Winter Song - early 1970's home demo

Ken Middleton

Ken Middleton

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Here's a recording I made over 35 years ago. I rescued it recently after finding it on an old cassette tape.

I used Fender Rhodes electric piano, Rickenbacker bass and an acoustic guitar.

Originally recorded on a Tanberg reel-to-reel tape machine with the tracks bounced multiple times. In glorious mono. No reahearsals or re-recording. It was a matter of getting each track in the first take (and get the levels right) or else.

My voice sounds really young - that's 'cause it was.


 
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Ken, this is awesome!
 
Ken Middleton said:
Thanks Seeso. I was young and had no fear in those days.

I have quite a few more ancient recordings on this YT channel. I will post more of them soon.
Click to expand...

Right on, man. This stuff is great.
 
Aloha Ken,
How cool, that's really nice....If you didn't say, I would have never guessed it was you...nice to hear you continued with your music through-out hte years..and made it to ukulele....nice Voice of your younger
days...I like the video, wow it nice where you live..ritzy neighborhood eh...beautiful...I always look forward to your videos and music...Happy Strummings and a Happy Holidays to you and your family!! MM Stan
Thanks for sharing...reel to reel ..wow I remember mine was an Akai....I still have an old Panasonic..:)
 
mm stan said:
Aloha Ken,
How cool, that's really nice....If you didn't say, I would have never guessed it was you...nice to hear you continued with your music through-out hte years..and made it to ukulele....nice Voice of your younger
days...I like the video, wow it nice where you live..ritzy neighborhood eh...beautiful...I always look forward to your videos and music...Happy Strummings and a Happy Holidays to you and your family!! MM Stan
Thanks for sharing...reel to reel ..wow I remember mine was an Akai....I still have an old Panasonic..:)
Click to expand...

Thanks Stan. The house across the road is ritzy. Mine is just old.
 
Nice Ken, nicely written and beautifully sung by some guy with a sweet voice:)
DAP
 
Great Ken ! Did you have to restore the cassette tape? Sounds really good.
That brought back memories. We used to mess with a "Do-corder" (?) 4 channel 1/4" reel to reel machine. You could only record in one direction.
Bill
 
The 70's were 35 years ago!!! Holy crap I am getting old. Lovely song and video. You do have a nice voice. But 35 years ago? Where did the time go.

Roxhum
 
That was nice. It reminded me a bit (if I may say so) of the very earliest Genesis stuff... their very first recordings, sort of the genesis of Genesis, lol.
 
roxhum said:
The 70's were 35 years ago!!! Holy crap I am getting old. Lovely song and video. You do have a nice voice. But 35 years ago? Where did the time go.

Roxhum
Click to expand...

Well, remember... the END of the '70s was only THIRTY years ago, so it's not so bad really. On a semi-related side note, I have sort of a reputation at my workplace for being some sort of flaming liberal (I'm NOT, particularly, except by comparison with my co-workers), and periodically my coworkers make some snide remark about my experiences during the '60s. I then point out that I was 5 years old when the '60s ended, so the only mind-altering substances I ever experimented with were the orange-flavored children's aspirin and the Flintstones vitamins. Man, those Purple Bam-Bams were WILD!
 
KamakOzzie said:
Great Ken ! Did you have to restore the cassette tape? Sounds really good.
That brought back memories. We used to mess with a "Do-corder" (?) 4 channel 1/4" reel to reel machine. You could only record in one direction.
Bill
Click to expand...

Thanks. By today's standards, the sound quality was very poor to begin with. It was put onto one of the earliest casette tapes and that was not in good condition after 30 years. I imported it into Audacity and cleaned it up as best I could.

My recording machine was a good quality hi-fi stereo tape. But it had separate record and playback heads so I could play one channel back while I was recording onto the other. You then play that channel back while you record onto the first. The sound quality detereorates each time. Also, each recording has to be right before you can move on.
 
Chris Tarman said:
That was nice. It reminded me a bit (if I may say so) of the very earliest Genesis stuff... their very first recordings, sort of the genesis of Genesis, lol.
Click to expand...

One of my favourite bands. They could afford a lot of expensive equipment though. And they were more talented.

roxhum said:
The 70's were 35 years ago!!! Holy crap I am getting old. Lovely song and video. You do have a nice voice. But 35 years ago? Where did the time go.

Roxhum
Click to expand...

Time flew. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder just how I got this old.
 
Chris Tarman said:
Well, remember... the END of the '70s was only THIRTY years ago, so it's not so bad really. On a semi-related side note, I have sort of a reputation at my workplace for being some sort of flaming liberal (I'm NOT, particularly, except by comparison with my co-workers), and periodically my coworkers make some snide remark about my experiences during the '60s. I then point out that I was 5 years old when the '60s ended, so the only mind-altering substances I ever experimented with were the orange-flavored children's aspirin and the Flintstones vitamins. Man, those Purple Bam-Bams were WILD!
Click to expand...

I think this was recorded around 1972. I put it onto cassette sometime later. I think I may weel have the original tapes somewhere. Unfortunately, I have nothing to play them on.

I was 18 at the end of the '60s. I remember them well. My memory is that it was not as colourful as most people imagine. Life in general was black and white. No comment about mind-altering substances.
 
We did "sound on sound" on a 2 head stereo reel to reel - I wish I had copies of some of that. It was fun.
I still have stuff from the 80's - you made me think we should have a thread of nostalgic old demo tapes...
 
That reminds me. I loaned my Akai 4000 Reel to reel to my brother about 25 years ago. Must get him to return it.

Smashing song and performance, Ken. Very 70's feel to it. Brilliant.
 
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