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

IMPEX - IMP6012-45 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - AAA 100% Analogue  

Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio

Pressed at RTI -  Limited Edition - RCA LSP-1972

The Absolute Sound Super Disc List       TAS Harry Pearson Super LP List

Individually Numbered and Strictly Limited to 2,000 Pieces

This album remains incredibly popular and well-respected for good reason aside from the spectacularly vidid sound. 10/10 Sound Michael Fremmer

A favorite off the recommended list by The Absolute Sound magazine

Impex's line of classic RCA Living Stereo releases now includes the inimitable vocal stylings of Harry Belafonte singing the timeless words and music of American blues in truly breathtaking sound. Available for the first time on 180g 45RPM 2LP, this definitve pressing was mastered by Kevin Gray, includes a historical essay insert and packaging, and is individually numbered and strictly limited to 2,000 pieces.

Belafonte Sings the Blues was recorded over four sessions during the first half of 1958, and released by RCA later that year. The album features thrilling performances of numerous Billie Holiday, Johnny Mercer, and Ray Charles songs, interpreted in a way that only Belafonte can. The blues are close to Belafonte's heart and it clearly shows here on his renditions of such classics as "One For My Baby", "Cotton Fields" and "God Bless the Child" among others! "

This reissue was mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio and the 45 rpm set pressed at RTI in California. A few reissue companies have taken a stab at the RCA Living Stereo catalog, but this is the most successful execution yet. I was struck by how much more emotional impact this issue has. The two LPs are packaged in a handsome fold-out cover with lyrics inside the fold and an insert bio of Belafonte inside sleeve. Top recommendations!" - Dennis Davis, HiFi+ Magazine, January 2013

Impex Records offers Harry Belafonte's ground-breaking blues set available for the first time on 45rpm 180g Vinyl, featuring exclusive historical essay insert on an elegant 84 lb pearlized paper stock and gorgeous high resolution mastering by Kevin Gray at AcousTech Mastering.

Harry Belafonte has never before sung on records as he does in this album. He is freer, more earthy, more exultantly identified with his material than ever before. He ha always communicated an often ferocious as well as lyrical sensitivity, but in this collection he achieves a unity of emotional strength in and understanding of his material that marks an important stage in his evolution as an artist. 

"This is the area - the blues - with which I have the strongest identification," emphasizes Belafonte. It took a long time, however, before he was able to make this kind of a direct, basic blues album. By blues, incidentally, it is not meant that the songs are strict blues in terms of bar and chord structure, but that the feeling and the wryly unconquerable spirit of the blues pervade all the numbers. 

"When I started singing," Belafonte explains, "I was involved with an enbironment that emphasized the modern school of jazz, and it was difficult for me to adapt the way I felt to the requirements of that kind of singing. But that was what I was exposed to at the time. I've always had a feeling for the basic blues, but it took several years of removing myself from the predominantly modern jazz environment and finding myself and my own set of balues before I had teh courage to attempt an album like this. Here I can just step out and sing wholly the way I feel." 

Belafonte Sings the Blues was recorded over four sessions during the first half of 1958, and released by RCA later that year. The album features performances of numerous Billie Holiday, Johnny Mercer, and Ray Charles songs performed in a way that only Belafonte can.

The blues are close to Belafonte's heart and it shows in the way he delivers such tunes as "One For My Baby", "Cotton Fields" and "God Bless the Child" among others.

Recorded in New York, January 29, 1958, March 29, and in Hollywood June 5 and 7, 1958.

- First time on 180g 45RPM 2LP

- Mastered by Kevin Gray

- Individually numbered and strictly limited to 2,000 pieces
- Includes historical essay insert and packaging

Harry Belafonte Belafonte Sings The Blues Track Listing:
 

 

 

Impex Records is the exciting audiophile label from the team that brought you Cisco Music. With more than 20 years experience and 150 titles released, Cisco Music developed many of the techniques used by other labels to make higher quality 180-gram LPs, SACDs and Gold and aluminum CDs.

We brought definitive editions Jennifer Warnes' The Well, The Hunter and Famous Blue Raincoat in multiple formats, including a 45 rpm box set that Absolute Sound magazine declared "defines the state-of-the--art in vinyl playback." Other classic reissues we nurtured to fantastic rebirths include the jazz-rock perfection of Steely Dan's Aja, Joan Baez' Farewell Angelina, NathanMilstein's poetic interpretation of Dvorak's Violin Concerto and four exquisite 45-rpm Three Blind Mice LPs.

Even in our humbler origins we were trusted with the distribution and production of The Super Analogue Disc, the original audiophile 180-gram LPs. King Records recognized, from the very beginning, that Cisco Music brought unflinching passion to the music and unflailing dedication to the process of bringing that music to the most discerning listeners in the world.

Now as Impex Records some of the original Cisco staff (Abey Fonn, Robert Pincus and Robert Sliger), along with Robert Donnelly, will follow and expand our own high standards for a new generation of audiophile products. Analog products will always be cut using analog tapes and analog mastering at the finest mastering facilities like Sterling, Cohearent and Bernie Grundman--just as it should be. Gold CD's will always be cut with high-definition digital or analog tape transfers from original sources. We will introduce America to Sony's revolutionary Blu-Spec CD, which redefines production excellence in 16-bit digital playback.

With a singular vision for making the best records anywhere, Impex Records is poised to expand Cisco Music's peerless legacy well into the 21st century. It's going to be quite a journey and we look forward to your joining us. We have committed ourselves, with every new release, to your complete satisfaction.