Candidates for Re-mastering?


What would be your recommendations for great music, but not the greatest sound quality recordings (at least what is commercially available)...and thus would be at the top of your lists as candidates for re-mastering, or finding the orginal tapes to be reissued, SACD re-issues etc etc? The 'to die for" lists in stereophile and audiogon don't take this into account. Digital formats only.

Here are few of mine to get things started.
Beatles: Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper, Rubber Soul (if ABKO can do it for the Rolling Stones, can someone else do it for the Beatles, please!)
Weather Report: Heavy Weather: SACD available but done poorly in my opinion.
Led Zep IV
all of James Brown (especially Funk Power!) and Sly Stone recordings
henryhk
Henry,
Mahavishnu Orch. was remastered in very good sound about 4-5 years ago. This includes Inner, Birds of Fire, and The Lost Trident Sessions. Check out this last one and the story behind it. These are the 20 bit Sony remasters and all sound gobs better than original CDs.
thanx for the redtrumpet tip Tomryan. Will check it out. Here is another one; Mahavishnu Orchestra. The CDs of Innermounting Flames etc sound like garbage: especially for thei stype of music where there is so much going on, it really needs instruments being separated occupying their own space: The CDs mid range is all grunge, metallic and hard to follow the bass for example. I used to have their LPs, but no longer have such a system...
Ken,
I kinda meant that by the time someone is 50 years old (like Roy) it's time to get over this stuff. The man had been playing music, and getting songs played on the radio, since the early 1960s.
Tomryan,
I hadn't thought of it quite that way, the issue for me with Roy was he left a suicide note saying he killed himself because he never got all the fame and recognition he deserved, which is exactly the opposite of the words in ‘that’s what I am here for’, but you have a point. Some people, like Hendrix just lived to fast, and left a legacy that will life far longer than they ever could have. Some, like Kurt Cobain died like the little whiney loser they where in life and should never be put upon a pedestal for that! Give me someone like Mark Sandman of Morphine, who only ever wanted to play music and did so for years, and died on stage….. That is someone to respect, he died doing what he loved, not from some self serving habit.
I agree that the DCC gold "Blue" sounds pretty good. "Court and Spark" may not be quite up to "Blue" but still better than standard issue. As for remastering and hopefully gold, I'd like to hear Patti Smiths "Easter" and all of Rikkie Lee Jones titles. I read that a remastered gold first Rikkie album is to be released early 2005. I'll be buying that one. BTW: I have the first David Crosby album and I thought it sounded pretty good but I'm sure it could be improved. Let's face it, there's a lot of work that COULD be done.
Kenny Rankin-Silver Morning
David Crosby- If I Could Only Remember My Name
Springsteen
Little Feat
Santana-Borboletta
Van Morrison's WB's material
Early Genesis>Trick of the Tail
Led Zep-Song Remains the Same
U2
Ken - I usually have the same or similar reaction when hearing about someone well old enough to know better ending up this way. I have a hard time listening to Jerry Garcia because of this. Hendrix? Yeah, no problem, he was still in the middle of the tornado that must be the rock business.
Tomryan,

Good call on Roy Buchanan! I'll never forget seeing him warm up for Robin Trower @ the Capital Theater in Passaic, NJ in about 1985. I became an immediate fan! To bad he died how he did..... I've never been able to fully appreciate 'That's what I'm here for" after hearing the details of that story.

Ken
Jax2 - I have the DCC remastered version of 'Blue' on CD and it is so obviously better than my ancient non-HDCD original CD release. My original CD copy dates back to the mid-80s. I cannot speak to the quality of any remasters other then the DCC. The main difference is that there is actually some treble information on the DCC remaster. My old CD sounds like it was mastered from a 5th generation production copy. The high freqs are just completely washed out. Luckily Joni's voice is still well preserved on the original CD, but her acoustic guitar seems to have lost its top two octaves. In this case DCC clearly did a better job in tracking down low-generation source tapes to master with. Additionally, the DCC CD remaster is so good I will never need another two-channel version of this recording. The same can be said for Weather Report's 'Heavy Weather' CD which received Sony's Mastersound 20bit SBM remastering a few years ago. It is so good I'll never need another two-channel version. If you're interested in Weather Report on SACD check out 'Mysterious Traveler' which I do not believe has been remastered in the past. Probably my favorite SACD release.
Raquel - I have a standard issue CD of "Blue" (one of my favorites by the way) which is sonic garbage to my ears. I had the LP which I'm sure I wore a hole in which was far superior. I don't think I have the HDCD recording of Blue though. Can you give me the vitals on that one...I'll look for it. Court & Spark and For the Roses are great, I'd agree...no problems there.

Thanks in advance!

Marco
Dear Jax2:

Joni Mitchell "Blue"? I think the quality of the recordings of her entire catalog is excellent (I would even say unusually high for pop recordings). In addition, the entire catalog was reissued in HDCD a few years back, and they are wonderful. There are DCC reissues on vinyl (and probably CD) of Blue and Court & Spark (and perhaps others) that are 'smokin good. I have an original pressing of For the Roses that is so good that I use it to show off my system. Even her 2001 big band album is top-notch sonically.
Totally agree with Neil Young's early stuff and Moondance and would add the following:

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks
Savoy Brown: Looking in and Raw Sienna
Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Not the biggest Beattles fan but I'd agree wholeheartedly with that assessment - I'd nominate Roger Waters to remaster them!

Marco
Led Zep I and II
James Taylor - "Sweet Baby James"
Neil Young - 1st three albums (1968, 69, and 70)
Santana - "Borboletta"
Jan Hammer - "Oh, Yeah"
Brand X - "Brand X"
Johnny Winter And - "Live"
Roy Buchanan - "That's What I Am Here For"
(Jeese...how old am I?!?)

By the way, you can get damn good sounding Japanese remasterings of entire Beatles catalog from redtrumpet.com.