Music is a beautiful thing. I’ve been working on an audio restoration project lately. The group was called the Calypsonians and they played authentic Calypso. The recordings were made with a portable cassette recorder in the early sixties. My job was to transfer the audio from the original cassettes to a digital form (ultimately a CD) and do whatever I could to enhance the sound quality.

Here is a short sample from a track called “Take Me Back To Jamaica.”

As well as the audio restoration, I also designed a cover for the CD. My idea was to use as much historical material as possible. To accomplish this, I scanned in a couple photos of the band and took photos of the cassettes. I used one photo of the band for the cover and the other band photo on the inside. The lettering on the cover is actually the original handwriting from one of the cassettes.

The magnetic tapes were deteriorating, but now the music is safe in a digital form. I feel blessed to have gotten the chance to work with and restore a recording that’s nearly fifty years old.