It’s been a while since I’ve popped up with a new oddity, but this one I think may have a little more behind it than meets the eye. Today, we are looking at Gold City’s 1982 live album, aptly entitled Live.

First, some background…

The Gold City Quartet originated in 1980 (for specifics, check out this article at sghistory.com – you’re welcome, DBM!!). Their first album was produced by Eldridge Fox on the Heavyweight label (which was the Kingsmen’s in-house indie label), followed by multiple indie releases on the Nugget label and one album on the Dawn label. Thanks in part to Fox’s support of the group, they were eventually signed to Heartwarming Records (part of the Benson company), where their first matter of business was a live album, which was released in 1982.

Produced by Bill Traylor, The Gold City Quartet Live (available upon release on vinyl and cassette, and probably an 8-track if I had to guess) not only served as a bit of a “wide introduction” of the group across the country via the Benson company, but also contained several songs that would go on to become fan favorites, including “In My Robe Of White,” “No Other Word For Grace But Amazing,” and “Ezekiel Saw The Wheel.” Live also helped debut an 18-year-old tenor by the name of Brian Free, as this was his first album with the group. Overall, it’s your standard southern gospel live album – high-energy music mixed with some stage banter that introduces both the group and some of the songs.

Four years later, Gold City, now consisting of Free on tenor, Tim Riley on bass, Ivan Parker on lead, and a newly-hired Mike LeFevre on baritone, would release Double Take Live, another successful in-concert recording that again included a number of fan favorites, including the now-classic “When I Get Carried Away.” This album, too, was released on vinyl and cassette initially, again by the Benson Company (this time, under the RiverSong Records label). Again, your typical SG live album – solid live playing mixed with stage banter and even a testimony or two. It also has a rather creative cover photo, although some versions only use a cropped version, making the album title kinda pointless…but I digress!!

“Two Albums on One CD” doesn’t mean “Two COMPLETE Albums…”

As CD’s grew in popularity by the end of the 1980’s and into the 1990’s, record labels began taking older releases and reissuing them on the new format. Some took advantage of the longer run time on CD’s by putting two albums on one disc (most vinyl records, unless given a subpar master, top out at 22 minutes per side for a grand total of 44 minutes per record, while CD’s can hold up to 74 minutes minutes per disc). Benson was among those who decided to go the “two albums/one disc” route, including releasing one disc that included both 1982’s Live and 1986’s Double Take on a combined CD.

There was just one problem…both of these albums in full exceeded the 74-minute limitation of a single disc. Live clocks in at around 40 minutes, while Double Take runs 45 minutes in length, which means to fit both on a single disc, roughly 10 minutes would need to be removed between the two albums. Oddly, from what I can tell, pretty much all of Double Take was left intact – stage banter, testimonies, encores…it all appears to be there. It was Live that took the hit, being chopped down by nearly 15 minutes. This was mostly accomplished by removing nearly all stage banter, along with an encore for “No Other Word For Grace But Amazing.” What remains are awkward cuts where applause drops out of nowhere between songs and some incomplete introductions.

Right Price – because it’s shorter!

It makes sense to make edits based on time limitations on a particular format, but around the same time the double disc was released, a stand-alone cassette re-issue of Live was also put out by Benson under their “Right Price” banner with “Digitally Remastered” on the cover. Since Live was originally available on cassette at the time of its initial release, one would think that the entire album would be included on this re-issue.

It’s not.

The digital remaster used here apparently is the same as what was put on the combined CD format with Double Take, which means that all of the same awkward edits are found here on the cassette. It sounds like someone just dubbed the CD direct onto the tape and said, “Ok, good enough.” Again – this was not an album length limitation issue here – Live was already on cassette when it was first released. Unless Benson figured using an extra 7 1/2 minutes of tape was just too much of a cost, there’s really no reason not to include the full album on cassette.

UNLESS….the edits were done not because of limitations in album length, but for other reasons. And if that’s the case, who made that decision – was it Benson or was it Gold City?

One could argue that the intro to “Ezekial Saw The Wheel” may be considered “questionable” by today’s standards (if you want to hear it, the original full album was uploaded to YouTube – until Sony gets wind of it, anyway), so I can kinda understand THAT being edited slightly, but to have just about ALL banter removed seems odd for a live album. At the very least, if someone is going to go to the efforts of remastering and editing, why not at least TRY to make it sound like a consistent live performance by remixing the applause and being a little more judicious with the cuts, as opposed to just hitting pause/unpause? Even I could make better edits, and that’s saying something! Besides, other than the “Ezekiel” intro, there’s really nothing all that unusual in the rest of the album in terms of stage banter, so unless someone just didn’t want to hear a bunch of talking, there’s really nothing here other than a few seconds that might be cause for any concern.

With all of that being said, I also have to wonder….how many SG or Gold City fans have only heard the edited version of their 1982 Live album? Beyond the initial release on vinyl and cassette, to my knowledge, the only “official” version of this album is the heavily edited version, which (to date, anyway) is the only version available on CD. With Gold City doing newly-remastered releases of their back catalog, this is one I’d really like to see get a proper, full remaster, but given that it was early in their career, I would question whether they own the rights to this album like they do with later such releases, or if this is one that Sony has locked in a vault with other Benson Records releases that they have zero interest in ever acknowledging (that’s right, Sony, I said it – stop being so stingy with those Benson masters!!). Hopefully the full album hasn’t been lost, leaving this chopped up version as the only “master” source.

Do you have (or have you heard) both versions of this album? Do the edits made bother you, or are you ok with the shortened run time and less talking?