A Stranger In Town

Album: Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul, ABC/Paramount 465, August 1963.

Recorded on 10 and 13 July 1963 in New York.

Oliver Beener, Wallace Davenport, Phil Guilbeau, John Hunt, Roy Burrows, Floyd Jones, Curtis Miller – trumpets; Henderson Chambers, James Lee Harbert, Keg Johnson, Julian Priester, Fred Morden – trombones; Hank Crawford, Bill Pearson, Harold Minerve, Dan Turner – alto saxophones; James Clay, David Fathead Newman – tenor saxophones; Leroy Cooper – baritone saxophone; Al Hendrickson, Sonny Forriest – guitar; Joe Comfort, Edgar Willis – bass; Irving Cottler, Wilbert Hogan, Bob Thompson – drums; uncredited strings; The Jack Halloran Singers – backing vocals.

Arranged by Sid Feller.

The album was “mixed twice”, Steve Hoffman revealed. “The ‘official’ mix is actually a pointless remix done at Bell Sound about a month after the album was recorded. That is what was used for the [DCC] silver version. The DCC gold version used the original Capitol, NY mixes. Much better sound, dynamics and overall bitchin-ness.” Elsewhere, Hoffman remarked: “In this case, both the United original stereo mixes and the Capitol stereo original mixes existed in the 1980’s and for the DCC versions I got to pick which versions I wanted to use on the various albums I did. The original mixes were later ash-canned by Ray, sad to say so I think the DCC Gold CD is the only place to hear the actual Capitol and United mixes. The ‘album master’, far inferior (IMO) has been used for everything since. It sounds like someone threw a distorted blanket over everything. Bummer. Why Bell Sound thought that was a good sound, dunno but I believe they were acting under orders from ABC-Paramount to make stuff sound less aggressive and more tame and that’s why Bell did what they did.”

Update 24.01.2021: the video of this performance is no longer available on YouTube, please let me know in the comments below if you have any footage, thanks — Cyd