 4 Edizione D'Oro - 29 Tracks Master Sets from Master Tape and 1972 Vinyl HQ Dub
Vol 5 Post Snapper Project 1960s Alternate and Out-Takes Masters [Re-Mastered]
Vol 6 Post Snapper Project 1970s Tracks Mastering [for Re-mastering 2024
Vol 7 Official FSUKAS Best Masters 2023 STEREO CDs [Snapper Replacements Discs]
Vol 8 NEW MIXES Dawn_Rag Doll Set DES 2023 - New Library MASTERS
Vol 9 - The Vee-Jay 'Delivery Tapes' [Best Masters -Part of FSP Storage Master Tapes]
Vol 10 – High Quality LIVE Shows [Board Recordings] – Ongoing
Vol 11 - The BEST of Bob Crewe Productions–The ‘Seasons Connections’ Masters- 8CDs
This Archive is 80% complete but could grow with more research finds
So HAPPY NEW YEAR to all readers and follow my blogs for updates and new finds. My thanks go out to Anthony Colatrella for his huge support during the year and for our plans for 2024 Seasons On Saturday Podcasts.
Ken Charmer – Master Track Adviser – The Four Seasons UK Appreciation Society
Recent Comments