Yellow Boat Music comes out with yet another stunning accomplishment! For the first time in over 50 years, blues and rock fans can experience Ten Years After’s ‘Woodstock 1969’ - all five songs and a drum solo capturing their iconic performance with stunning clarity, bringing us as close as possible to that legendary Sunday night at Woodstock. This release offers the ultimate front-row experience for those of us who couldn't be there, and we have the brilliant Paul Cartledge to thank for it.
That’s right—Yellow Boat Music was an integral player in the remastering of The Complete Ten Years After ‘Woodstock 1969’ set. They collaborated with Chrysalis Records to enhance the audio quality of the iconic performance. Their contribution was key to restoring and modernising the tracks, ensuring that the remastered release captured the original energy of the performance with improved clarity.
Paul Cartledge, producer, sound engineer, and co-owner of Yellow Boat Music, was interviewed by American Blues Scene about his role in the mix. He explains that “at first only one tape was available. It was the section of the show that included ‘Help Me’ and the band’s breathtakingly brilliant performance of ‘I’m Going Home’ that had previously been released. Alvin’s daughter Jasmin (Jazz) wanted to know if the songs could be restored and remixed using modern technology and could that process be extrapolated to include mixing the whole show IF the other tapes could be found and IF the band would agree to such a thing. There was also the benchmark of the well-known and much loved mix of ‘I’m Going Home’ to consider”.
Paul was given a digital transfer of the 8 track multitrack and got cracking. He didn’t know if a more ‘modern’ approach would work but says that “the more I got into the process the more I enjoyed it so I kept going! It was quite a forensic mission and I dived deep into each track using a multitude of plugins and applications to clean, tidy, polish, de-noise and generally restore each track to sound more like a modern recording.”
Eventually, he thought ‘Help Me’ was good enough to play to Jazz who loved it and encouraged him to attempt ‘I’m Going Home.’ Using those two as examples, Jazz was able to get the band on board in principle to mixing the whole set and the remastering project was born!
The final album was released on August 17th, 2024 and can be heard on Spotify & Apple Music.