Carnegie Hall

In several respects, this is a very strange album, though the music isn't strange at all and is in fact quite typical vintage Jimmy Reed. First, despite what the title might lead you to believe, this is not a live recording; all 23 of the tracks were done in the studio. Not only that, they weren't even performed at New York's famed venue Carnegie Hall, although producer Calvin Carter would later claim they were; instead, everything was cut elsewhere.
According to Pete Welding's notes to the record in the year (1961) the double LP was first issued, one-half is devoted to "recreations of some of Jimmy's most celebrated and biggest-selling recordings," while "the second LP here is Jimmy's celebratory recreation of his highly successful appearance at august Carnegie Hall this past May"…

This was Jimmy's best selling album ever but the title is very misleading in that these are all studio recordings, not live recordings, which means they weren't recorded at Carnegie Hall, but the tracks are in the order he performed them at a Carnegie Hall concert one week prior to recording the first dozen in the studio of this double album. This is actually the first time all of the original master tapes of this album were used as the songs recorded in mono were on all previous issues in rechanneled stereo while the true stereo tracks on this disc have always been in true stereo on every release. Steve Hoffman searched high and low for the first generation tapes of each song on the album in the Vee Jay vaults and as a result, Audio Fidelity has issued the definitive release of the album. Audiophiles and casual blues fans who like quality sound must pick up this issue of Jimmy Reed At Carnegie Hall as it contains most of his biggest hits in the best possible quality sound due to the work of Steve Hoffman.

From the notes: Rosita Renard was born in Santiago, Chile, on February 8, 1894, the daughter of a building contractor; she showed extraordinary gifts as a child, and made her pianistic debut at the age of fourteen playing the Grieg Concerto with the Chilean Symphony Orchestra. A year later the government awarded her a scholarship to study in Berlin at the Stern Conservatory. Arriving there in 1910, Rosita was put in the master class of Martin Krause, a Liszt pupil today remembered as the teacher of Edwin Fischer, who was Renard's classmate and friend, and Claudio Arrau, her countryman, who was seven years Renard's junior. The two families were friendly and when it came time for the nine-year-old Arrau to audition fro Krause in 1912, it was Rosita Renard who actually took the young boy by the hand to the audition" Notes by Edward Blickstein

The Weavers - Reunion at Carnegie Hall 1963
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 249 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Vanguard # VMD-2150 | Country/Year: US 1987
Genre: Folk, World & Country | Style: Folk

The Weavers celebrated their 15th anniversary by performing two concerts – May 2 and 3, 1963 – at Carnegie Hall, the site of their historic 1955 comeback concert, and invited back former members Pete Seeger and Erik Darling, as well as introducing new member Bernie Krause…