Brewer & Shipley
Down In L.A.

Brewer and Shipley’s first and only release for A&M has long been a Desert Island Disc in my world. I consider it one of the top debuts of all time, although it’s doubtful many will agree with me about that since I have yet to meet anyone who has ever even heard of this album, let alone felt as passionate as I do about it.

To me this is a classic of Hippie Folk Rock, along the lines of The Grateful Dead circa American Beauty, surely a touchstone for the genre. It’s overflowing with carefully-crafted (B and S apparently were obsessive perfectionists in the studio) inspired material and beautifully harmonized voices backed by (mostly) acoustic guitars. The Beatles pulled it off masterfully on Help and Rubber Soul.

All three are built on the same folk pop sensibilities. Tarkio, album number three, is clearly the duo’s masterpiece, but this record comes next in my book, followed by Weeds, their second album and first for Kama Sutra. After Tarkio it’s all downhill.

This vintage pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to "see" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- this sound.

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 Down In L.A. 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 1968
• 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.

Difficulty of Reproduction

The problem here is the sound. The recording has some of that tinny 60s pop production sound -- too much upper midrange, not enough lower midrange and a slightly aggressive quality when things get loud. Still, it’s quite a bit better than recordings by, say, The Byrds or Jefferson Airplane from the era, and I have no trouble playing and enjoying those records, so...

I can also tell you that if you have a modest system this record is just going to sound like crap. It sounded like crap for years in my system, even when I thought I had a good one. Vinyl playback has come a long way in the last five or ten years and if you’ve participated in some of the revolutionary changes that I talk about elsewhere on the site, you should hear some pretty respectable sound. Otherwise, I would pass.

On the difficulty of reproduction scale, this record scores fairly high. You need lots of tubey magic and freedom from distortion, the kind of sound I rarely hear on any but the most heavily tweaked systems. The kind of systems that guys like me have been slaving over for thirty years. If you’re a Weekend Warrior when it comes to stereo, this is not the record for you.

What We're Listening For On Down In L.A.

• 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.

The Players

The session musicians who play on this record display a level of musicianship which is sorely lacking from many recordings of the era (except of course for the albums backed by The Wrecking Crew, some of whom play here). Jim Gordon or Hal Blaine on drums play so well you can listen to this album all the way through just to hear how the drumming contributes to the feel and energy of each track.

• Vocals & Guitars: Mike Brewer-Tom Shipley
• Strings & Horns: Nick DeCaro
• Drums: Jim Gordon-Hal Blaine
• Percussion: Milt Holland-Mike Brewer-Tom Shipley
• Bass: Lyle Ritz-Jim Messina-Joe Osborn
• Electric Piano: Russell Bridges
• Organ: Russell Bridges-Mike Melvoin
• Electric Guitar & Harp: Lance Wakely

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

• Truly Right

The drumming on this first track is out of this world — it relentlessly propels this track forward, and you can thank top studio drummers for bringing this kind of energy to the song. Also the fuzzed out guitar that comes in toward the end is pure ’60s pop, exactly the kind of thing we love.

• She Thinks She’s A Woman

I love the studio chatter at the opening of this song. The transparency should be striking. When the vocals come in they should be smooth and sweet, better than the first track by a wide margin. And I love this song — it’s one of the strongest on the album.

• Time And Changes

Another one of the better sounding songs. This one has exceptionally nice bass.

• Small Town Girl

This track tends to sound thin and midrangy on even the best copies.

• I Can’t See Her

Another one of the best sounding songs. The blend of the voices is perfection on this track.

• Green Bamboo

A personal favorite. This may be the best track on the album. It’s a perfect example of what folk rock should be.

Side Two

• An Incredible State Of Affairs
• Keeper Of The Keys
• Love, Love
• Dreamin’ In The Shade
• Mass For M’Lady

This song has an organ in the arrangement, and it’s the last track on the side, and that means trouble — there’s going to be inner groove distortion, because they certainly would have a hard time cutting that kind of bass into the inner grooves in those days, and turntables had an equally hard time playing those grooves.

AMG Review

Brewer & Shipley's first album was gentle late-60s folk-rock with touches of pop and country, with Jim Messina and Leon Russell among the session support... Of all the many folkys to make a transition to electric folk-rock in the 1960s, Brewer & Shipley retained more of the wholesome, strident qualities of early-60s folk revival harmonizing than almost anyone.

It's given an up-to-date (by 1968 standards) production, though, with a full rhythm section and some light orchestration. They get a little more soulful and earthy than usual on "Time & Changes," but for the most part it's placid and breezy stuff, bridging the folk era and the mellower folk-rock to come in the early 70s. "Mass for M'Lady" is an exception to the general mood with its mournful tune and gothic, keyboard-centered arrangement, and is for that reason a standout.