Rest in peace, John Matousek, Motown Mastering Engineer

[carlo]

Sad news...John Matousek passed away on May 27th. He was a long time Motown mastering engineer and was responsible for mastering a large chunk of Motown's catalogue starting in the mid 70's, up until the early 90's...including many of the anthologies and Compact Command CD series that we've all purchased, enjoyed and loved. The first link below is his obituary and the second link is a listing of the various releases he worked on, from Discogs' database. Thank you for working your magic, John. Rest in peace.

https://www.horancares.com/obituary/John-Matousek

https://www.discogs.com/artist/410413-John-Matousek

[woodward]

Sorry to learn of his passing. His name was commonplace with me every time I read the booklets that were included with the many recordings he was involved in being remastered. We all owe a debt of gratitude to him. RIP. He was certainly a Motown legend.

[mysterysinger]

Very sad news. He's touched us all in one way or another. Farewell John.

[George Solomon]

John was a wonderful man. I worked with him closely on the earliest CD compilations and reissues. He was great to work with and always willing to go the extra mile [[which I often asked for)! It was a pleasure to go to that studio every day. I will always have the best memories of my time with him.

[wichmanne]

God knows how many hours I've spent listening to those early CDs. And I'm still missing a couple of those 2 on 1's......

Thank you, John. Condolences to his family.

[wichmanne]

Did John do the mastering on the original Stevie albums on CD like SITKOL, Original Musiquarium, Innervisions and Talking Book. No one is credited on the early reissues. Anyone know?

He's credited on the Fulfullingness' First Finale reissue I have but that came out a little later.

[TomBairdFan]

Many years ago, a posting on the SteveHoffman forum that praised John Matousek for the 'warm' and unadulterated sound that he achieved with his mastering started my quest to obtain Motown CDs mastered by him as my primary choice - I became a John Matousek collector! I have therefore ended up with many of those Motown discs released in the late 1980's and early 1990's during his prime time both at Motown and, presumably, out on his own at Soundworks West.

Given the choice of his mastered discs or those 'Remastered' re-issues from later, I would always chose those with John Matousek's name on them, and still do. I'm not some nerdy audiophile; I just happen to really like his work, as opposed to the later re-issues on Polygram, for example, where someone has twiddled with the knobs just a little too much so the result will sound good coming through earbuds or as a download, instead of John Matousek's way of making something sound as it did when it was first recorded, plus a little bit better. I've said before that those '2 All Time Great Classic Albums...Remastered on 1 CD' are pure Motown gold, as are all the other recordings that I treasure because they passed through the hands and ears of The Man Who Mastered Motown. He's left a wonderful legacy behind.