In November 2017, Bob Dylan released Volume 13 of his bootleg series. The deluxe version was made up of 8 CD’s and a DVD all containing previously unreleased rehearsal takes during the making of his three gospel albums and several CD’s of recordings of live concerts from the tours during that period. My wife got me that deluxe set of “Trouble No More” for my birthday in 2017. I’ve greatly enjoyed listening to all the music from this very exhaustive collection. The deluxe edition also has 2 books included. In one of the books is a review of the entire […]
Why You Should Be Using Smart Playlists in iTunes and How to Do It, Part 1
I’m a geek. That means i like to organize techy stuff so that it does cool things. This is one of those things i’ve gotten pretty good at, and i want to share what i’ve learned with you. I have 28 Smart Playlists set up in iTunes. There are also several Smart Playlists that iTunes sets up automatically, but i mostly don’t use those. I also have 23 regular (non-smart) playlists. I’ll explain how and why to use regular vs smart playlists, and what reasons you might have to make use of both for different purposes. There is a lot […]
The 2 Best Jazz Albums of the 20th Century
There seems to be a solid case for there being two best Jazz albums from the 20th century. However, the two albums are praised by two different groups of fans for two completely different reasons. Jazz enthusiasts mostly consider Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” to be the best Jazz album because of the music. Audiophiles mostly consider “Jazz at the Pawnshop” to be the best Jazz album because of the audio quality, mastering, and the ‘you are there’ presence of the recording. I have both so i thought i’d compare and contrast them and give you some details about both […]
Christmas Music by John
By request, here are two Christmas songs i recorded in 1978. The first one is just me singing White Christmas over an instrumental record by The Rainbow Strings from sometime in the 1960’s. The second song, What is This? is me playing guitar and singing a duet with my brother David.
All About HDTracks Hi-Res Audio Files
Questions to answer: Can you hear the difference in hi-res files? Are the hi-res files worth the extra cost? Can/How do i play hi-res files in iTunes or on my iPod/iPhone/iPad? First, here’s why i’m doing this: I purchased two of my favorite albums from HDTracks.com over the past few months just to play with and see if i can hear the difference between these files and those i ripped from CD’s as Apple Lossless (ALAC) files. The two albums i purchased are: Both of these are albums i’ve owned in […]