Various Artists – The Wonderful Sound Of Female Vocals (2018) [Analogue Productions] SACD ISO + FLAC 24bit/96kHz

Female vocalists have forever been celebrated by audiophiles and music lovers alike. Whether the delivery is delicate or bombastic, a great female vocal well-recorded is just so sensuous. It’s the genre that most often typifies the potential of hi-fi and what it can do to engage our emotions. It’s no wonder the hallways of any hi-fi show will be resonating with the sounds of sparsely-arranged recordings of great women singers. It’s the genre that best shows off the systems that manufacturers and dealers are trying to sell. Now, you can have all of those best demo tracks on one album. Show stoppers by Julie London, Diana Krall, Rickie Lee Jones, Nina Simone, Janis Ian, Phoebe Snow, Jennifer Warnes, Dusty Springfield, Shelby Lynne and many more. Every single track is an audiophile demo classic.

I wrote this compilation’s liner notes and created the 22 song track order. Chad Kassem selected the female artists and the individual tracks sourced from albums he’d previously licensed and released on vinyl, SACD and high resolution download (maybe even R2R tape). The concept was simple enough: a collection of well-recorded female vocalists revered by audio enthusiasts as well as by music lovers in general. Since Kassem’s licensing choices hit sonic and musical bullseyes, all were guaranteed to sound good. But since they weren’t selected mindful of any particular concept, ordering them into a coherent “story” was the difficult if not impossible task I faced.

The sources all were high-resolution files, some DSD, some PCM, depending upon what Kassem was originally given in the digital domain, or in most cases what Gus Skinas produced in DSD using the original analog tapes. Anyone thinking why wasn’t this cut from tape is either insane or ignorant. Cutting from tape would have necessitated getting the originals, which would be both costly and time consuming (if at all still possible), and making a copy from the master of each song and then splicing them all together. This is a great sampler! (there I go again). Easy to recommend for the music and the consistently fine sound. And yes, the album title sounds like either Reader’s Digest lives or something hatched by Time-Life in the 1970s!
– Michael Fremer, analogplanet-com

Tracklist

DISC ONE:
01. Julie London – Cry Me A River
02. Ella Fitzgerald – Black Coffee
03. Phoebe Snow – [The Wonderful Sounds Of Female Vocals CD1 #03] Poetry Man
04. Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man
05. Shelby Lynne – Just A Little Lovin’
06. Rickie Lee Jones – Show Biz Kids
07. Patsy Cline – Crazy
08. Holly Cole – Tennessee Waltz
09. Janis Ian – Breaking Silence
10. Myra Taylor – Hey There
11. Patricia Barber – What a Shame
12. Nina Simone – Plain Gold Ring

DISC TWO:
01. Rickie Lee Jones – The Moon Is Made Of Gold
02. Julie London – Blue Moon
03. Nancy Bryan – Blame It on the Moon
04. Joan Baez – Diamonds and Rust
05. Joan Armatrading – Somebody Who Loves You
06. Judy Collins – Send In the Clowns
07. Jennifer Warnes – Ballad Of The Runaway Horse
08. Diana Krall – A Case of You
09. Dusty Springfield – The Look of Love
10. Joan Baez – Brothers In Arms

Mastered for this SACD by Kevin Grey.
Analogue Productions # CAPP 122 SA Stereo.

SACD ISO

mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018APSACDIS.part1.rar
mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018APSACDIS.part2.rar
mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018APSACDIS.part3.rar
mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018APSACDIS.part4.rar

FLAC 24bit/96kHz

mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018FLAC2496.part1.rar
mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018FLAC2496.part2.rar
mqs.link_VATheWnderfulSundfFemaleVcals2018FLAC2496.part3.rar