Billy Joel's first album, Cold Spring Harbor, has quite a history. The tapes were somehow mastered at the wrong speed and the album was put in the chipmunk bin until it was "fixed" in 1983 when the tracks were re-evaluated and additional production work was done. They replaced some horrible, incompetently played drum tracks, muted a few steel guitars and background vocals and generally tidied things up. They may have made it a better album in the process, a music industry first.

Well, I have a couple copies of this Joel Holy Grail on vinyl and were always disappointed with the sound quality. One was even a sealed Promo copy, played only once by me. The LP was noisy and distorted. A big kick in the cherries.

Well, I saw this CD labeled The Harbor Sessions (and even Harbour on the CD spine!?) and thought I'd finally found the ultimate version of this collectable. Well, IT SUCKS!! Fear this CD! Throw stones, rocks, and even large fraternity boys at it. This is quite possibly the worst sounding CD I own.

What's wrong with the CD? First of all it's a needle drop. What's worse is that it's a needle drop poorly recorded to a bad cassette. The top end is missing (I guess to get rid of the record pops) but it's drastically filtered. There's no top end left. The funny thing is the tape hiss extends to higher frequencies than the top end of the music which tells me it was recorded to analog tape (cassette judging by the number of dropouts). The tape drop outs take the hiss with it.

They also tried to adjust the speed to make up for the original VSO problem. Unfortunately they didn't do a very good job. Sounds like the cassette deck they played the tape on was running low on battery juice. The keys are still off. Turn Around, which I always thought was the only song that sounded like the speed was okay, is so slow it'll make the dead impatient.

The beginnings of Why Judy and several other songs have been conveniently chopped off.

If you do have the displeasure of listening to this CD and think the first track sounds bad just remember that is as good as it gets. Things get bad (or worse) quickly. By the third track (Everybody Loves You Now) there's enough 6kHz to stroke out an elephant. By the time you get to track 5 there's so much distortion over the piano you can hardly distinguish it from a direct hit to the skull by a sledge hammer.

Please people, take Uncle Jamie's advice and don't give this disc the chance to pollute the air around you. It's total crap. If you're that curious to hear this album go out and buy the best version available, the remastered CD. The album, in its original form, isn't worth searching out, especially on this CD.

This CD is not "outtakes" and "alternate versions" per se. What it really is is the original Family Prodcutions 1971 release. Someone came up with the bright idea of digging up an old record, dusting it off, and transfering it to CD. Obviously, someone was leaning on the turntable slightly to slow down the record in order to "fix" Billy's chipmunked voice. These are not the master tapes whatsoever. You are better off hitting an old record store that stocks vinyl and finding an original copy of the 1971 album that proved to be a disaster event for its composer. True, the album was edited and cleaned up when acquired by Columbia records and subsequently rereleased, but some things were changed. "She's Got a Way" had a drum track, "You Can Make Me Free" was twice as long, consisting of a guitar jam, and "Everybody Loves You Now" used to sound more like its SONGS IN THE ATTIC counterpart. The rest of the tracks are exactly identical to those currently available. Beware.

While it is a great idea to have a CD release of the original "Cold Spring Harbor" from the Family Records Label, this CD is a poor product. The sound is transfered off a vinyl copy that sounds like it has been significantly worn out. Had anyone thought about locating a master tape for this??? Anyhow, based on how much litigation was caused in Billy's career over the whole "Cold Spring Harbor" disaster (hiding out in L.A. for 6 months in a piano bar-the inspiration for "Piano Man"), it suprises me greatly that Billy Joel and Columbia Records have not filed suit to stop this release. This is for completists ONLY. If you have to have EVERYTHING under the Billy Joel name, here you go. If you aren't OBSESSIVE (I will admit to it), DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! Hopefully, someone will one day release a GOOD version of the original Family Records album on CD. Until then, this isn't it!

I jumped at the chance to listen to Cold Spring Harbor at the correct speed. But after laboring through the awful sound quality of the Harbor Sessions, I was left debating which version I preferred - the clean version with a slighly higher Billy Joel voice, or the scratchy one at correct speed. The Harbor Sessions was really tough on my Billy Joel-loving ears.

This CD is pretty neat because you can hear the Billy Joel CD, Cold Spring Harbor, a little slower and it sounds more like Billy. The extended "You Can Make Me Free" is cool but you probably need to be a die-hard Billy Joel fan to find this CD worth it. If you don't need every Billy Joel CD I would go with the Columbia release of Cold Spring Harbor.