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

Speakers Corner / Atco - SD 33-364 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl 

Mastered by Kevin Gray  - Limited Edition -  Audiophile Mastering - Pressed  at Pallas 

 Speakers Corner 30 Years Pure Analogue  This LP is an Entirely Analogue Production

Speakers Corner records has done an outstanding job in re-mastering Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues to 180-gram vinyl. The overall mix is balanced, with excellent stereo separation. This vinyl update is a must for collectors and blues aficionados. Sound 4.5/5 Audiophile   

The southern-style, Rhythm & Blues album Play The Blues by Buddy Guy & Junior Wells was recorded in the Miami Criteria Studios in the second half of 1970. Nevertheless, Guy was not able to leave Chicago out of this album with tracks such as "Bad Bad Whiskey" and "My Baby She Left Me."

This is probably the best recordings Guy & Wells ever made, sounding clean and smooth. An excellent blues album from two masters in blues!

The blues is perhaps one of the most private things from which a human being can suffer. However, to play the blues, and thus to express a man’s innermost feelings and state of mind, is probably the most important task of black music. With Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, we have two disciples from the world of the blues who express their highly personal blues with profound instrumental proficiency. The enormously talented, self-taught guitarist Buddy Guy was ranked 23rd in Rolling Stones magazine’s list “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”, and several times he was awarded one of the coveted Grammy awards. Junior Wells entered Muddy Waters’ 'academy' at the tender age of 18 and played the blues harp with enormous passion and virtuosity.

In this recording, the musicians condense their rock playing over a bone-dry bass line to create a mantra-like funky style ("A Man Of Many Words"), passing on with fleet-footed steps to a slender chirping sound on the mandolin with a 12-bar blues construction and creating an earthy groove ("T-Bone Shuffle"). Then the duo works perseveringly on an unrelenting chord ("A Poor Man’s Plea"), only to return to two numbers that pulsate forcefully with a snappy and jagged offbeat ("This Old Fool").
The handpicked band, among them being co-producer Eric Clapton who is eternalized on the rhythm and bottleneck guitar, and the voodoo rocker Dr. John who occasionally contributes his magic on the keyboard, make this album a truly collectible sound experience.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head.

Recording: October 1970 at Criteria Studios, Miami (FL), by Ron Albert and April 1972 at Intermedia Studios, Boston (MA), by Richard Oulleppe
Production: Ahmet Ertegun, Eric Clapton, Michael Cuscuna, Tom Dowd

AAA 100% Analogue   This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head 25 Years pure Analogue

 

MADE FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES

AAA 100% ANALOGUE - PURE ANALOGUE AUDIOPHILE MASTERING

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

180 GRAM VIRGIN VINYL  PLATED & PRESSED AT PALLAS GERMANY

Faithful Reproduction of the Original Artwork and Labels

LIMITED EDITION Released in Limited Quantities

All Licences and Mechanical Rights Paid

 

                                      

 

Are your records completely analogue?

Yes! This we guarantee!

As a matter of principle, only analogue masters are used, and the necessary cutting delay is also analogue. All our cutting engineers use only Neumann cutting consoles, and these too are analogue. The only exception is where a recording has been made – either partly or entirely – using digital technology, but we do not have such items in our catalogue at the present time

 

Are your records cut from the original masters?

In our re-releases it is our aim to faithfully reproduce the original intentions of the musicians and recording engineers which, however, could not be realised at the time due to technical limitations. Faithfulness to the original is our top priority, not the interpretation of the original: there is no such thing as a “Speakers Corner Sound”. Naturally, the best results are obtained when the original master is used. Therefore we always try to locate these and use them for cutting. Should this not be possible, – because the original tape is defective or has disappeared, for example – we do accept a first-generation copy. But this remains an absolute exception for us.

 

Who cuts the records?

In order to obtain the most faithful reproduction of the original, we have the lacquers cut on the spot, by engineers who, on the whole, have been dealing with such tapes for many years. Some are even cut by the very same engineer who cut the original lacquers of the first release. Over the years the following engineers have been and still are working for us: Tony Hawkins, Willem Makkee, Kevin Gray, Maarten de Boer, Scott Hull, and Ray Staff, to name but a few.

At the beginning of the ‘90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the reissue policy was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC Compact Classics, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and others, including of course Speakers Corner, all maintained a mutual, unwritten code of ethics: we would manufacture records sourced only from analogue tapes. 

 

Vinyl’s newfound popularity has led many other companies to jump 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 from which to master: CDs, LPs, digital files and even MP3s. 

 

Even some who do use an analogue tape source employ a digital delay line, a misguided ’80s and ‘90s digital technology that replaces the analogue preview head originally used to “tell” the cutter head in advance what was about to happen musically, so it could adjust the groove “pitch” (the distance between the grooves) to make room for wide dynamic swings and large low frequency excursions. Over time analogue preview heads became more rare and thus expensive. 

 

So while the low bit rate (less resolution than a 16 bit CD) digital delay line is less expensive and easier to use than an analogue “preview head”, its use, ironically, results in lacquers cut from the low bit rate digital signal instead of from the analogue source! 

 

Speakers Corner wishes to make clear that it produces lacquers using only original master tapes and an entirely analogue cutting system. New metal stampers used to press records are produced from that lacquer. The only exceptions are when existing metal parts are superior to new ones that might be cut, which includes our release of “Elvis is Back”, which was cut by Stan Ricker or several titles from our Philips Classics series, where were cut in the 1990s using original master tapes by Willem Makkee at the Emil Berliner Studios. In those cases we used only the original “mother” to produce new stampers. 

 

In addition, we admit to having one digital recording in our catalogue: Alan Parsons’ “Eye in the Sky”, which was recorded digitally but mixed to analogue tape that we used to cut lacquers. 

 

In closing, we want to insure our loyal customers that, with but a few exceptions as noted, our releases are “AAA”— analogue tape, an all analogue cutting system, and newly cut lacquers.

 

60 Years Pallas

 

Audiophile Vinyl - Made in Germany  For over 60 years the family business in the third generation of the special personal service and quality "Made by Pallas" is known worldwide. Our custom PVC formulation produces consistently high pressing quality with the lowest surface noise in the industry. Our PVC complies with 2015 European environmental standards and does not contain toxic materials such as Lead, Cadmium or Toluene. Our vinyl is both audiophile and eco-grade!