More Electric Blues

• Indianola Mississippi Seeds debuts on the site with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them throughout this original ABC pressing
• This side one is big, full-bodied and Tubey Magical, yet still pretty clear, spacious and open, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
• Credit Bill Szymczyk for the punchy, huge and energetic sound he produced and engineered
• An exceedingly tough album to find with audiophile surfaces – the top copy and two of the better second-tier copies from our recent shootout didn’t even make it to the site due to vinyl issues, which means that what we’re offering here is as good as it gets for the foreseeable future
• 4 stars: “B.B. King hasn’t made many better pop-flavored albums than this. Joining King here were Leon Russell, Joe Walsh and Carole King; several pop luminaries who did more than just hang on for the ride.”

This vintage ABC pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides Of Indianola Mississippi Seeds Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1970
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Shootout Criteria

What are sonic qualities by which a record — any record — should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, vocal presence, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, spaciousness, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, three-dimensionality, and on and on down the list.

When we can get a number of these qualities to come together on the side we’re playing, we provisionally give it a ballpark Hot Stamper grade, a grade that is often revised during the shootout as we hear what the other copies are doing, both good and bad.

Once we’ve been through all the side ones, we play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Other copies from earlier in the shootout will frequently have their grades raised or lowered based on how they sounded compared to the eventual shootout winner. If we’re not sure about any pressing, perhaps because we played it early on in the shootout before we had learned what to listen for, we take the time to play it again.

Repeat the process for side two and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides of each pressing match up.

It may not be rocket science, but it’s a science of a kind, one with strict protocols that we’ve developed over the course of many years to insure that the results we arrive at are as accurate as we can make them.

The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing — or your money back.

What We’re Listening For On Indianola Mississippi Seeds

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
• The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Side One

Nobody Loves Me But My Mother
You’re Still My Woman
Ask Me No Questions
Until I’m Dead And Cold
King’s Special

Side Two

Ain’t Gonna Worry My Life Anymore
Chains And Things
Go Underground
Hummingbird

AMG 4 Star Review

B.B. King hasn’t made many better pop-flavored albums than this. Besides making Leon Russell’s “Hummingbird” sound like his own composition, King showed that you can put the blues into any situation and make it work. Joining King here were Leon Russell, Joe Walsh and Carole King; several pop luminaries who did more than just hang on for the ride.

Rolling Stone Rave Review

…begins perfectly with B.B. singing and playing down-home piano on the terse “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother.” “You’re Still My Woman” is a slow, reflective tune featuring B.B.’s guitar and vocal played against an intelligent string arrangement, comparable to the role of the horns on his early records. Particularly exciting are the pianists: the more melodic Carole King and the percussive Leon Russell. With Russell he tends to leash out full-blown (notice how a rhythm guitar is added to these cuts for a more intense riffing fervor) and up-tempo on “Ask Me No Questions,” “King Special” and the single “Hummingbird.” With Carole King B.B. relaxes more and involves himself in spasms of single-note guitarwork paced with monologue-type vocals that, for me, are the highlights of the album. “You’re Still My Woman” and “Chains and Things” stun with their blues lyricism and melodic colorations.

Nothing is over-done on this album — from the choice of material to the arrangements and production, B.B. is surrounded with people sensitive to his genius at work. The album displays the vital and ever-developing nature of this man King, who has been playing and wailing the blues for more than 20 of his 45 years. Success at times was slim and often illusory, but the “sound” that was B.B. King never altered…”

-Gary Von Tersch, 12.24.1970