BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

Bob Walters’ Desert Island Disks

This is the music that has moved me, in the order that it comes to mind:

• The Blue Coast Collection – Emblematic of the best in acoustical recordings.
• Joni Mitchell: Court & Spark – Who wouldn’t want to be a free man in Paris, unfettered and alive?
• Simon & Garfunkel: Bookends – “America” indeed. Balladeers extraordinaire, smoother than Dylan/Joplin but just as poetic.
• Beatles: White Album – Any one of the Fab Four’s disks would probably do.
• Rodrigo y Gabriela: Rodrigo y Gabriela – Unreal guitar-playing duo. Classically-trained but rockers-at-heart. I’ll let this ‘Stairway’ substitute for ‘Zozo.’
• Concert for Bangladesh – George Harrison and friends (Bob Dylan, et.al.) get together and jam. Dylan is extraordinary.
• Dave Matthews Band: Under the Table and Dreamin’ – I just can’t get enough of this when the mood strikes me. Masterful.
• Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run – The Phil Spector “wall of sound,” revived and modernized. Reminds me of all the summers I spent on the ‘Jersey shore!
• Music@Menlo: The ‘Live’ Disks – I’ve never heard better classical chamber music recordings, 20 or so CD’s made right in our own back yard.
• Shine (Soundtrack) – Piano at its best, from a decent Chopin ‘Polonais’ (my fav piano piece) to the dreaded ‘Rach 3′! Great recording.
• Kendra Shank: Afterglow – One of the many fine Mapleshade CD’s (their ‘Ballads’ compilation is really nice). Kendra’s powerful, resonant voice is both awesome to behold and a great system test.
• Patty Larkin: Regrooving the Dream – Great songs and singing, and a sonic showcase disk for any system. Well engineered.
• Yuri Honing Trio: Alive – How does he do this stuff?
• Counting Crows: August and Everything After – ‘Mr. Jones’ is seminal song-writing and a statement piece for this East Bay group.
• Jennifer Warnes: Famous Blue Raincoat – ‘The Hunter’ may be the current audiophile choice, but it all started for me with ‘Raincoat.’ The Joan of Arc piece is particularly cool (not)!
• David Bowie: Heathen - For me, the pinnacle of a genius’ career (so far).
• Erik Truffaz: The Mask – Sophisticated Jazz fusion recorded superbly. Top notch in both art and engineering.
• Michael Wolf: Intoxicate – Raw, biting jazz captured expertly. ‘Bells’ will show off your system (or not) and then reverb in your head for hours. Stunning.
• Miles Davis: In a Silent Way – As ‘new age’ as masterful Miles goes. Intoxicating genius.
• Dead Can Dance: Into the Labyrinth – Oregon with edge and darkness? For me, their best.
• Traffic: Low Spark of High Heeled Boys – As close to jazz as I came as a teen. Great disk.
• Beck: Sea Change – Can you tell that I like it when artists stretch to “something new”?
• Henryk Gorecki: Symphony #3 (London Sinfonietta) – I love this disk. Simple themes build from silence, and become an emersive sonic feast. Very cool.
• Sidsel Endresen: Undertow – Scandinavian siren with a hypnotic delivery. Sophisticated and alluring. And another good system test.
• Vanilla Sky (Soundtrack) – From REM to The Monkeys, something for everybody on this well-produced disk. Title cut by McCartney.

I’ll quit now, after leaving off so much – from Rilo Kiley to Three Blind Mice to Yes!  <g>

If interested, you should have no problem finding these via Amazon (most of them) or Google (the rest).

And let me make special mention of the ‘Oritek Sampler Disk’ – special it certainly is! (You’ve heard much of it at our events….)