Doug MacLeod - There's a Time - Reference Recordings LP

2018 Blues Music Award Nominee

Half-Speed Mastered 45rpm 180g Virgin Vinyl
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings

Reference Recordings is back in the swing of things! Creating LPs that is. 
For many years, RR has been searching the world over for the best possible vinyl mastering, plating and pressing facilities so they could re-enter the LP market. They now have a production chain that allow them to produce LPs to meet their high standards and satisfy their customers' demands, who have been waiting for these LPs for a long time!

Assembling the Team
Disc mastering is done at half-speed to insure maximum accuracy. The lathe system has custom electronics by Nelson Pass. The simple signal path contains no compression, equalization or unnecessary circuitry. RR Chief Engineer and Technical Director, "Prof." Keith Johnson consulted on the design of the system and helped with the rebuilding of the lathe and electronics, which is owned and operated by long-time mastering expert Paul Stubblebine. "Prof." Johnson has pronounced it equal to the challenge of our master tapes!

Once successful results were achieved in disc mastering, Reference Recordings faced the difficult task of choosing the best plating and pressing facility to manufacture the discs. Fortunately, the new Quality Record Pressings plant in Salina, Kansas was coming on line, and they felt that waiting for this plant to open was well worth it. A crack team of experts was assembled to design and run the plant, employing many unique techniques and features that clearly set QRP apart from all other pressing plants. The 180-gram deluxe vinyl pressings from QRP are truly exceptional.

Multiple Configurations for Reference Mastercuts
Depending on program lengths, some releases are cut at 45 rpm, some at 33-1/3 rpm. Some are single discs, some double. All feature deluxe gate-fold jackets crafted by Stoughton Printing . An unusual feature of new RR masterings is called the "FDS finish": the end of each side will have a 30-second band of silent grooves before the "pull-away." No one today uses a record changer, and the silent grooves allow time to lift the arm before the always-somewhat-noisy tie-off. (Some 1950s vintage Capitol Full Dimensional Sound pressings sported this feature.) RR founder, J. Tamblyn (Tam) Henderson deserves special recognition for identifying the value of this unique production feature and reintroducing it with the new Mastercuts.

Note: Half-speed Mastering involves a capturing process in which the original recording master is played back at exactly half of the recorded speed. A sequenced cutting lathe is then timed at exactly half of the playback speed. This process allows twice as much time to carve a groove that accurately represents the sound on the master tape. Half-speed mastering allows for cleaner reproduction and also permits extended high frequency response, extending into the ultrasonic region.

'Prof.' Keith Johnson's First Blues Recording! 13 new MacLeod originals highlight this richly detailed recording, done at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, CA. by Reference Recording's Grammy® winning engineer.

Produced by Doug MacLeod and Janice Mancuso the 13 tracks on "There's A Time" showcase his soulful vocals and trademark guitar sound backed by Denny Croy on bass and Jimi Bott, one of the most recorded, awarded and respected blues drummers in the world.

Doug says: "Making this album was different than any other one I've done in the past," recalls MacLeod about the sessions. "They put Jimi, Denny and me on this huge soundstage at Skywalker Sound in Marin County and we sat around in a circle where we could see each other. We played live, no overdubs, just three guys playing some music together."

"Simply put, Jimi and Denny are two of the finest musicians I have ever had the pleasure to make music with. I've been known to change arrangements on the spot: add a bar here, take away a bar there. I go with the feeling of the moment. Both Jimi and Denny have this uncanny ability to follow that - even under what could have been pressure circumstances for other musicians."

A perennial Blues Music Award nominee, MacLeod has been nominated for Acoustic Artist of the Year. (Drummer Jimi Bott is also a BMA nominee).

Doug is a throwback musicians in the great tradition of the traveling bluesman from the genre's classic era, having apprenticed with some of the best as a sideman with such legends as Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Big Mama Thornton and George "Harmonica" Smith. During that time, he developed his unique, unorthodox and powerfully rhythmic acoustic guitar style, which he puts to great use on "There's A Time" playing on a variety of guitars with such pet names as "Moon" (a National M-1 Tricone), "Little Bit (a Gibson C-100 FE) and "Owl" (a National Style "O"), plus a National El Trovador 12-String.

The other element of Doug's style is his remarkable ability as a storyteller, another trademark of the classic itinerant blues musician. Listening to the songs on There's A Time is like attending a master class on storytelling, as MacLeod weaves tales that are visceral, insightful and often humorous.

Like the old masters who taught him, MacLeod's songs are based primarily on his own life and experiences, instilled with the spirit one particular influential bluesman once told him: "Never play a note you don't believe, and never write or sing about what you don't know".

In a career that spans over 30 years, Doug's songs have been covered by such artists as Albert King, Albert Collins, Joe Louis walker, and Eva Cassidy. Two of his songs were on Grammy-nominated albums by King and Collins. He's co-written tunes with Dave Alvin and Coco Montoya, and his songs have been featured in many TV movies, as well as the hit TV series "In The Heat of the Night".

Selections:
LP1 - Side 1:
1. Rosa Lee
2. Black Nights
3. The Up Song
LP1 - Side 2:
1. Ghost
2. My Inlaws Are Outlaws
3. The Entitled Few
LP2 - Side 3:
1. A Ticket Out
2. Run With The Devil
3. St. Elmo's Rooms and Pool
4. I'll Be Walking On
LP2 - Side 4:
1. East Carolina Woman
2. The Night of The Devil's Road
3. Dubb's Talking Religion Blues

Recorded May 23-24, 2012 at Skywalker Sound, Martin County, California.
Recording & Mastering Engineer: Keith O. Johnson