About That Mono Goldfinger Single

Last year, to honor the 60th anniversary of the release of the James Bond film "Goldfinger," La-La Land Records was asked to produce a new soundtrack album. This was one that was never on my "to-do" list because by all accounts the scoring masters are missing. But with the request in and a desire to continue having a roof over my head, I went ahead with the search for the score to "Goldfinger." While we wound up with many different album masters made over the years, no extra music was present on any of them. A search of the inventory at MGM did reveal one set of DA-88 tapes and we had those transferred.

Album cover for the 60th Anniversary Edition of the "Goldfinger" soundtrack

These tapes were digital back-ups of original 2-track 1/4" tapes from 1964 and contained the main title only, including the stereo mix of the version used on the soundtrack album and film (where it was folded down to mono). For that performance, Bassey recorded her track live with the orchestra. Once a completed take was in the can, that orchestra recording became the basis for a mono single that featured Bassey singing a fresh interpretation of the song. The tapes had those alternate takes with her on channel 1 and a mono mix of the orchestra on channel 2.

YouTube video of the original 45rpm mono "Goldfinger" single.

Evaluating all of the takes I determined that three of them (10, 12 and 15) were used to create the mono vocal performance. Listening to the original mono single an observant listener might be able to hear where those intercuts are. With digital editing it's much easier to make the transitions seamless, to preserve the illusion of a single performance. But there were still some issues, most notably that mono orchestra track still had remnants of Bassey belting out the lyrics from her booth. At times you can hear two voices on the original mono mix, such as around 1:12 where you can hear Shirley in the booth sing "It's" right before the alternate vocal comes in. Working with engineer Chris Malone, we were able to clean up all these stray bits to present the mono single in the best way possible. It's included on the La-La Land CD as track 17.

So why did we keep this mono and not create a stereo version? The answer is simple: we never found a stereo only mix of the orchestra. If one had ever been created, it's lost now, along with the rest of the score. But having access to the recordings revealed to me this was always intended to be released monophonically. That's why she was recorded against the mono mix of the orchestra. Could it be done with AI or some other computer trickery? Sure, but it would go against the intentions of the artists and may function as a curiosity but not a replacement. I'm thrilled with the work we did on this and it made the "Goldfinger" project, one I was initially skeptical about, worth doing.