Etta James – At Last!

Hi guys, need some advice 😀

Should I try and find a original press/repress from the 60’s-70’s, mono or stereo? Or go for a new reissue like the 2xvinyl mono/stereo or one from the jackpot reissue???

Thanks for any input a can get.

Sainsbury's are using this track in their Christmas 2021 advert at the moment. https://www.sounds-familiar.info/sainsburys-christmas-advert-2021-music-at-last/

I love the album and of course Etta's vocal delivery but in particular the string arrangements from Riley Hampton are rather pedestrian. All in my opinion of course.

Anyone have any more info on this silver label release?

https://www.discogs.com/Etta-James-At-Last/release/11669264

Ask most musicians, and Etta James will certainly show up in their music collection, probe a bit deeper, and those same musicians will admit to Etta James’ influence, but ask the fans of these same artists, and most of them, if honest, will admit that they’ve never listened on even one Etta James song ... and that causes me to shake my head in wonder.

At Last is the Etta James album that belongs in everyone’s collection, it’s been rated by Rolling Stone as one of the Top 50 albums of all time, and though recorded back in 1961 [her first on the Chess Label], after an absence from the music scene for a few years, rocketed this brilliant woman right back to the top of the charts, where she laid out “Stormy Weather,” a jazz standard, like it had never been heard before, then flips like a pancake too hot to handle, and walks all over “I Just Want To Make Love To You,” a blues’ classic by Willie Dixon that inspired the likes of Janis Joplin, Mama Cass Eliot, and yes, even Jimi Hendrix, allowing a woman, for one of the first times in musical history, to stand toe to toe with the boys, creating a solid album of emotional classics, sung not from the heart, but from the gut, where she laces her songs with growls, airy presentations and phrasings, while never letting go of her intensity ... as if the word “restraint” waså not in her vocabulary.

Yes, sometimes the album is so intense that it can be taken only one side at a time, but the sensational feeling one gets rolling off into the morning sun with Etta James on the car stereo, is pure satisfaction.

Review by Jenell Kesler