B.B. King – Singin' The Blues

WolfXCIX made me decide to give this one and a couple of other of the B.B. King records from Wax Time a try. A bit of a disappointment. Read my reply on WoflXCIX's comment.

I like this reissue, it came on that nice 180 Gram vinyl and slick jacket as well. It came with the download card, which I was concerned about it working still since it said it expired 04/30/17 but it still worked so that was nice. I had never bought a Waxtime reissue before, and was weary of it the same way I was for 4 Men With Beards but it all turned out OK. The vinyl sounded good, but you could sort of tell that it was some kind of digital file, which I would later find out that the MP3's you get with this purchase is what's on the vinyl. They're identical from what I can tell.

I was curious to see how much better it sounded compared to the version of Singin' The Blues that I own already, as seen here. I was impressed to find that when listening and looking at them both side by side in Audacity that the version that came from this release was more superior. It wasn't as flat or quiet as the Flair edition, and was a lot louder. It felt like there was more breathing room in the recording. I guess I wasn't really even aware that there was that much bass on these recordings before I bought this reissue, so if anything I got a better sounding version of an album I already owned. My theory is that they got the files from Ace Records (whom own the B.B. King catalog as part of their Crown & Kent Records acquisition) and made a pressing of it, because they sound exactly the same judging by the files. So if you want a listen of what this one sounds like, visit the Ace Records website.

There were some aspects of this release I thought could have been easily fixed, such as King's writing credits being listed as "Ripley B. King" rather than "Riley B. King". It's over and over again, you think they would have seen that with how many times it appears. There was a little crackle here and there on each side, but that could be that it was sitting unsealed for so long that it just built that up over time and would go away with a few plays. I didn't have to worry about too much static on the release, because it did come with a nice poly lined inner sleeve as well. Also the pressing coming from GZ Media made me feel better as well, they do a nice job with their work.

Overall, I would say this is a good reissue. It's not perfect, but it's way more affordable than an original copy of this album. And from the look of it, it seems that Waxtime just keeps making reissues of this same album but in slightly different forms. The album is of course a 5 Star rating from me, but for this particular release it's a 4 for some of the issues I described above.