LABEL:Atlantic
VINYL RELEASE DATE:6/28/2019
ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE:2019
VARIANT: Black Vinyl 5LP Box Set

Producer Andy Zax says he, sound producer Brian Kehew and mastering engineer Dave Schultz avoided interfering with the tapes as much as possible in order to preserve their authenticity. Its not surprising that other producers first reaction to these tapes over the years has been uh-oh, immediately followed by weve gotta find a way to fix this. I’m not unsympathetic to that approach, but if there’s a single overriding lesson that Brian Kehew and I have learned since we began working with the Woodstock tapes in 2005, its this: you can’t fix them Thats less grim than it seems, because once youve accepted the idea that there is no way to make these recordings sound slick, you realize that these tapes are the sonic equivalent of heirloom tomatoes slightly imperfect, but delicious.