Peter, Paul and Mary
In the Wind

*NOTE: This record was not noisy enough to rate our M-- to EX++ grade, but it's not quite up to our standards for Mint Minus Minus either. If you're looking for quiet vinyl, this is probably not the best copy for you.

Warners pressings are all over the map. When you find a good one, you can be pretty sure it’s the exception, not the rule. That’s been our experience anyway. This copy gives you more life and energy than others by a long shot. The highs are extended and silky sweet and the bass is tight and punchy.

This original Gold Label stereo LP also has the Midrange Magic that’s no doubt missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the 60+ year old tapes. As good as that pressing may be, we guarantee that this one is dramatically more real sounding. It gives you the sense that Peter, Paul and Mary are right in the room with you.

They’re no longer a recording -- they’re living, breathing people. We call that "the breath of life," and this record has it in spades. Their voices are so rich, sweet, and free of any artificiality, you immediately find yourself lost in the music, because there’s no "sound" to distract you.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides Of In the Wind Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1963
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Shootout Criteria

What are sonic qualities by which a record -- any record -- should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, vocal presence, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, spaciousness, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, three-dimensionality, and on and on down the list.

When we can get a number of these qualities to come together on the side we’re playing, we provisionally give it a ballpark Hot Stamper grade, a grade that is often revised during the shootout as we hear what the other copies are doing, both good and bad.

Once we’ve been through all the side ones, we play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Other copies from earlier in the shootout will frequently have their grades raised or lowered based on how they sounded compared to the eventual shootout winner. If we’re not sure about any pressing, perhaps because we played it early on in the shootout before we had learned what to listen for, we take the time to play it again.

Repeat the process for side two and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides of each pressing match up.

It may not be rocket science, but it’s a science of a kind, one with strict protocols that we’ve developed over the course of many years to insure that the results we arrive at are as accurate as we can make them.

The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing -- or your money back.

What We're Listening For On In the Wind

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren't "back there" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
• The Big Sound comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

TAS List

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS list of super discs. Being on the TAS list doesn’t guarantee great sound, but Better Records does. If you don’t think a record sounds as good as we’ve described, we’ll always happily take it back and refund your money. Good luck getting ol’ Harry to send you a check when the TAS-approved pressings you pick up don’t deliver.

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)

Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.

If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.

Side One

• Very Last Day
• Hush-A-Bye
• Long Chain On
• Rocky Road
• Tell It on the Mountain
• Polly Von

Side Two

• Stewball
• All My Trials
• Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
• Freight Train
• Quit Your Low Down Ways
• Blowin’ in the Wind

AMG Review

Their third recording was one of the group’s stronger outings… In particular, this record was essential to boosting the profile of Bob Dylan, including their huge hit cover of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” their Top Ten version of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and the bluesy “Quit Your Lowdown Ways,” which Dylan himself would not release in the ’60s (although his version finally came out on The Bootleg Series).

“Stewball,” “All My Trials,” and “Tell It on the Mountain” were other highlights of their early repertoire, and the dramatic, strident, but inspirational “Very Last Day” is one of the best original tunes the group ever did.

Liner Notes by Bob Dylan

Snow was piled up the stairs an onto the street that first
winter when I laid around New York City
It was a different street then-
It was a different village-
Nobody had nothin-
There was nothin t get-
Instead a bein drawn for money you were drawn
for other people-
Everybody used t hang around a heat pipe poundin subterranean
coffee house called the Gaslight-
It was at that time buried beneath the middle a MacDougal Street-
It was a strange place an not out a any schoolbook-
More’n seven nites a week the cops and firemen’d storm down the
steps handin’ out summons for trumped up reasons-
More’n five nites a week out a town bullies’d start trouble an
everybody from John the owner t Dave the cook t Rod the cash
register ringer t Adele the waitress t anybody who was on the
stage t just plain friends who were hangin around would have
t come up swingin dishes an handles an brooms an chairs an
sometimes even swords ‘at hung on the wall in order t match
the bullies’ weight an the bullies was always big bullies-
Everybody that hung out at the Gaslight was close-
Yuh had t be-
In order t keep from going insane and in order t survive-
An it can’t be denied-
It was a hangout-
But not like the street corner-
Down there we weren’t standin lookin out at the world watchin
girls-and findin out how they walk-
We was lookin at each other … and findin out about ourselves-
It is ‘f these times that I remember most sadly-
For they’re gone-
An they’ll not never come again-
It is ‘f these times I think about now-
I think back t one a them nites when the doors was locked
an maybe thirty or forty people sat as close t the stage as
they could-
It was another nite past one o’clock an that meant that the
tourists on the street coundn’t get in-
At these hours there was no tellin what was bound t happen-
Never never could the greatest prophesizor ever guess it-
There was not such a thing as an audience-
There was not such a thing as performers-
Everybody did somethin-
An had something t say about somethin-
I remember Hugh who wore different kinda clothes then but
still shouted an tongue twisted flowin lines a poetry
that anybody who could be struck by the sounds ‘f a rock
hittin a brick wall could understand-
I remember Luke playin his banjo and singin “East Virginia”
with a tone as soft as the snow outside an “Mr. Garfield”
with a bitin touch as hard as the stovepipe on the inside-
An Dave singin “House a the Risin Sun” with his back leaned
against the bricks an words runnin out in a lonesome
hungry growlin whisper that any girl with her face hid in the
dark could understand-
Paul then was a guitar player singer comedian-
But not the funny ha ha kind-
His funnyness could only be defined an described by the word
“hip” or “hyp”-
A combination a Charlie Chaplin Jonathan Winters and Peter Lorre-
Maybe it was that nite that somebody flicked a piece a card-
board in fron a the tiny spotlight an he made quick jerky
movements on the stage and everybody’s eyes was seein first
hand a silent movie for real-
The bearded villan ‘f an out a print picture-
There aint room enuff on thepaper t tell about everybody
that was there an exactly what they did-
Every nite was a true high degree novel-
Anyway it was one a these nites when Paul said
“Yuh gotta now hear me an Peter an Mary sing”
Mary’s hair was down almost t her waist then-
An Peter’s beard was only about half grown-
An the Gaslight stage was smaller
An the song they sung was younger-
But the walls shook
An everybody smiled-
An everybody felt good-
An down there approval didn’t come with the clappin a hands
at the end ‘f the song-
It came burstin out anytime any way it felt like
burstin out-
An they were approved-
By the people watchin ‘m and by ‘mselves-
Which really was one-
An that’s where the beginnin was at-
Inside them walls ‘f a subterranean world-
But it’s a concrete kind a beginnin-
It’s concrete cause it’s close-
An that feelin aint t be forgotten-
Yuh carry it with yuh-
It’s a feelin that’s born an not bought
An it can’t be taught-
An by livin with it yuh learn t see and know it in other
people-
T sing an speak as one yuh gotta think as one-
An yuh gotta believe as one-
An yuh gotta feel as one-
An Peter an Paul and Mary’re now carryin the feelin
that was inside them walls up the steps t the whole
outside world-

The rooster never crowed on MacDougal Street-
There was no dew on the grass an the sun never came shinin
over the mountain-
There was nothin t tell yuh it was morning cept the
pins and needles feelin in yer arms an legs from stayin
up all nite-
But all ‘f us find our way a knowing when it’s mornin-
An once yuh know the feelin it don’t change-
It can only grow-
For Peter’s grown
An Paul’s grown
An Mary’s grown
An the times’ve grown