Emmylou Harris Roses in the Snow and a Rant about the Loudness War
Emmylou Harris, Roses in the Snow, Warner Brothers Records, 1980. Ricky Skaggs, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Linda Rondstadt and Dolly Parton all play on here. Pretty impressive supporting cast if you ask me. The record sleeve is in really good shape. I don’t know why, but I really dig record sleeves. You’ll probably see plenty in the days to come.
Roses in the Snow has one of my all-time favorite songs, “Wayfaring Stranger.” After hearing Maria McKee sing it on the Letterman show, I can’t get enough of it.
This is a good place to go on a rant about “loudness wars.” Maria McKee literally (meaning “in actual fact,”) knocked me back on my seat when I heard her sing “Wayfaring Stranger” on Letterman. (I was standing and when she started singing I fell back on the sofa.) I couldn’t wait to find the CD Songcather (Which was rather hard to find actually). When I got it, McKee’s song sounded distorted. I didn’t know why, but I was pretty disappointed; none of the other songs seem to have this problem. I was glad I taped it off Letterman so I can still hear it somewhat clear. Years later I discover that sound engineers are ruining music by record too loud, or compressing the signals so the digital signals “clip” and the music loses the highs and lows. Another reason to buy albums people. With vinyl if they compress the music too much the needle (literally) pops out of the groove, so the sound really is better on vinyl! Besides you can buy albums for $.025 to $1.00 so it’s a lot cheaper than CDs.
