Well, I found the e mail Bob forwarded me from Tony Lytle in England (who was a 7S member) when he asked him about it in 2003 and this is what he had to say:
"As I recall, the Barclay album was just called THE SEVEN SOULS. It was, of course, produced at studio Barclay, Avenue Hoche by Roland Hilda. Sadly, I do not have a copy - we were already back in the states when the LP was released. In later years, Doug Fowlkes promised to get me a copy, but it just never happened, and I think we had other things on our mind at that time. I remember seeing it once, and in my mind it had a bright red cover. The only other person who tells me he has a copy is the Byblos bar man Cesare -- who now owns a restaurant in Cannes where I often go for dinner when attending the film and TV markets. In fact, Cesare's daughter Florence works for us at all the Cannes markets. Cesare has thousands of LPs, most of which are boxed and in storage, which is why he has been unable to dig out the copy he says he has"
I know this doesn't help us but it's all I've got. I notice that I asked this at Bob's 2nd Q&A here but I didn't say in my question where I heard it. At least this confirms it's existence, though when he speaks of the red cover, maybe he saw the 4 track single we spoke of since the picture sleeve on that is red but it sure seems like there are not many copies of the album left and though the single is surely not easily accessible, it isn't that hard to find the 4 track single (albeit very expensively) online whereas I've never even heard of a copy of the album being up for auction. So I read this as them referring to the album and not the 4 track single. Who knows at this point though.
OK I loaded the 7S & TCWOAB Fire's in 2 mp3 players I have on my PC and played them at the same time. Naturally it takes a second to click play on the 2nd mp3 player after clicking play on the first one but I find this is a good way for determining version questions so you can get an echo feel if it is the same version and if it skews then this points to it being 2 different recordings. Of course there are the variables of if one mp3 was mastered at the same speed of the other etc. but naturally you adjust the speed of the one pulling away as needed and even if that doesn't work you can tell by closely listening to the "licks". As we know, especially back then, artists would often try to emulate the original when doing a cover as closely as they can but as humans, you can't get your voice to croak at the same time, the same way, etc. (maybe after 100 takes a freak of nature happens but not something you can bank on happening to the point where you'd blow thousands on studio time being optimistic that this will happen when recording) and it's often been said that even if you get the same guitar as your hero, same gear, right down to the same strings etc. you most likely will not be able to sound like your hero when you play it because the way your hero's fingers clutch the fretboard and so on is something you may come close to replicating but won't (not to the point where you could record an identical cover that would cause debates as to if it is the original recording or not). With these factors in mind, I'd say they do a good job at replicating here but I think they are different versions. The I AM THE GOD OF FIRE at the beginning alone is enough for me but even after giving it the benefit of the doubt, some things later still sounded different. I even checked the mono and stereo mp3s of TCWOAB's version as the mono doesn't include the horns).
I'd like to get feedback from others on this thread though since you posted both versions earlier. We might get this cleared up as much as we can by getting a consensus. Anyone?
John
|