Album Reviews

Instead of re-issuing this yet again, some folks argue that Analogue Productions should reissue newer albums. They are tired of hearing again what they already have. What they forget is that the last reissue of this classic was many years ago. Sorry, but time flies, especially as you get older. And guess what else? That issue by Classic Records is long out of print as is the one Mobile Fidelity first issued around twenty years ago when the label decided to re-enter the vinyl market and press its own records in Sebastopol.

Instead of re-issuing this yet again, some folks argue that Analogue Productions should reissue newer albums. They are tired of hearing again what they already have. What they forget is that the last reissue of this classic was many years ago. Sorry, but time flies, especially as you get older. And guess what else? That issue by Classic Records is long out of print as is the one Mobile Fidelity first issued around twenty years ago when the label decided to re-enter the vinyl market and press its own records in Sebastopol.

So for a new generation of vinyl fanatics, here's Muddy Waters Folk Singer issued as a double 45rpm set and never sounding better, or this good. The Quality Record Pressing is drop-dead quiet—as silent as the best Japanese pressings from the late 1970s—and the amount of inner detail released is simply astonishing. There are technical reasons for all of this having to do with how Quality Record Pressings was designed and built and how the presses were modified.

Yet at the same time, the sound is sweet, liquid and free of harshness and edge. The dynamics are mind-boggling. When Muddy takes it up ten notches to emphasize a point it's positively explosive in a way the 33 1/3 version only suggests. 

So Muddy and Buddy and Willie have never sounded as natural and "in the room" as they do here. Combine that with stunning first rate gatefold packaging including session photos on the inside and this becomes the best  ...Folk Singer  ever.

Look, if you have Classic's original 33 1/3 edition, I'm not suggesting you should replace it with this....that is, unless it's one of your all time favorite albums, in which case, you really should. Like the Classic, this one won't be around forever and if you don't get it while you can you might kick yourself where it hurts.