Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132090 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2006-01-31
• Running time: 2986 seconds

Customer Reviews

Technically Flawed CD
Legacy did a very poor job of transferring a very good original tape recording to CD. It actually sounds like they used a duplicate tape intended for a 33-1/3 record pressing instead of the original master tape recordings.

The audio equalization is so bad the mighty Wurlitzer organ screeches and grates on the ear. George Wright's Banda CD remasters are far, far, better. Legacy needs to redo this recording and volume two as well.

Bill Wood

George's test tapes
This CD is a compilation of two tracks from George's first album for the HiFi label back in the mid 50's along with other material which was probably recorded at different times and later released, along with other selections, on two HiFi Life series LP's - "Sweet and Low" and "Tibia & Vox."

Except for "Stars and Stripes Forever," "Boogie" (a George Wright original composition) and "Under the Double Eagle" (a cut from a later HiFi release which was misidentified as "Washington Post March" on the original LP), none of the other material was ever intended for release. A friend of George's explained it to me this way many years ago, "Those are all rejects - every one of them. It's some stuff that he just did." Basement tapes, in other words. Some of it appears to have been test material to see how the organ would record, others tracks appear to be outtakes from material which was later released ("All Through the Night," for example, another version of which was released under the title "Evening Hymn" for the "Hymns That Live" album, most of which is available on another Legacy CD).

This CD is definitely worth having if you are a big George Wright fan, as I am. It is currently the only CD compilation of the "outtake" material available. It is worth noting, however, that the two opening tracks and the last track are now available on Banda CDs, and the sound is much better since Banda used the original master tapes rather than the tapes used to master the LP's, as Legacy apparently has.

One additional note: on all the tracks, the organ is a 5-manual 21-rank Wurlitzer originally built for and installed in the Paradise Theatre in Chicago and at the time of this recording was installed in the basement studio of Richard Vaughn, the founder of High Fidelity Recordings, Inc., the label for which these tracks were originally recorded.

Dissapointing
The first two selections are good. The rest are really bland. The capabilities of the organ are not exploited. Definitely does not justify the "mighty" in the title.