MFSL Gold Little Feat

I think part of the problem is that little feat's original recording quality wasn't that good. Can't make a silk purse out of sow's ears - no matter how inspired the material. MHO FWIW.

Richard, I am a big Little Feat fan, and I might agree with you on their later records, but the first three are rough - even in the original vinyl product as I recall. And I think the original CD re-master of Dixie Chicken is downright awful, which is too bad because what wonderful material and performances.

Perhaps there was an intention on the part of Lowell George and the recording engineer for the sound to be a bit coarse and loose. Most people at the time these recordings came out weren't playing them on five to six figure systems, and if they were - they may not have had the capacity to tell the difference when "listening" in any case;-)

Funny, I was outside the West Seattle Easy Street records this weekend pawing through the boxes of dollar disks, half listing to the music producers on the corner behind me dropping names and picking the breakfast out of their teeth, when I pulled out a very clean copy of the original 1978 Warner Brothers pressing of Waiting for Columbus. Flat, no scratches whatsoever on the disks or the cover - only the previoius owners name scrolled in sharpie above the lushious Tomato's head on the front. Boy, it sounds really, really good. If the MSFL pressing sounds a lot better, then maybe its worth 29 times what I just paid for the original.

This spurred me to pull out my old CD release of Dixie Chicken for comparison - it still sounds 2-dimensional and compressed in comparison to the original WFC Lp. Same as I recall for the production of most cuts on Salin Shoes and "Little Feat", but maybe I would change my tune if I heard the original Lp versions of those recordings again.

In any case, I appreciate the discussion here as I will very likely not spring for the Gold CD versions of the earlier LF recodings, and will focus on trying to find them in vinyl instead.