And there was also a quad, but it did not really take root - humanity for the most part is lazy, and when the layman was offered four columns instead of two (and you had to buy them, and not only them), he, the layman, proudly replied: “No! ".

Several quadraphonic Japanese discs are on my shelf rather as an artifact, as a call to think not so much with feelings as with your head. But ... When you come across a painfully familiar name and everything shimmers and shines, as if only from a conveyor belt (the usual state of ancient quad discs), you lose your head, which is recommended to make decisions, as if as unnecessary.

STEREO turned out to be more practical in all respects - it moved MONO, at first depriving it of almost all rights to inheritance and existence itself, began to mutilate and distort the recordings of the fifties, turning them into a shapeless mess-on a plate-smear ("marvelous" discs in the stereo effect format reprocessed from monophonic - with great difficulty I got rid of them, suffering and feeling guilty before the new owners), brutally dealt with all sorts of portable "so convenient for us" players and nearly destroyed the jukeboxes to the root - those, like fossil lizards, huddled in the cracks bars, cellars and other havens of the nostalgic good times of rock and roll and jazz rednecks. 

And, having reigned on the throne, she designated: "As if before me, as it were, there was nothing." 

STEREO's steel grip weakened by the seventies.

It was then, at the time of the 40th and 50th anniversary of the southern gods, at the time of the "big return" to jazz, that collections of works by the classics of the style began to appear - in boxes and boxes, almost a dozen vinyls at a time, and in almost every edition some of the records were in the format of the original MONO, the rest - in the newfangled or, rather, already quite familiar STEREO. 

It was then that terrible happened: in contrast, on an almost automatic half-hearted listening to music, the man in the street caught a blessed difference from the music - very often it turned out that MONO, archaic and almost forgotten, sounds juicier, denser, more greedy to the point, and the question hung in the air: “ And what, in fact, is the matter ??? "

And this is: if we heard something once, especially in childhood or for the first time in our life, and it shocked us, boldly with a hurricane, flattened us into a cake screaming with happiness, then it is in this sound and in this format it (this something heard) and will reign supreme in our heads, minds, consciousnesses and unconsciousness.

As with the translation of prehistoric comedy action films in the style of the end of the world against the background of a rock festival - deaf, nasal, backyard-punk, but native.

Its own blood, so to speak.

And MONO regained inheritance rights.

And discs of the first editions marked with LPM soared in price.

And it became fashionable (and somewhere even correct) to have in the collection two discs of your favorite artist, group - LPM and LSP at once.

Let's go back to the basics.

By the time "before". 

The main patronage of the nascent commercial STEREO came from the powerful RCA Victor (Radio Corporation of America) - the one on which, after leaving the embrace of Sun Records, Elvis' entire creative career was recorded.

In February 1954, RCA engineers for the first time conducted the first session of full-fledged stereo recording (simultaneously on mono and on two-channel tape, using a special three-track tape recorder and three microphones) of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of the legendary Charles Munsch (it was this conductor with the same orchestra in 1956- m will come on tour in the USSR) - performed that day "The Curse of Faust" by Hector Berlioz.

Maybe that's why STEREO never managed to completely conquer the world?

Not all the forces of darkness have a ball on the planet to rule.

At first they trained mainly on the classics - they managed to capture the truly great Arturo Toscanini (the maestro left in 1957 at the age of 89) and Guido Cantelli (died tragically in 1956 at the age of 36) with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Fritz Reiner.

In 1958, Western Electric invented and marketed the Westrex recording machine, with which it was possible to cut stereo discs, thus laying the foundation for commercial stereo (it was Western Electric who introduced the concept of STEREO).

And it was here that fashionable stereo records flooded the shelves of music stores.

However, until the very end of the 1960s, record companies continued to release new products in two formats simultaneously - LPM and LSP, despite the now mandatory studio stereo recording.

RCA Victor in the same 1958, filled with pride and even in a certain sense of arrogance, began the release of a long-playing vinyl with the famous emblem of the gramophone dog His Master's Voice on a black apple and with the word LIVING STEREO stunning for music lovers.

And all this was watched with undisguised curiosity by the extremely promising 34-year-old Steve Scholes nominee (producer and later vice president of RCA) - Mr. Chet Atkins, aka Mr.

Guitar and The Country Gentleman is a star of the first, an absolute guitar virtuoso and also a very good sound engineer.

Both creator and mastermind of Nashville sound.

If suddenly someone heard about this.

In 1957, Scholes persuaded RCA to build his own recording studio in Nashville - Studio B. He appointed Chet Atkins, to whom all of us, lovers of prehistoric music of rural gorlopanov - cantreers of the South owe both to the purity of sound and the exceptional consistency of the style of the RCA Nashvile sound albums of that time.

Chet was a sound engineer and producer from God.

And of course, for their own records, too.

Not failing to take advantage of the fruits of technological progress, Atkins released in January 1960 - naturally in the LIVING STEREO format - his solo (this is his 12th studio album) Teensville disc - a kind of mysterious message to teenagers who still love rock and roll. ...

It's funny, and naive, and even a little old-fashioned if you take everything that happens on the album literally. 

Yes, what is happening is Atkins, a subtle, modest and courteous man, but even so, he is a great joker and a lover of musical surprises and practical jokes.

You hear Oh, Lonesome Me, which has become like a children's countdown, like a box of colored street crayons in hands stained with all the colors of the rainbow - a cocky feint performed by Jerry Lee Lewis.

You hear the almost unrecognizable, more action-oriented, silent, strange and envelopingly mysterious One Mint Julep - a nuclear hit played by Ray Charles.

You hear the sweetest, sugary-delicious Sleep Walk! 

And what happens to you?

And here's what: you dissolve in the divine STEREO! 

You are drowning (not at all hiding pleasure) in the skillfully spaced vocals of the choir, in the saxophone and guitar, phrases shifting from channel to channel, in the soft rhythm of drums and in all sorts of terribly delicious echoes of xylophone, ukuleles ... 

The entire album, all the wondrous irony both over the past (at that time) rock 'n' roll, and over oneself against the background of stylistically pure STEREO, adjusted to the millimeters - mastery with a capital letter and definitely great power.

Atkins, foreseeing the return of MONO, and wild experiments with a new sound of everything and everyone, casually and unobtrusively gives the listener an example of how to make the right music in terms of even sound.

And even more interesting - of course, he does not lock on to himself.

In the same 1960, Atkins was the producer of the studio album of Floyd Kramer, the most famous of the US pianists of the rock and roll era, included in all the halls of fame of everything in the world, the inventor of the technique of mixing notes and the creator along with the Chet Nashville sound.

Kramer, whose life, according to his own recollections, at that time passed day and night exclusively at Studio B RCA in Nashville, in between sessions of the titans, records his extremely accurate in musical formulation, a very midnight and daring album Hello Blues.

To the gallery page

Cramer's The Swingin 'Shepherd Blues, Midnight, Tricky, Blues Stay Away From Me are an unquestionable example of the saloon read by Floyd's keys and Randolph Boots' saxophone, refined utterly blues, and this is its truly overwhelming charm. 

Trouble In Mind from Nina Simon's repertoire is a diamond of the first magnitude in a frame made of ... There is no frame, but there are blues sparkling and shimmering in the flame of candles with sharp edges, poured in the air between the two columns of the new world of STEREO.

I repeat: Chet Atkins is a sound engineer sent down to us by heaven itself.

And it was he who took the most active part in the selection of permanent studio musicians Studio B. And we do not even notice their playing, more often than not, we turn our attention only to the name of the main artist of the album. 

In this regard, there is a funny and instructive story with Floyd Kramer.

In 1960, his single Last Date (an incredibly beautiful thing) took second place in the American BillboardHot 100 chart, losing only to one hit - Are You Lonesome Tonight by Elvis Presley.

Needless to say, the unrivaled Floyd Kramer played the piano part during Elvis's recording at Studio B in the world-famous Are You Lonesome Tonight.

Listen to good music.

Even if it's STEREO.

And don't forget to collect the good old MONO for your home collection.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.