...somewhat randomly, with no particular expectations, we phoned Jeff Calder in early 2009.

Ever gracious and informed, Jeff told us that attempts to issue a Kevin Dunn anthology about ten years back had stalled out, for whatever reason. The master tapes for The Judgement of Paris were apparently destroyed in a fire, and the previous compilers had made a noble attempt to resurrect the album for the digital age by making a transfer of a pristine copy of the LP -- a very reasonable course of action, and one that has been taken more times than people would care to know. The fact that the original masters were gone was upsetting, to say the least. Jeff gave us a few phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and myspace pages, and we proceeded to leave messages on all of them.

Then all went dark for a while. No responses were forthcoming, and we carried on with the release of King Wilkie Presents: The Wilkie Family Singers and the accompanying shows and tours. The night before leaving for a two-week US tour with his own band, Casa Nueva staffer Brad got a flat tire, returning from a last-minute rehearsal. While changing the tire in the rain, his cell phone rang. "This is Kevin Dunn..." the voice intoned -- recognizable from the albums, EPs, and 45s we'd been obsessed with for years. Of course, that was no time to talk, and we set a time later that evening. Kevin, who immediately struck us as gentlemanly and relentlessly bright, agreed to send a copy of the 1999 master for our listening pleasure.

Upon arriving back from tour, the master was waiting...on first listen, it was way better sounding than our own consumer-grade vinyl transfer. That was exciting: this thing could be good to go! And yet, subsequent listens, coupled with more intense discussions with Kevin, made us consider an experiment: what if we gave the 16-track master tapes (which Kevin had thoughtfully transferred to high-resolution wav files a few years back) to a skilled engineer and had him recreate the original album's mixes?

Our inner historians -- always a vocal bunch -- cringed. But the potential upside soon revealed itself: by going back to the original tapes, we could achieve fidelity the likes of which the original LP pressing simply couldn't deliver. It was a gamble, and we took the first steps cautiously...