About Singin' The Blues (Pure Pleasure) by B.B. King:
"Singin' The Blues" was issued as Crown 5020 in spring 1957 and featured some of B.B. King's best-loved songs up to that point. The LP included four #1 R&B hits: "3 O'Clock Blues" and "You Know I Love You" (1952), "Please Love Me" (1953) and "You Upset Me Baby" (1954); four other top ten hits; plus "Blind Love" from 1953 and covers of Tampa Red's "Crying Won't Help You" (1955) and Gatemouth Moore's "Did You Ever Love A Woman" from 1956. To fill out the album, a superior alternate take of "Sweet Little Angel" was included. As John Broven observes in his notes: "In 1957 "Singin' The Blues" gave the first real indication that B.B. King was destined to be a major star." Absolutely seminal material; his classic hits.
Musicians:
- B. B. King (guitar, vocal)
- The Maxwell Davis Orchestra
About Pure Pleasure
At the beginning of the 90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the situation was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and, of course, Pure Pleasure all maintained a mutual, unwritten ethical code: we would only use analogue tapes to manufacture records.
During the course of the present vinyl hype, many others have jumped on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source to master from: CDs, LPs, digital files, MP3s – or employed existent tools from the 80s and 90s for manufacturing.
A digital delay is gladly used when cutting a lacquer disc because tape machines with an analogue delay have become quite rare and are therefore expensive. When cutting the lacquer, the audio signal is delayed by one LP revolution against the signal, which controls the cutter head, and for this a digital delay is very often employed. Of course, the resultant sound signal is completely digital and thus only as good as this delay.
We should like to emphasize that Pure Pleasure Records on principle only uses the original master tape as the basis for the entirely analogue cutting of lacquer discs. In addition, the pressing tool is newly manufactured as a matter of principle.
We only employ existing tools for manufacturing if an improved result is not forthcoming, e.g. the title Elvis Is Back, which was mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, or several titles from our Philips Classics series, which in any case Willem Makkee cut from the original masters at the Emil Berliner Studios in the 90s. It goes without saying that we only used the mother and that new tools were made for our production.
To put it in a nutshell: we can ensure you that our releases are free from any kind of digital effects and that the lacquer discs are newly cut.
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