Hi oz350z,
I agree--The Joe Cocker "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" tour is one of the classic rock albums of all time. Leon Russell's arrangements with the band and Cocker stand up to repeated listening for decades.
Sound quality? "Wooly" "compressed"? I'll say! I have more "remastered" versions of this--half-speed, etc.--on vinyl, then on CD. None of it helped. It's really grotty sound, but the music and performances are so great that they override considerations of sound quality.
The sound for that album, like the sound for "The Last Waltz", was recorded on portable analog Nagra recorders for double system filming, and by comparison to modern digital gear, it's really compressed and distorted. "Waltz" is technically better than "Mad Dogs," but not by a whole lot.
Perhaps with tricks of digital noise reduction the version you have has been improved. I'll have to check it out.
Regards,
