Lincoln Mayorga & Distinguished Colleagues, Vol. 1 (1971)

An extremely rare recording. The LP that started the direct-to-master-disc audiophile craze in the 1970s. Produced in 1971, the performances were recorded directly to the lacquer master disc without the use of tape recorders. This LP has never been released on CD because there we no tape backup copies made during the recording process (this is according to one of the sound engineers I spoke with that worked on it). So far as I know, all other Sheffield recordings have been released on CD using those tape backups. But not this one. The remaining LPs are the only copies of these performances that we have.

The second volume in the Distinguished Colleagues series (links below) had a much wider release and so was much more influential. But this is the recording that started it all. This first volume was released by Sheffield Records, renamed to Sheffield Lab for later albums.

A note about the rip: I've done my best to clean up the rip as best I could and yet be as unobtrusive as possible. But vinyl is an imperfect medium, and sometimes I couldn't cleanup a flaw without making things worse; in these cases I minimized it as best I could while maintaining the integrity of the music. But this is a recording of a live performance and things get banged and kicked around, electronic gizmos bleep, and those sounds I left alone.

A second note about the rip: In my opinion the mic'ing on this recording is not up the standards shown on later Sheffield albums. The brass is flat sometimes, the guitar is muddled and lost in the background. And the performances are not quite as tight as they are on later recordings. This album is more about a promise of what was to come rather than a fulfillment of that promise. It's still very very good, but not stellar.

Tracklist:

1. Grand Boulevard
2. Good Vibrations
3. Anyone Who Had A Heart
4. I'll Be Back
5. Learning To Be Kind
6. Up, Up And Away
7. Mercy, Mercy
8. She's Leaving Home
9. Don't Think Twice
10. All The Things You Are

Full size scans of front and back covers are included in both downloads.