Ultimate audiophile Prestige reissues from Analogue Productions. Some of the most collectible, rarest and best sounding Rudy Van Gelder recordings ever made. This one is cut by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl at state-of-the-art plant Quality Record Pressings and plated by Gary Salstrom, with tip-on covers on thick cardboard stock.

• Limited Edition
• Analogue Productions Prestige Stereo Series
• 180 Gram Audiophile Vinyl
• Mastered Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
• Plated by Gary Salstrom
• Pressed at Quality Record Pressings (QRP USA)
• Deluxe high-gloss tip-on album cover

Part of the ultimate audiophile Prestige stereo reissues from Analogue Productions — 25 of the most collectible, rarest, Rudy Van Gelder recordings

All cut at 33 1/3 and also released on Hybrid SACD

Mastered by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound from a 24/192K hi-res file created by needle drop from an original copy LP

180-gram LP pressed at Acoustic Sounds' state-of-the-art pressing plant, Quality Record Pressings, plated by Gary Salstrom

Tip-on Stoughton Printing jackets on thick cardboard stock

First 250 LP copies of each title will be numbered editions and will only be available to series subscribers

This release of Lightnin' Hopkins Soul Blues completes the series of 25 Prestige label stereo reissues from Analogue Productions. Of the 50 titles (25 stereo, 25 mono) in this reissue series, 49 of them were mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original analog tape. For Soul Blues Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound created a 24/192K hi-res file from a needle drop on a clean original LP.

This was done because the tape supplied for mastering proved to be from a needle drop itself, not the original, which has been lost since the early 1970s. Smith took the original LP, did a new needle drop and meticulously worked to eliminate the minimal tics and pops that remained. Then he mastered the album for LP and SACD from the hi-res file.

"We are amazed by the quality," says Chad Kassem, Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions CEO. "Now that the tape is lost, an original LP copy is now the master. Only in cases where the original master tape is lost or damaged and where we feel that we have no other choice, do we consider using the best source that remains. But we'd only do that if that source was sonically worth it. In this case, it most definitely is."

This is a needle drop from the original Stereo LP. While the sound does not have the wide pan that you'd typically associate with Stereo, meaning that it sounds very much like Mono, this is in fact what was on the original Stereo release of this title.

A true poet of the blues, Lightnin' Hopkins was a master of tall, tongue-in-cheek tales, often made up on the spot in the recording studio. The first song on this album "I'm Going to Build Me a Heaven of My Own," describes an encounter with a bearded man claiming to be Jesus Christ. Hopkins also puts his personal stamp on Willie Dixon's "My Babe" and Smokey Hogg's "Too Many Drivers," among others.

Track Listing:

01. I'm Going to Build Me a Heaven of My Own
02. My Babe
03. Too Many Drivers
04. I'm A Crawling Black Snake
05. Rocky Mountain Blues
06. I Mean Goodbye
07. The Howling Wolf
08. Black Ghost Blues
09. Darling, Do You Remember Me?
10. Lonesome Graveyard

Click here to listen to samples on YouTube.com ♫