While at Sterling Sound interviewing George Marino for my turntable set-up DVD, I heard some familiar music coming from Ted Jensen's room. I popped in to find him listening to the master tape of the American version of Rubber Soul, which some Beatles fans think is a better track list than the UK edition. Your choice. Jensen was working on a follow-up box set to the well received Capitol Albums Vol.1 4 CD set.
Jensen had the Rubber Soul, Help! and The Early Beatles tapes in his mastering suite, along with CD-R cut from first pressing vinyl so he could compare.
He also told me, rather casually, that EMI was working at Abbey Road on the long overdue remastering of the entire UK Beatles catalog.
Now, I hear you screaming "What about vinyl?" and I have no word on that but I do have a few interesting clues that I can pass your way: 1) a UK vinyl reissue label tells me all of a sudden the EMI catalog has "dried up" and is no longer available to him.
2)Classic Records's Mike Hobson holds a press conference at CES claiming it will be "the most important in the history of Classic Records," yet all he announces is a series of Everest titles from 35MM mag tapes and an extensive mono series including Billie Holiday's Clef catalog, and vinyl versions of the Mrs. Elvis Costello (Diana Krall) albums.
Now, does that strike you as "the most important" announcement from Classic compared to say, the RCA "Living Stereo" series, or the Roy Orbison catalog? It doesn't to me.
So what I was thinking is that Classic intended to announce The Beatles catalog but couldn't for some reason.
Then I hear that news from Ted Jensen.
And then I hear that Classic's Mike Hobson is out of town, traveling in the U.K.
Now you draw your own conclusions!
