More of the Music of Stevie Ray Vaughan
Hot Stamper Pressings of Electric Blues Albums Available Now
Years ago we heard a copy sound so much better than any copy we had ever played that we gave it a grade of Four Pluses on side two.
- Our lengthy commentary entitled outliers and out-of-this-world sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.
- We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
- Nowadays we often place them under the general heading of breakthrough pressings. These are records that, out of the blue, reveal to us sound that fundamentally changes what we thought we knew about these often familiar recordings.
- When this pressing (or pressings) landed on our turntable, we found ourselves asking “Who knew?“
- Perhaps an even better question would have been “how high is up?”
The Sky Is Crying is one of the best sounding rock records ever made, especially if you are fortunate to have access to the kind of big speaker system that can play it at very loud levels like we do.
The song Little Wing rocks as hard on this pressing as any song we’ve ever heard, with demo disc sound to rival the greatest rock recordings of all time.
The guitar solos on Little Wing are as huge and lively as any we have ever heard (assuming you have a copy that sounds like this one).
Blistering in the 80s and 90s
This is one of the most blistering recordings of electric blues-rock we’ve ever played. Few other records recorded in the ’80s, or pressed in the ’90s, have this kind of big, bold sound. Maybe none. The sheer impact and wallop of this music is a real treat, but only if you have the right pressing (and the right kind of stereo to play it on, of course).
Little Wing is the surest proof that SRV was one of the greats. To me it’s his clearest claim to fame.
I know of no other guitar showcase to compete with it.
It boasts one of the tallest, widest and deepest soundstages I have ever heard on a record. It brings to mind Gilmore’s multiple solos on Money from the hottest Dark Side pressings.
Wall to wall and floor to ceiling, few records get as big as this one at its loudest.
When records are this big and bold, we say they have “blockbuster sound.” Here are some others that fit that bill.
The real kicker is the amount of energy and musical drive that the best pressings have going for them.
The Sky Is Crying is an album we know well. It’s one that checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:
- It’s a personal favorite
- It’s a masterpiece of electric blues
- It’s a member of our Top 100 rock, pop, blues list
- It’s our pick for Stevie Ray Vaughan’s best sounding album
- It has some of the best “live in the studio” sound we’ve ever heard
- It’s part of the core collection of well recorded soul, rnb, blues, etc. albums
Further Reading