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Old stereo recordings: Are the channels reversed or not? Ask here!

K

kevtronics

I'm finally getting around to ripping my hundreds of CDs into the computer and weeding out the duplicate tracks to hopefully have the best-quality copy of each song in my collection. And with quite a few songs from the late '50s through early '70s, I encounter multiple copies where the left and right channels are reversed. With modern music you could hardly tell the difference if this happened, but in this era when hard-panned, wide-separation stereo recording was common, it is immediately obvious.

To try to sort it out and find which channel orientation is correct, I find the song on the various online streaming and download services and listen if there is any concensus among the various copies that exist, with copies of original albums and Greatest Hits compilations hopefully being the most accurate.

But even that is sometimes a dead-end, such as with Shelley Fabares' "Johnny Angel". I have it on two CDs -- "Billboard Top Rock'N'Roll Hits 1962" has it with the opening vocals in the right channel, while a WCBS-FM-branded '60s Anniversary Album from Collectables Records has it with the opening vocals in the left channel. The former seems to be slightly more common among the copies I can find online, but there isn't any real concensus.

So I'm wondering if the musical experts here -- especially those with access to "official" radio station music libraries -- could help me figure out which version is the correct one, or for any other song with which this question arises that people may want to ask about here.

As for "Johnny Angel", someone else also mentioned the channels being reversed in this post on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, but unfortunately there was no determination about which version is correct: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/shelley-fabares-johnny-angel.122899/page-2#post-2792136
 
Another one: "Jingle Jangle" by the Archies. The intro has an electric guitar in one channel and drums in the other, but among the copies I can find online, there is no concensus of which goes in what channel.
 
Just stick with the original mono versions from that time, then no fuss. It also may mean buying the original 45s from that time. You can get them on eBay.
 
Reach out to Ron Gerber in Minnesota who hosts a program called "Crap From The Past." His knowledge of music, and if channels have been switched, is better than anyone I know.
 
Not all music from that era were simple fold downs of the stereo recording (if available.) Many recordings are dedicated mono mixes.
 
At first I thought I had come across a simple channel swap with Tommy James' "Mony Mony", but it turns out there are two different stereo mixes of the song: one starts with the electric guitar in the left channel, drums in the middle, and hand claps towards the right, and another starts with both the electric guitar and hand claps on the left and the drums on the right! Both mixes are about equally common in the copies I can find online.

One thing that will hopefully help sort it out is that recently I've obtained a collection of CDs from Dick Bartley's syndicated Westwood One show "New Gold on CD", which ran from 1989 to 1991 and featured, in the highest quality then available and often in stereo, Oldies-era songs that many stations had still been playing from cart dubs of the original mono 45s up to that point.
 
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