Long post about a recording less than 3 minutes long; I copied this from a 2010 post I made on another forum.


My favorite song recording is:

1. "Cry To Me" Solomon Burke 1962 (or 1965???)

I love, love, love this recording!

Doesn't ring a bell, right? It was featured in the 1987 movie "Dirty Dancing". "Cry To Me" is playing when Baby goes up to Johnny's room at night and they are, ahem, dirty dancing. Kind of a latin thing going on in a an R&B record.

In the movie they needed to make the track longer for the scene, so they dupped one of the verses. But the scene changes and they fade out, cutting off the real end of the record, and that is absolutely the BEST part. (Solomon Burke starts riffing, almost scat singing against a fantastic background group.)

During the 1970's or early 1980's I bought a vinyl album called "History of Rhythm and Blues, Volume 5" on Atlantic Records. Green cover. That's where I fell in love with "Cry To Me". Somewhere in the 1980's and again in the early 1990's I made car tapes of my favorite recordings. "Cry To Me" was one my last adds to the first tape. It was the first add to my second tape.



"Cry To Me" is on the second soundtrack album from the movie, called "More Dirty Dancing". "Cry To Me" doesn't sound right. From memory, it seems slower, more muddy. It doesn't snap. There isn't the near syncopation that I remember. I didn't notice this when I watched the movie. (I don't have the movie DVD.)

Then in 1998, Rhino (a great reissue label) puts out the CD "The Very Best Of Solomon Burke". Man, am I stoked! Now I've got a proper CD recording of my favorite!

And the insert says "Atlantic single #45-2131. Issued Janurary 1962. Yippee!

Only one problem. It's not the version that I love. It seems slower. It is cleaner to me ears, but the mix is different, for sure. Where are the background singers? Way down in the mix, that's where. Where's the groove?

Then I see the note. It's from Bill Inglot, who has a fantastic reputation. He explains that many of Solomon Burke's recordings were remixed or even re-recorded for his 1965 Atlantic "Greatest Hits" album. Rhino, he proudly says, has given you the original mono single mixes.

Normally, I would agree with him. But did anyone actually listen to those album mixes? How about offering both?

In desperation, I look around, and buy the 1991 Curb CD "Best Of Solomon Burke". (Curb is a budget re-issue label, usually giving fewer tracks at a reduced price. But in my experience, they are quite good about providing the "Original Recordings".) The words "Original Recordings" are plastered across the front of this CD.

The length (often an indicator of a re-recorded track) of the 3 tracks is within 2 seconds of each other.

Got it! Track 2! This is it! It's snappy, it's got the groove! The Curb (stereo) version of "Cry To Me" is not as clean as Rhino's mono version. But "Cry To Me" is not a high fidelity recording. It's just not.

I listened to these 3 versions back to back to back. Honestly, it drove me crazy. (I still remember this.) Finally I put all 3 in WaveLab to examine. (The first thing I did was fix the peak amplitude of each so they were very close to each other in perceived loudness.)

"More Dirty Dancing" is "mono", but the 2 channels didn't look identical.(!!!) The Rhino mono (single) version has 2 channels that looked absolutely identical. (Probably why it sounded cleaner to me). It didn't surprise me because Rhino is a good label. Despite the channel problems (mud) in the "More Dirty Dancing" version, I confirmed visually that these 2 versions were the same (wrong) version.

The Curb "Cry To Me" sounded so different that I thought it was a re-recording. WaveLab convinced me that it's not. The Curb "Cry To Me" is a stereo Atlantic mix. Somewhere in the Atlantic mixing / mastering chain there was a tape recorder running approximately 2.5% fast!

That 2.5% increase explains the higher pitch. In the original single mix, the entire rhythm section seems to be dragging. In the stereo mix there is the most wonderful groove (almost a syncopation). I believe THAT is what those players heard in the recording session, and was why they played the way they did!

The slower mono version fades out more quickly than the faster stereo version; this is why the 2 versions are within a couple of seconds of each other.





If someone had told me this story, describing what turned out to be fairly small differences in mixing and / or mastering, and then a HUGE difference in the recordings' emotional impact, I'm don't think I would have believed him.

Before. Now I would.

I've asked myself many times if this involved CD search is the real reason I rate "Cry To Me (stereo)" so highly. I don't think so. I listened again to all three CD recordings before writing this.

Again today, discerning the actual differences with my ears drove me crazy. But the Curb stereo version of "Cry To Me" has 100 times the emotional impact (for me) of the original single! It's like it's a different record!


Solomon Burke has 21 children!

"Cry To Me" (stereo) is that kind of record.