Ken Kessler

Audiophile Digital
Audiophile: Digital (November 2018)
Ken Kessler  |  Nov 01, 2018  |  0 comments
This month, we review: Eleanor Mcevoy, The Flying Burrito Bros, Glenn Frey, and Spirit.
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Audiophile Vinyl
Audiophile: Vinyl (November 2018)
Ken Kessler  |  Nov 01, 2018  |  0 comments
This month we review: Buffalo Springfield, Paul Rodgers, Ultimate Spinach, and Sonny Boy Williamson.
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Audiophile Digital
Audiophile: Digital (October 2018)
Ken Kessler  |  Oct 01, 2018  |  0 comments
This month, we review: Supertramp, Gene Clark, Jethro Tull, and The Who.
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Audiophile Vinyl
Audiophile: Vinyl (October 2018)
Ken Kessler  |  Oct 01, 2018  |  0 comments
This month we review: Michael Nesmith, John Butler, Carmen McRae, and Nina Simone.
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Audiophile Digital
Audiophile: Digital (September 2018)
Ken Kessler  |  Sep 01, 2018  |  0 comments
This month, we review: Love, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Linda Ronstadt
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Audiophile Vinyl
Audiophile: Vinyl (September 2018)
Ken Kessler  |  Sep 01, 2018  |  0 comments
This month we review: Slim Harpo, Lynyrd Skynyrd, A Sea For Yourself, and The Rising Storm.
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Investigation
Quad to the Core
Ken Kessler  |  Aug 01, 2018  |  0 comments
As one of Quad's longest-serving employees hangs up his soldering iron, Ken Kessler talks with Ken Bunting about a lifetime working on iconic kit

It was 15 years since I had interviewed Ken Bunting, in charge of Quad's service department, but back then it was to pick his brains about the company's history. Early this May, I had the privilege of repeating the interrogation, on the occasion of Ken's retirement. Off to the wilds of Cambridge, where I found him on his last day, in a busy-as-ever service area with everything from Quad ESL63s to valve units being repaired – contrary to any rumours or worries that the company had abandoned its legendary back-up division.

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Audiophile Vinyl
Peggy Lee
Ken Kessler  |  Dec 10, 2010  |  0 comments
If you’re bemused by the current obsession with ‘the American Songbook’ – even the BBC got in on the act with a week of specials devoted to it – this is an ideal time to hear one of the finest practitioners of the genre, before it became retro-cool. Ms Lee, arguably one of the half-dozen or so finest female popular music vocalists of the 20th Century, sexily slides through a dozen lesser-known gems, including her politically-incorrect composition which provides this LP with its utterly non-contemporary title. But stuff that: this is an album to play after you’ve run out of Mad Men DVDs, when you long for a time when men were men and women didn’t mind it. Sound Quality: 85% .
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Audiophile Digital
Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White
Ken Kessler  |  Dec 10, 2010  |  0 comments
Like the epic blues LP, Fathers & Sons, which combined young and old, here we find three generations of rock guitarists – Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and Jack White – swapping tales, gigging and generally celebrating the electric guitar. Too many moments make this a must-see if you’re a fan of any or all of the performers: historical footage of Page in the early 1960s, The Edge recounting how he and his brother made an electric guitar from scratch, even winding the coils. And to see Page declining to harmonise in a rendition of ‘The Weight’ on the grounds that he ‘can’t sing’ (!) – this is one of the most captivating rock docs in years. Sound Quality: 90% .
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Audiophile Digital
The Band
Ken Kessler  |  Dec 10, 2010  |  0 comments
For some purists, especially those blessed enough to have seen The Band in concert, this live album, recorded on New Year’s Eve 1971-2, exposes more of the group’s heart and soul than any of their studio albums. Although consisting of material culled from their four studio efforts, the live experience (and a horn section with arrangements courtesy of New Orleans R&B hero Allen Toussaint) reveals an outfit so perfectly hewn by the road, and with such a deep love for rock ’n’ roll and R&B, that it seems to contradict their almost po-faced, scholarly image. January ’72 must’ve been a helluva month in NYC, with James Taylor’s gig recorded there three weeks later! Sound Quality: 90% . .
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