Matt Monro Forum

Heard Matt's ad for Harvey's early this morning.

Yes, heard it alot over the Christmas period Lena and Harry.

So did we, much too much talking over Matt's singing though.
Marian

Yes, that's what we said too Marian, and just about distinguished Matt's voice.

I noticed that the twofer of This Is The Life and Here's To My Lady was nowhere to be found in the London record stores. Probably people bought it from hearing it in the Harvey's advert.

Perhaps it's time for EMI to reissue this twofer or release a new This Is The Life compilation with a cover of Matt Monro sitting on stylish living room furniture.

Hi Paul.
I had to order my copy (some time ago) form the net as it wasn't available in any of my local stores.
If it was ever to happen, I think Robert had asked for the reissue to be in stereo if possible - wouldn't that be great!

You'd have to persuade EMI to get the Stereo tapes from Capitol in the USA as the only tapes in the UK archives are mono.

It's one of my ambitions to get as much material that exists in stereo released that way.

Unlike some acts who's recordings were not designed to be released in stereo Matt's were from the very earliest sessions recorded in full stereo and as such should be released that way.

Richard

Richard

Once again, what a fascinating nugget that is regarding Matt's recordings being pretty much stereo from the very beginning.
That only heightens my frustration that This Is The Life / Here's To My Lady wasn't released as it was meant to be released.

That is as bad as filming West Side Story in 70mm but presenting it in Pan & Scan.

What a shame!

Yes, apart from Matt's first two Parlophone sessions (not counting fred flange) all Matt's recordings were recorded with stereo in mind - Not all exist in the archives that way - for instance four of the Six 'Songs for Europe', One Day Soon, Yours Alone and The Music Played and a couple of others only now exist in Mono - the session tapes for these songs no longer exist and so will remain that way.

Interestingly the earliest sessions were recorded in Stereo and Mono at the same time on two different machines and most of the stereo session tapes survive - The exception being When Love Comes along where the complete session exists but in Mono only. When multi track recording began in around 1963 Matt's orchestral tracks were recorded in stereo and his vocal on a third track - occasionally there would be overdubs to a forth track but this wouldn't happen often.

There is the odd exception but i'll leave that for the book!

Richard

I am sure that I have a stereo version [copy]. of "This is my Life/Here's to my Lady"--It was sent to me by a friend overseas, who asssured me that stereo was the only way to listen to it--and I only had the Mono version

Were there stereo versions issued that were only available overseas??

The stereo version has never been released on CD. Perhaps the copy you have is from vinyl or even Reel to Reel tape.

Richard

I think the most likely possibility is vinyl.

I have both albums on vinyl and both state they are in stereo, in fact "Capitol's new full dimensional stereo"!
Marian

The album was released in bot mono and stereo certainly in the usa - perhaps the stereo was never released over here and this is why EMI only have a mono tape. As it was a capitol recording it's hard for me to say how you would tell what was pressed in the uk and what was pressed in the USA.

Odd!

Both my copies were bought from the U.S.
Marian