@curtdr: Yes indeed, finding music you like that was recorded in good sound is the audiophilic music lover’s dream. Unfortunately, as J. Gordon Holt often said in his Stereophile reviews as far back as the early-60’s, the two are often mutually exclusive: the best performances (he was concerned mostly with Classical music) are all-too frequently the worst sounding recordings.
I consider myself lucky in that my preferred genres of music (Singer/Songwriter, Americana, Hard Country, Bluegrass) are one of the generally better recorded musics. In his YouTube review of the January LP releases by Vinyl Me Please, Michael Ludwig (his YouTube moniker is 45 RPM Audiophile) gives the month’s Country music title (VMP does one release per month in 5 genres)---Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man album---an absolutely rave. I had written off Michael’s musical opinions (his taste is very different from mine) after he last year panned VMP’s re-release of Iris Dement’s debut album. It’s good to see him coming to his senses ;-) . In the currently-running Favorite Female Singer thread here on AG, I listed Tammy and Iris as two of my three (the other being Darlene Love. I had to leave off Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris, who round out my Top 5 list. Sixth would be Brenda Lee.). By the way, the Country release in February is Busy Bee Cafe, a great album by another fave of mine, Marty Stuart.
T Bone Burnett is the man responsible for the two Alison Krauss/Robert Plant albums, a great example of good music and good sound. T Bone’s 1980 album on Takoma (a label known for good sounding albums)---Truth Decay---features fantastic sound (it was produced by the great Denny Bruce), and can be found for peanuts on both LP and CD, as can many of his other albums. I like his earlier ones, his later ones not so much.
