6-Disc Box Set of Gospel Roots Music Reaps Stellar Reviews
January 14, 2004 – Boulder, CO – Airshow Mastering recently finished audio restoration and mastering work on the epic box set Goodbye Babylon, a 6-disc collection of gospel recordings dating from the 1920s through 1950s. Produced by Lance Ledbetter to inaugurate his Dust-to-Digital record label, the set contains 135 songs from performers as diverse as Hank Williams, Mahalia Jackson, the Carter Family, Blind Willie McTell, the Stanley Brothers, Thomas A. Dorsey, and many others - famous and obscure - plus a disc of 25 fire and brimstone sermons.
Of the box set, released last month, Rolling Stone critic David Fricke declared "This fantastic box of holy ruckus is the greatest anthology of antique Southern sacred song and oratory ever assembled. *****" No Depression's David Greenberger called the set "perfectly realized... from song selection to mastering, writing and design....not a wasted moment or page." The New York Times called it "perhaps the season's most astonishing boxed set." The London Times called the sound restoration and mastering "impeccable".
The audio restoration and mastering was by Matt Sandoski and David Glasser from disc and tape transfers by Lance Ledbetter, Jack Towers and others. David Henry and Ryan Avery assisted. 'Because we have a steady stream of important historical recordings pass through the studio, every Airshow engineer gets to develop his restoration skills," says David Glasser. "We're fortunate to be able to field a skilled engineering team for a project of this significance."
Lance Ledbetter, the project's producer, adds "Since the source material was so important, yet limited, I knew sound restoration would be critical. When Airshow Mastering came on board, my mind was at ease.. I know the artists would have been very proud of the sound we achieved."
"Goodbye, Babylon" is packaged in a striking cedar box, designed by Susan Archie who received a GRAMMY for her design of Revenant Records' Charley Patton set. The 200 page book was written by Dick Spottswood, David Evans, Kip Lornell, Charles Wolf, and other expert musicologists and scholars.
Airshow Mastering operates studios in Boulder CO and Springfield VA. In 1997, David Glasser and Charlie Pilzer received a GRAMMY for mastering The Anthology of American Folk Music (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings). Last year David Glasser and Matt Sandoski received a Grammy™ for mastering Screamin' and Hollerin'The Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton (Revenant Records). In 2003, the company created The Restoration Center @ Airshow Mastering, as a way to extend its expertise with historical recordings to the pressing problem of audio archive preservation, serving libraries and private collections. Its first large-scale digitization project is Naropa University's unique archive of post-WWII American poets.
A limited number of Goodbye, Babylon sampler CDs are available; contact Ann
Blonston at Airshow. Images from the collection can be found on the Dust-to-Digital
website: http://dust-digital.com/promotional-images.htm
For more information on Airshow Mastering call
Ann Blonston at 1-888-545-9035 or visit their website at
www.airshowmastering.com.
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Press Contact:
Ann Blonston, Airshow Mastering (303) 247-9035