Acadia Records
2004
San Francisco 1969
About This Album
The Charlatans album San Francisco 1969 (originally known simply as The Charlatans) has had all kinds of incarnations -- the ultrarare original Philips Records LP from 1969, the illegal Groucho Records LP from Italy in the late '70s, the equally dubious French reissue on the Eva label from the 1980s, and a CD mastered off of vinyl, from the early '90s. And then there's this CD, from England's Acadia label, licensed from Universal Music and mastered from the original tapes. One can hear the difference in the closer singing and playing on "High Coin," and even better on "Folsom Prison Blues," where you can almost hear the action on the lead guitar, or on "The Blues Ain't Nothin'," where Mike Wilhelm's voice seems like it's in the room with you, and it's possible to hear the woodwinds all spread out instead of compressed and muted, and the lead guitar without any distortion in the playback (the sound on the older CD tended to crack and rumble on the louder passages), and the ethereal harmonizing and flute accompaniment on "Time To Get Straight," now in smooth, elegant textures. The notes by San Francisco music scholar Gene Sculatti give the clearest picture yet of the band's rather complex history.
Track List (try tracks 1,2 and 5)

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