Customer Reviews

Snoopy Vs. Red Baron / Snoopy & His Friends

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was the co producer (with Phil Grenhard) of the original Roayal Guardsman singles, and the first album.

I wanted to point out that the original recordings were layered by dubbing between two 2-track reel to reel machines. The "ping pong" stereo in not a stupid remix, it is the way the original masters sounded when thety were sent to new york for mastering.

Our little studio, Charles Fuller Productions, in tampa, florida, did not have any High-End audio stuff, so we sent everything "dry" to the label. The music track was created first, overdubbed a few times, then the vocals were layered on the second track. I seem to recall there are eight layers of overdubbing on SVRB.

I built most of the equipment from scratch, and created some of the sound effects, one of my favorites being the "bone biting" sounds in BEARS, which was a mouthful of potato chips!

Those were exciting days, i was 26 years old at the time, and travelled with the RG and another band "NOAH'S ARK" to engagements in central florida. If you have seen the movie "almost famious" you have an idea what it was like.

This was Vietnam Draft days, and the guys in the band were on all on college deferrment, so they didn't dare miss classes, so they were severely limited in the anount of travel.

One interesting side note, Most of the original songs by the RG were written by Richard Holler, who also write "Abraham, Martin, and John" he had a discipline for writing: Buy a newspaper every Day, write a song about SOMETHING in the newspaper. I recommend this to every songwriter i know.

Ok, enough blathering, i do not make a penny of royalties from sale of these records but i wanted to share a tiny bit of the history of these songs.

Those disappointed in the One Way "Anthology" on The Royal Guardsmen may want to pick up this disc. It contains the RG's first two LPs in their entirety and is a considerable improvement in sound quality. Actually, in some ways it makes a good companion to "Anthology" because while most of the tracks on that disc are mono, everything on this disc is true stereo. The RG's first album, "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" is presented first, opening with the classic title track. The rest of the album is okay being mostly filled out with cover versions of novelty hits of the day. These are performed well but not essential. The other two standout cuts on the "Vs." album are the RG's hit cover of The Young Rascals' "Baby Let's Wait" (and it's the first time I can recall hearing it in stereo on compact disc) and the Guardsmen original, "Sweetmeats Slide" which served as the b-side of the "Return of The Red Baron" 45. The next LP presented is the more interesting of the two. "Snoopy and His Friends" contains all three of the original "Snoopy" hits, each prefaced by a story presented as a radio broadcast, even though the stories are about World War I, "when radio didn't actually exist to tell the story" as the liner notes point out. The stereo mix of "Return of the Red Baron" is a little annoying, being instruments on one channel and vocals on the other. The second half of "Friends" is six excellent Guardsmen originals including "So Right" and "It Kinda Looks Like Christmas" both making their CD debut. The sound of the "Friends" LP is not quite as bright as the "Vs." LP but it's still good. The "story" portions of the "Snoopy" tracks have a few dropouts and the treble goes up and down a little during the dialogue but it sounds like the remastering engineers did the best they could with what I believe to be original master tapes. Overall the sound of the entire disc is very good. Original liner notes of both LPs are reproduced and there are some new notes as well. Overall, a good job from a label that's getting to be one you can always trust, Collectables Records. Shortly after writing the above review, claiming that Collectables was a label you can always trust, I discovered that the first several seconds of "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" are missing the second time the track appears on this disc. I wrote Collectables about the error and was flat out told that the disc was correct, having been taken from the original masters! I don't know what irritates me more, the error on the disc, or Collectables customer service implying that I'm mistaken! I wrote another review and gave the disc 2 stars so that my two reviews would give it an average of 3.

I can't believe that anything remastered this badly could ever be released!!! On the "Snoopy and his Friends" half of the CD,a big piece of the beginning of "Snoopy Vs.The Red Baron" is missing from the song!!! Does anyone check these things out before they come out?!!! Apparently not!!! It's bad enough that fans like me wait for a certain LP to come out on CD only to get stuck with a shoddy job like this,but it also means that as long as a piece of ... like this is on the market,it will take that much longer before it is re-released and done RIGHT...

Having read the other reviews of this cd, particularly the ones denigrating its sound quality, I was a little reluctant to buy it. However, I wasn't disappointed.

I found the sound quality to be very good. Not great, but very good. I know that some people don't care for that "ping-pong" stereo of that era (the vocals in one channel and the instruments in the other), but it is in stereo. And it's very difficult to find "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" and "Snoopy's Christmas" in stereo. Some reviewers have commented that the beginning of "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" is clipped. However, bear in mind that the song appears twice on this cd. It's the opening track, which sounds great and is not clipped at all. And it's also track 14, which is supposed to be a segue from track 13. I can't vouch for what the segue sounded like on the original 1967 album, but I'll admit it's not a very smooth transition here.

Six out of eight of the Royal Guardsmen's Hot 100 hits are on this disc. The only hits missing are "Wednesday" and "Snoopy For President", so you could consider this a greatest hits cd. Recommended.

I have the original 1967 Snoopy & His Friends album and have loved it for years. The sound is good on this CD, but there is a fatal flaw in the mastering of the disk. As stated previously, there are 5 seconds of missing sound and a terrible edit between tracks 13 and 14. There is no excuse for this kind of unattended mastering. This disk should be remastered properly and reissued. Because of this error, I give what should have been a 4 star CD a single star.

As a child, I got the LP of this for Christmas one year. It became a Holiday favorite for the whole family. When I got older, and moved out, I didn't have a record player and our LP's were buried in boxes. I missed listening to Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron every Christmas. When I discovered it on CD I was elated, but some of the reviews on several sites were very poor, mostly about the sound quality, I took a chance and bought one anyway.

The sound quality is just like the LP, there was no change, but too me that gives it a little something extra, just as I remember it. Although it has no pops/hisses like the LP, it is not what some people would expect as "CD quality". I like it that way! Some also complained the one song comes to an abrupt end, if they bothered to listen to the LP, it is the same on it too. It's supposed to do that.

I was very happy w/it and the extra songs as well were nice. The non-digitally remastered CD gives it character, and as I said before, just as I remember it!

I'm only 26 in years, but I grew up with music like this thanks to the family collection of LPs and 45s. Most of today's 'pop' is just plain awful (my opinion of course). Back in this era, even during such turbulant times that the late 1960s are known for, the Royal Guardsmen made their music FUN!

On this disc, you get their first and third LP's ("Return of the Red Baron" and "Snoopy for President", LPs 2 and 4 respectively, are on another CD sold here...with more good stuff). There is no 'remastering' done here...these will sound like they were ripped straight from the masters with no EQing done to them, just as you remember them on LP. This doesn't matter though...at least not to me. Not when the music is enjoyable and puts you in a good mood.

Of note, the third LP "Snoopy and His Friends" has been reissued countless times on LP, 8-track, and cassette through the 70s, 80s and 90s, under the title "Merry Snoopy's Christmas", which I once had. That was one other reason I picked this disc up. I wanted that album on a digital medium.

Collectibles (an 'oldies' reissue inprint of EMI / Capitol) made one minor error that has already been noted by other folks who bought this. Track 14 "Snoopy vs the Red Baron" is flawed, cutting out the bit of dialog before the song starts. Do NOT let this turn you away from buying this CD. Track 1 has this particular song unscathed. If this error were not present, this would be a perfect replication of the LP. I had to knock one star off for a 4 out of 5 though.

The error nonwithstanding, this is a 5 out of 5 disc of good pop and rock tunes. One should just be thankful that stuff like this even gets reissued at all. Alot of 'oldies' LPs never got their proper release on CD format in the U.S., and probably never will. Especially ones from acts like The Royal Guardsmen.

Noteable cuts:
- Snoopy vs. The Red Baron
- The Return of the Red Baron
- Snoopy's Christmas
(Probably the reasons this CD is bought, but why not? Really nostalgic. I still hear these on the radio during the holiday season. These songs sound more concise with the radio play that was done for them on the "Snoopy & His Friends" section of the CD)
- Airplane Song (My Airplane) (For those who didn't know, this song was co-written by Michael Martin Murphy, of 'Wildfire' fame. My favorite here. It's originally from LP 2 "Return of the Red Baron", but it sounds better here, among the other 'pop / rock' tracks, than on the "Return of" album, which featured more rock / R&B tunes than pop. See my seperate review of that CD.)
- Down Behind the Lines (Rather heavy rock outing for the Guardsmen.
- Baby Let's Wait (Perhaps their best known non-'Snoopy' outing. A top 40 hit in 1968, and still played on occasion).

This CD is a recording of the two Royal Guardsmen albums, "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" and "Snoopy And His Friends".

"Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" makes up the first 12 tracks. Back in the `60s I had all the Snoopy singles, but did not have either album, so the only songs from this album I had heard before were "S vs TRB" and the flip side, "Sweetmeats Slide", a Guardsmen original. The remaining tracks on this portion of the CD are mainly covers performed by the Royal Guardsmen. Some are pretty good (Liberty Valance, The Battle of New Orleans), some passable (Alley-Opp, Li'l Red Riding Hood) and some forgettable ("Bears", "Road Runner"). One track that caught my attention was "The Jolly Green Giant". The beginning of that track has a quick 6 second sample of a Green Giant commercial from the 60's with, if I'm not mistaken, Stan Freberg and Jesse White or Daws Butler. And the cut ends with a quick Don Adams/Maxwell Smart "Sorry about that Chief" quote.

The reason I bought this CD was for the album "Snoopy And His Friends" which makes up the last 12 tracks. Tracks 13-18 are the tale of Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron. Three original S vs TRB songs are embedded in a series of mock radio reports from the World War I front lines. I enjoyed the way the songs were presented, especially the setup for Snoopy's Christmas". The remaining 6 tracks are either Royal Guardsmen originals or Snoopy songs like "It's Sopwith Camel Time" and "Down Behind The Lines". In addition you get "I Say Love", the single the Guardsmen put out in the midst of the Snoopy craze, and "It Kinda Looks Like Christmas", the flip side to Snoopy's Christmas, both of which I like very much.

One last comment is on the balance between the stereo channels. On the CD, some of the songs exhibit a disconcerting trait found on some 60s stereo albums; the vocals are mainly in one channel and the instruments in the other which I find bothersome especially when listening with headphones. I don't know how the original albums were balanced, but the original singles I had were mono versions, so I didn't realize this was an issue. However, there is a very effective use of stereo sound effects during the Snoopy Vs the Red Baron sequence embedded in the mock WWI radio broadcasts.

I appreciate the production limitations of the time and some people obviously like the original versions. For me it would have been nice to have additional re-mastering to enhance the original versions. But given that the main thing I wanted was the Snoopy song trilogy and the Guardsmen singles, I was satisfied with the CD.

I bought this cd for my husband for Christmas. He used to have the singles of Snoopy vs. the Red Baron and Snoopy's Christmas. It's great fun to watch him turn back into a teenager when he listens to them. But my 8 year old loves the Snoopy songs from this disc as well!

Snoopy vs. the Red Baron is a classic. I'm so glad I found this CD. It's a family favorite that we will pass on to the next generation.