The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Just listened to Carole Bayer Sager's "Sometimes Late At Night" on cd and was surprised to hear a different listening experience than the vinyl version. On cd, the songs flow one to another with no "dead space", there is musical "continuity", sometimes one song is fading out and the next song comes in over the fade out (listening to the end of one and the beginning of the next one at the same time). Especially on "Easy To Love Again", which does not fade out like on the vinyl version but has a long (40 seconds or so) instrumental bridge to connect it to "Stronger Than Before". The vinyl version I have states on the front cover "Special Radio Edition", so maybe it's a version radio could play as a "regular" album, with distinct tracks. Can anyone elaborate, which version is the "original" version? Thanks for any insight, help.

This is very interesting because I remember when Burt and Carole were on The Mike Douglas Show as co-hosts. And they were talking about the "Sometimes Late At Night" album and Burt was saying that they intended the album to have songs that weren't individual songs, per se, but songs that flowed from one to the other with no breaks. So I'm assuming, after reading what you wrote, that the CD is exactly how Burt and Carole intended the album to be. It only took over 30 years, I guess.

The original vinyl was identical to the later cd. You`re correct in your assumption that the "radio edition" was banded for airplay (which I don`t recall it having).

Thank you Blair N. Cummings and An Enormous BB Fan, for your valuable insight. I just came from a record store that has listening stations and I found a used copy of "Sometimes Late At Night" and yes, Blair, the cd duplicates the original vinyl version. All this time I assumed otherwise, thanks again.