City To City/Night Owl

I just bought a copy of the Collectables 2 CD set of Gerry Rafferty's City to City and Night Owl albums. Both CDs sounded great but City to City was amazing... just like I remembered the DCC sounding (an out of print gold CD mastered by Steve Hoffman that now sells for several hundred dollars). Hmmm, I grabbed my DCC disc and played it. Yep, sounded the same. Quite a compliment as I often use song one (The Ark) as one of my reference tracks when auditioning audio gear and speakers.I loaded both CDs into Pro Tools to see what was going on. It was obvious EMI/Collectables sourced this CD from the much sought DCC release. The two files didn't stay *exactly* in sync but they were so close and the waveforms were so similar I assume they made an analog copy of the DCC. One thing I noticed was the Collectables CD had a reversed polarity. If you don't know what any of this means don't spend another second thinking about it. It's more trivial than audible.Again, I assume EMI made an analog transfer of the DCC CD. That would explain the slight sync variations.Switching between the two I could only detect *minor* differences and most of that was probably my imagination. For all practical purposes these two CDs sound identical so unless you're into minutia this is an inexpensive way to get the sound of the wonderful DCC CD without having to spend a couple hundred dollars.Night Owl sounds great too. The transfer is from a great source and it sounds like little to no mastering has been done (that's a GOOD thing). It has great clarity/fidelity and dynamics and I don't hear any hint of compression. As was the style of the era the mixes are slightly on the lean side. I'd rather it be presented as is than have some mastering engineer artificially pump up the bass into a bloated mess.These two CDs were a pleasant surprise. Well done EMI/Collectables!

City To City has always been a personal favorite, with Night Owl a fine but less impactful follow-up. I don't believe there's a weak track on the former, but the latter (despite including excellent tracks like Days Gone Down and Get It Right Next Time) suffers a bit in comparison. But then, City To City is buoyed by classic Rafferty songcraft the likes of Baker Street, Right Down The Line, and Home And Dry, to name just a few. Neither LP has ever sounded as good as they do in this fine two-disc set. Definitely recommended.

Perhaps Gerry Rafferty’s best two albums. I think it’s a nice value for the money.

The recently departed Gerry Rafferty left us with some terrific music. His legendary battle with the bottle meant that the later years were lean ones. But Another World and North and South deserve to be heard and it's a damn shame those recordings were neglected by fans and critics alike. Having City to City and Night Owl together in one package is a like a dream come true. These albums are arguably Rafferty's most consistent in terms of great tunes, brilliant musicianship and song sequencing. My old vinyl copy of Night Owl had a weird background hum that greatly affected my enjoyment of the disc. Must have been a bad pressing, or something. Anyway, while folks here debate whether this two CD set sounds as good as it should, I can tell you both albums are crisp and clear. I'm sure Rafferty was proud to have these wonderful songs represented in this way. Baker Street, with that iconic sax solo, is the one that made Rafferty famous and rich. But there isn't even a fair or middling track on City to City or Night Owl; it's all top drawer stuff. And I would argue that The Ark and Whatever's Written in Your Heart are just as good as Baker Street. Meanwhile, Night Owl features Days Gone Down, the great title track, Get it Right the Next Time and Family Tree. So, it's hard to say that one album is better than the other. Gerry Rafferty was an outstanding singer-songwriter and that distinctive, pitch perfect voice always wins the day for me. City to City and Night Owl are highly recommended! Now that he's gone, let's hope Rafferty finally gets his due.

I bought the 2011 EMI release (I noticed that they merged the reviews from the 2007 Collectables release with the 2011 EMI release)of this 2 album set, and I really liked the mastering/production of these two albums. They aren't remastered, but they still have a nice clear clean sound to them and the tracks on "City to City" aren't slightly sped up on the single 1988 EMI album release. I don't know what some of the reviewers were listening to when they were saying things like they heard hissing or the tracks didn't line up properly (they might have fixed that in the 2011 release). The only thing that I didn't really like was that there is really nothing in the booklet. It is 4 pages and it includes the 2 albums next to each other (as shown above, on the front), page 2 contains the album artwork to "City to City" with the red border around it, page 3 is "Night Owl" artwork with red border and the back (page 4) is the track listings (as shown on back). There are some nice pictures on the vinyl releases and some important liner notes that they missed. Well I hope that United Artists someday re-releases all of his album remastered and with pictures and liner notes. This release has a great sound it is just missing some printed information.

I have been playing the songs exported from my original City to City CD forever. I always thought the sound was a "muddy" at times. These new CDs are a breath of fresh air breathed into these classic albums. "Home and Dry" is my favorite GR song and was most pleased with the improved clarity and quality of the recording. I have also been re- discovering the great deep cuts beyond the 5 big hits (i.e. The Way That You Do It, Already Gone, Days Gone Down, Whatever's Written In Your Heart, and The Ark for starters).

Bought it to replace my vinyl version, so I knew what I was getting and still love it.

I recently watch the excellent BBC documentary about Gerry " Right Down The Line" It motivated me me to play through my entire collection of his CDs. As a life long fan I have all his CDs , or so I thought. I was quite shocked to discover that I didn't have a CD copy of Night Owl. Listening to it on Spotify I concluded I would still like physical copy to complete my collection. However it seems the only way you can get Night Owl ( other than paying silly money) is this double CD set. For the budget price it was ok to duplicate City To City , which I already had ( Special Collectors Edition). This is a very minimal edition with nothing but a basic CD insert an no remastering. I was concerned it would sound ragged and rough like a lot of early CDs did. But I listed to it on a pretty good set of headphones last night and it isn't too bad at all. Now all we can do is hope for a Special Collectors Edition of Night Owl that matches the brilliant effort made with City to City. A tip - if you like Gerry check out his good friend and fellow musician Barbara Dickson's covers album To Each and Everyone: The Songs Of Gerry Rafferty... it is really quiet sublime.

Francamente conoscevo poco di questo artista, ma ho ascoltato con piacere questo doppio cd contenente due album del 1977 e 1979, genere che è un misto di country-pop.Il pezzo più famoso è Backer Street (successo mondiale), ma entrambi i lavori sono di tutto rispetto.Consegna perfetta!

Love all the songs on here, such a great album.

Very enjoyable with well written songs and a singer with a great voice. Two cds worth the money great easy listen brilliant