Released in August 1973 in stereo, and in October of the same year in quad as part of United Artists' initial batch of Q8 releases, Deliver the Word was the second of a trio of War albums to top the US R&B chart, also making it to #6 in the Billboard 200 Pop Albums chart. The LP yielded two of the band's most well-known early hits, Gypsy Man and Me and Baby Brother.
As with most other U/A quad issues (more info on the label's quad output here) Deliver the Word was a Q8-only release. In the US, the original issues were in a white cartridge, with subsequent reissues in black shells, with no notable difference between the two. Canadian releases are in a gold "RCA-style" shell and were manufactured by Cinram - the original issues of the Canadian tape were not Dolby-encoded, but sometime in mid-1974 Cinram began issuing Dolby-encoded versions, which have the Dolby logo on the cartridge artwork below the album title. Both Canadian issues are far superior to the US versions sound-wise - the US-duplicated U/A tapes are amongst the worst sounding Q8s ever issued, oversaturated to the point of distortion and with high frequency response beginning to drop off somewhere between 6 and 8 kHz. The Canadian issues, by comparison (especially the Dolby-encoded tapes) are some of the finest issued, on par with the best Dolby-encoded CBS tapes, with frequency response well beyond 12kHz.
Some copies of the stereo LP came with a sticker advertising the Q8 release, and this has been misinterpreted occasionally leading people to believe that there were quad LP releases of this album but there weren't. According to Darrell Johnson, who worked at the JVC Cutting Center, CD-4 test cuts were made, but things never went further than that.
United Artists UA-DA128-H [Q8]
Discogs links: US Q8 [White Shell] / Canadian Q8 [Non-Dolby]
Wiki page for the album: Deliver the Word
Side 1:
As with most other U/A quad issues (more info on the label's quad output here) Deliver the Word was a Q8-only release. In the US, the original issues were in a white cartridge, with subsequent reissues in black shells, with no notable difference between the two. Canadian releases are in a gold "RCA-style" shell and were manufactured by Cinram - the original issues of the Canadian tape were not Dolby-encoded, but sometime in mid-1974 Cinram began issuing Dolby-encoded versions, which have the Dolby logo on the cartridge artwork below the album title. Both Canadian issues are far superior to the US versions sound-wise - the US-duplicated U/A tapes are amongst the worst sounding Q8s ever issued, oversaturated to the point of distortion and with high frequency response beginning to drop off somewhere between 6 and 8 kHz. The Canadian issues, by comparison (especially the Dolby-encoded tapes) are some of the finest issued, on par with the best Dolby-encoded CBS tapes, with frequency response well beyond 12kHz.
Some copies of the stereo LP came with a sticker advertising the Q8 release, and this has been misinterpreted occasionally leading people to believe that there were quad LP releases of this album but there weren't. According to Darrell Johnson, who worked at the JVC Cutting Center, CD-4 test cuts were made, but things never went further than that.
United Artists UA-DA128-H [Q8]
Discogs links: US Q8 [White Shell] / Canadian Q8 [Non-Dolby]
Wiki page for the album: Deliver the Word
Side 1:
- Gypsy Man
- H2 Overture
- Southern Part of Texas
- Me and Baby Brother
- Deliver the Word
- Blisters
- H2 Overture (Reprise)
- In Your Eyes
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