I'm off to try and listen on catch up, but a friend has just told me that the, Mamas and the Papas ..California Dreaming was dismantled on radio 4 last night, vis a vie, the Old Gits chorus of..."In my day, everyone could sing perfectly and did it one take"...

Anyone else hear the programme?

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nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

Quote Stevedog:

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Mamas and the Papas ..California Dreaming was dismantled on radio 4 last night, vis a vie, the Old Gits chorus of..."In my day, everyone could sing perfectly and did it one take"...

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Sing perfectly? Maybe really good. One take... well they could splice together best pieces into one take sometimes! They have a nice goof up, one song that has a little 'breakdown' then comes back in two bars with "I saw her again last night" they started singing one bar early then stopped themselves, and it's part of the record! May very well have NOT been fixable, maybe they were live against musicians who could not be asked to play again.... who knows
Still agreat song, even better because of the mistake

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Gear list: If you can't find it, grind it

I don`t think anyone ever suggested people were better at recording back then, but you did tend to get a lot fewer people who literally could not carry a tune in a bucket getting to make records.
Certainly among those who had careers spanning more than one album.
Mind you, I always suspected the Ms & Ps might be a bit naff, simply because most vocal groups at the time seemed to be covering up the lack of a real solo vocalist.Well apart from the Springfields...

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

I heard it. You can Listen Again HERE

I seem to remember the 'old git' describing how the bedraggled Ms & Ps were put into this rather basic studio and they did do it one pass and they tracked it a few times until (and I almost quote) "... it was a few generations old" meaning (I am assuming) that they had a limited track count and much bouncing down went on. He actually attributed that smudged and blurred quality of the vocal recordings through excessive bounce downs and submixes of their vocals to the 'sound' of the Mamas.

The programmes were very interesting actually and describes a period when music was the focal point of a generation and how it was a vehicle for a new generation - a far cry from these days!!

It then went on to describe how 'corporate' America came in to exploit this commercially.

Worth a listen and pertinent to the other thread hereabouts about music and society and the effects (or otherwise) of one on the other perhaps.

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I recall reading somewhere that "California Dreaming" took them six months to record and that by the time they had arrived at a usable recording between the bounces and the retakes that the tape was almost shot. Though I don't recall it well enough to remember where I read it....

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