AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

Pure Pleasure / Candid  - CJS 9010  - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - AAA 100% Analogue

Pure Analogue Audiophile Mastering by Ray Staff  at Air Mastering London

Limited Edition - Pressed  at Pallas Germany

Wowsa. This is one GREAT album!…I think when you hear this record you’ll get a good idea why I am so smitten with the blues…For what it’s worth, this Pure Pleasure release destroys the UK Barnaby issues…Highest recommendation.” Recording = 9.5/10 Music = 10/10 – Richard Foster, Hi-Fi+, Issue 41,

 I was amazed then and am now. My intermediate efforts at capturing his music (via Cd) have been failures. This is the real deal, amazingly engaging acoustic blues. Sound 5/5 LP Review

Another incredible Lightnin' Hopkins performance, this one with the man on vocal, guitar and piano. Recorded at Nola Penthouse Studios in New York City in November of 1960. Reissue mastered from the original analog master tapes by Ray Staff at Alchemy. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl by Pallas.

This is another in Pure Pleasure's Candid Series, featuring reissues from an incredible label that met its demise some 40 years ago. The American Candid label has achieved a near legendary status among the critics and the International jazz and blues public. The series was born in 1960 when Archie Bleyer, owner of the Cadence label decided to indulge his love of jazz and blues and create his own line - called Candid. Archie approached Nat Hentoff - a likeable and knowledgeable critic, author and journalist active in New York at the time. Hentoff accepted the challenge of producing the albums and history was made. However, the label went out of business in 1961 and remained that way for a quarter of a century. Then Alan Bates acquired the masters and renamed his Black Lion Productions company Candid. Bates made the Candid titles available again on CD. These Candid titles were very well recorded and the performances generally are stunning. Great sound and music.

“Wowsa. This is one GREAT album!…I think when you hear this record you’ll get a good idea why I am so smitten with the blues…For what it’s worth, this Pure Pleasure release destroys the UK Barnaby issues…Highest recommendation.” Recording = 9.5/10 Music = 10/10 – Richard Foster, Hi-Fi+,

This trio of Hopkins recordings absolutely belongs in every audiophile's music library. Pure Pleasure Records in particular, deserves special mention for unearthing yet another musical and sonic gem, this time from the vaults of Candid Records vaults, and releasing a stunning sounding record.

Each of the recordings couldn't have been more different sonically! Lightnin' in NY is a very close-up recording and the darkest sounding of the group. To its credit, instruments possess an incredible sense of dimensionality and Hopkins sounds like he is standing in the listener's room. Hopkins voice is incredibly smooth but a bit of an upper bass boost colors and thickens his distinctive baritone voice.

Lightnin' Hopkins in New York is once again available in vinyl format courtesy of UK-based Pure Pleasure Records. Lightnin' in NY was remastered from the original analog tapes by Ray Staff at Alchemy Mastering in London, UK. The master tapes were played back on a Studer A80 Mk. 2 machine with preview heads and mastered on a Neumann VMS82 lathe equipped with a Neumann SAL74 cutter head feeding Neumann SX74 cutter amplifiers. The records were pressed on 180 gm vinyl at the Pallas plant in Diepholz, Germany. While Staff isn't exactly a household name in the US vinyl remastering market, he is a veteran of the engineering console having worked with and mastered albums from Led Zepellin, David Bowie, Elton John, Cat Stevens, Genesis, Van Morrison, not to mention many audiophile record labels. In fact in a 2004 interview in Resolution magazine, Staff averred that "80% of Alchemy's mastering output is vinyl," and "he is cutting more vinyl than he was ten years ago and that the UK remains something of a lathe capital of the world."

Musicians:
Sam "Lightnin' Hopkins, vocals, guitar, piano

Selections:
1. Take It Easy
2. Mighty Crazy
3. Your Own Fault, Baby, To Treat Me The Way You Do
4. I’ve Had My Fun If I Don’t Get Well No More
5. The Trouble Blues
6. Lightnin’s Piano Boogie
7. Wonder Why
8. Mister Charlie
9. Black Cat

ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES

AAA 100% ANALOGUE

We use the Original Tapes and work with only the Best Mastering Studios

PALLAS

Plated and Pressed at Pallas in Germany on 180 gram Virgin Vinyl

Highest Quality Jackets and  Inner Sleeves

LIMITED EDITION

Low Numbers per Stamper Released in Limited Quantities

 

 

Pure Pleasure Records
The Restoration of the Art of Sound
180g Vinyl Mastered From The Best Available Sources

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.

There really is nothing quite like it.  It’s the touch, the feel, you have to stop and stare, the cover,  the real thing, even the smell.

Its tangible, you can feel it, see it, study it,   muse/dream over it, it’s real, someone  has spent hours and hours over its construction and presentation. Pure Pleasure Records is just that, Pure Pleasure and that is what it has set out to be.  The music and the physical record.  Something to keep, treasure, admire and above all enjoy.Of course with vinyl it’s not just a record, it’s the cover,  the sleeve notes, you are  holding a unique package, produced by craftsmen.

60 Years Pallas