Burton Cummings
i
love this record! musically its a real tour de force showcase for the artists' incomparable voice and musicianship and feels like quite a departure from his earlier work with the Guess Who and a statement to say "this is me".
the Quad mix for the most part does the album justice, there's some bits i might have preferred they tackled differently when doing the Quad but in the main i find it works.
one thing i'm a bit hung up on however, is that the mix is something of an anomaly in the scheme of the later CBS Quads.
a number of CBS Quads from 75-77 that don't have a specific Quad remix credit on the SQ LP, such as this Burton Cummings solo album, feature the distinctive (and divisive) "Bass Rear Left/Drums Rear Right" style mix, which thanks to the sleuthing and efforts of Quad heroes Sir
steelydave and Lord Dutton of Watfordshire we now know to have been the work of A&M's Dick Bogert and Warren Vincent (Miracles' "Love Crazy", Return To Forever's "Musicmagic", Tower Of Power's "Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now") but this Quad is nothing like those Bogert & Vincent mixes.
its really different from that style, complete with unusual use of reverb and delay that isn't present on the Stereo, some tracks have a "lead vocals all round" mix style, others just the vocals upfront, there's panning and all sorts of effects and tricks, so it was obviously mixed by someone with experience of mixing Quad who knew what they were doing but it doesn't resemble any CBS Quad style of their main guys doing Pop Quad mixes in this period (Harold J.Kleiner & Don Young, Warren Vincent & Dick Bogert and Larry Keyes) so... whodunnit...? to me, its a mystery!
i found a tiny snippet online about Studio 55 in LA, where the album was recorded, being decked out with a Quad mixing desk in 1976, so it could have conceivably been done there.. the inner sleeve of the LP credits "remixing" to Howard Steele, the Studio owner himself.. but it seems unlikely he would have done the Quad since i can find no mention of him in relation to Quad anywhere at all.
anyway, its not the kinda stuff to keep me up at night but it does raise mildly curious questions for the Quad sleuths among us... mmmmmaybeeeee
or i could just forget about it and "listen to the music" like the Doobies said!
🗡
⛏
when rock/heavy metal music is just too 
itating! 
