Hi MG,
Thanks!
Yeah, the tape thing made me pretty angry at the time, but it's even more devastating now. How much fun would it have been to be able to use some of my actual solos from those days in my songs today? There was a ton of stuff on those tapes. We used to do a few "Four Freshmen" tunes. One of the tapes was a couple of months of rehearsals from beginning to the end product. The two vocal parts in the middle were, very often, only 1/2 to 1 tone apart (as in chord inversion #3) that made it very difficult to master. That style was one of the crucial things that made the Freshmen sound so unique. It was very interesting to hear the songs go from extremely bad to perfect. I guess it dramatically pointed out how important practice really is. Would you believe the recorder still works?
Cheers,
Fred