5つ星のうち4.0Four or Five Star LP, Three Star Deluxe Edition
2014年1月29日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済み
Amazonで購入
I have the original Atlantic records CD release of Blues Master from the 1980s or 90s but I didn't get it until 2008 after I had been searching around years for a reasonably priced one used somewhere as it was out of print and just plain unavailable for a long time. It was at collectors prices for awhile until I finally got mine for about $12.
It is a very strong blues LP from the era. More from the soul-blues and funk-blues side of things. But it always is Freddie. He always did have a soulful blues element to him. There are some good organ instrumental passages at times and fun listening for those who like that with horn arrangements. Guitar solos on every song too, of course.
Basically the backup is the Atlantic Records house band and King Curtis touring band of the times (who were pretty close to the same). Recorded at Atlantic Recording Studios NYC in 1970.
Freddie King - Guitar and Vocals Billy Butler - Guitar Trumpets are Joe Newman, Melvin Lastie, and my old friend Martin Banks (from my Austin years) Saxes are King Curtis, David "Fathead" Newman, and Willie Bridges Keyboards are James Booker and Gary Illingworth Gerry Jemmot - Bass Norman Pride - Drums
You can tell when Booker kicks in some keyboard delights here and there. What a treat! They arn't real often nor much out front. But it IS Freddie's session.
The downside is, for a so-called "Deluxe Edition", this one is kind of lame. I own a bunch of them by various artists on different labels and I can say this one is a poor excuse to be called that. It adds two bonus tracks, mono single mix edits of "Play It Cool" & "Funky", but no big deal to me. They're OK but just not enough to add much value. Even more lame to me is the packaging. You expect a "Deluxe Edition" to have a few pages of essay(s), photos from the sessions, photos of the single releases, etc. What you get is a tiny-print recreation of the original back cover and a new tiny-print essay compressed onto one page (!) which is somewhat informative but falls short in my opinion. For what the description on Amazon said it was, that is kinda stretching it a bit.
Now for sound. Well, it does sound OK for what it originally was. The truth is, recordings from that period could be somewhat compressed-sounding but that studio did have a nice warm sound to it. Now here's the kicker. I listened to my entire original Atlantic CD release after listening to the new "Deluxe Edition" on Friday Music, and I actually like the sound on my original Atlantic release better. It has more of a high-end without any real tape hiss and has a nice warm mix to it. The Deluxe Edition sounds a bit clipped on the top end like they filtered it out somehow and with only maybe a modicum of better clarity than the original CD.
That said, I highly recommend this CD to anyone wanting to first-time purchase or collect Freddie King as I consider it to be one of his strongest and most essential releases. I am biased about my old friend Martin Banks playing on it, so I do like that. But anyone who already owns the original Atlantic Records CD release should pass on the Deluxe Edition. You don't need to replace it with this one. There's not enough extra meat on them bones. If you're a big collector like me, check out your Atlantic Records box sets and you might already have the bonus single mix edits from this on them. I found at least one of them on one of mine.
So now what do I do with my old Atlantic CD release? I do like the way it sounds better and the booklet re-creates the LP back cover with bigger print so it's easy to read the original liner notes/essay. The Deluxe Edition shrinks that down to nothing and the new essay is short and hard to read too. So now I have to have shelf space for BOTH? Argh!