AUDIO FIDELITY GOES FOR THE GOLD WITH 24 KARAT REISSUES
OF TWO CLASSIC ’70s ALBUMS
Carly Simon’s No Secrets and Bad Company’s Straight Shooter Get
Deluxe
Treatment in Limited-Edition Gold CDs from the Premier Audiophile Imprint
In its
ongoing program of reissuing classic rock and pop albums, Audio Fidelity will
release 24 Karat Gold CD versions of Carly Simon’s 1972 NO SECRETS and
Bad Company’s 1975 STRAIGHT SHOOTER on June 21. The discs will be issued
as numbered, limited editions that will be retired after their initial runs have
sold out, and will be available from both online and brick-and-mortar retail
outlets.
First issued in November of 1972, NO SECRETS was Simon’s breakthrough LP and remains her best-selling recording to date, having held the No. 1 position on Billboard’s album chart for five weeks and ultimately gone Platinum five times over. Her third long-player, NO SECRETS contains Simon’s signature single, the chart-topping “You’re So Vain,” which features Mick Jagger on backing vocals, as well as its follow-up, “The Right Thing to Do.” The album introduced eight new Simon originals, as well as a cover of James Taylor’s “Night Owl,” and enlisted an all-star cast of support players. Taylor joins Simon on vocals for “Waited So Long,” which also boasts contributions from Little Feat’s Lowell George (slide guitar) and Bill Payne (organ), while Paul McCartney, Bonnie Bramlett and Doris Troy (of “Just One Look” fame) lend vocal assists on “Night Owl.” Richard Perry (Ray Charles, Rod Stewart, Ringo, Tiny Tim) produced NO SECRETS, and Paul Buckmaster, best known for his work with Elton John, provided string and woodwind arrangements on “When You Close Your Eyes” and the choral arrangement on “Embrace Me, You Child.”
STRAIGHT SHOOTER
was the sophomore album by British hard-rockers Bad Company. Released in April
of 1975, it earned the quartet of Paul Rodgers, Mick Ralphs, Simon Kirke and Boz
Burrell its third and fourth hit singles: “Good Lovin’ Gone Bad” (penned by
guitarist Ralphs) and “Feel Like Makin’ Love” (a Ralphs co-write with
vocalist/guitarist Rodgers). The latter track was a Top 10 hit and has enjoyed
a storied pop-culture legacy, having been covered by, among others, Kid Rock,
ska-punkers Goldfinger and country singer Philip Claypool, and used on episodes
of The Simpsons and South Park. In addition to the singles, the
album contained the FM-rock-radio staples “Deal with the Preacher” and “Shooting
Star” (which Simon Kirke and Mick Ralphs have explained was inspired by the
deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison). STRAIGHT SHOOTER
climbed to No. 3 on both the U.S. and U.K. charts and was subsequently certified
for triple-Platinum status. Bad Company produced the album, which was
engineered and mixed by Ron Nevison, whose credits include The Who’s
Quadrophenia and the Rolling Stones’ It’s Only Rock ’N Roll.
Audio Fidelity, founded in 2002 by entertainment-industry executive Marshall Blonstein, specializes in deluxe reissues of classic popular-music recordings for the audiophile and collector markets. Blonstein created Audio Fidelity after departing the pioneering DCC Compact Classics audiophile label that he started in 1986, and it has since assumed a similarly prestigious perch among imprints serving the audiophile and music-collecting communities. Based in Camarillo, California-based, Audio Fidelity is best known for its 24 Karat Gold CDs and its 180-gram virgin-vinyl album editions, though it also releases compilation CDs, a variety of reissues and DVDs, such as Soupy Sales, Elvis Presley, Tim Allen and Hugh Hefner’s legendary series Playboy After Dark.
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