Blues, Electric Blues and R&B

Bee Gees et al. – Saturday Night Fever

More 5 Star Albums

  • KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it brings this 70s classic to life on these vintage pressings
  • There’s real Bee Gees vocal magic here – “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” “More Than a Woman,” “Jive Talkin’,” and more
  • One of the most underrated tracks that holds up surprisingly well after all these years is “A Fifth of Beethoven,” and it sounds stunning here on this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side two – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • It’s no walk in the park to find a copy with sonics this good, but here it is
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “Saturday Night Fever is virtually indispensable as a Bee Gees album, not just for the presence of an array of songs that were hits in their own right but because it offered the Gibb brothers as composers as well as artists…”
  • If you’re a Bee Gees fan, this title from 1977 is surely a Must Own

This copy of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack has truly killer sound throughout, and that ain’t no jive talkin’! We collected a bunch of these and put them through the shootout process and were delighted to find out that some of the material on here can sound wonderful on the best pressings.

Like any compilation, some songs are going to sound better than others. The good news here is that most of the tracks you’d hope to be impressive actually are: “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Disco Inferno” are among the better-sounding songs here.

Find your favorite song on here, drop the needle, and see if the dramatically improved sound doesn’t bring back some special memories, and maybe even inspire you to bust a move!

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Jimmy Witherspoon / Evenin’ Blues

Hot Stamper Pressings of Soul, Blues, R&B, etc. Available Now

Not long ago we dropped the needle on a copy of the album you see pictured and thought the sound was good, but not really good enough to please the serious audiophiles we cater to, especially at the prices we charge.

As far as we can tell, based on this single pressing, Evenin’ Blues (OBC-511 ) is not an album that would end up being worth the cost associated with finding, cleaning and playing enough copies for a shootout.

We can’t say that there aren’t better sounding pressings of the album though. If we happen to hear a good one down the road, we would certainly consider spending the money to do a real shootout in order to make the better copies available to our customers.

Perhaps you have a pressing of the record you like. If so, please tell us more about it. You can email me at tom@better-records.com

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The Robert Cray Band – Strong Persuader

More Electric Blues 

  • Both sides of this original Mercury pressing were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • A tough shootout, as no other copy earned a 3+ grade on either side, which simply means that when you find a top copy, it sets such a high standard that everything else ends up getting marked down
  • This is the album that propelled Cray into the mainstream, earning him a spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 80s, 5 stars on AMG, and endless accolades from critics and fans alike
  • Clear and open, but still fairly analog sounding, this copy has the right sound for the kind of electric blues Cray brought back from the dead in the 80s
  • 5 stars: “The set that made Cray a pop star, despite its enduring blues base… his innovative expansion of the genre itself that makes this album a genuine 1980s classic.”

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Stevie Ray Vaughan – Soul To Soul

More of the Music of Stevie Ray Vaughan

  • This copy was giving us the sound we were looking for on this classic of Electric Blues guitar, with both sides earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • A superb pressing with hard-rockin’ energy, rich, solid bass, open top end, and freedom from congestion
  • This is one of the best copies to hit the site – good SRV albums are getting tough to find nowadays
  • “[SRV] wanted to add soul and R&B inflections to his basic blues sound, and Soul to Soul does exactly that. [T]he Curtis Mayfield-inspired closer, ‘Life Without You,’ captures Vaughan at his best as a composer and performer. It’s such a seductive number – such a full realization of his soul-blues ambitions…”

Vaughan’s guitar playing is as fiery as ever, and the addition of keyboards and saxophone here gives the music broader scope and range than was possible on his previous albums.

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Eric Clapton – Unplugged

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it brings Clapton’s latter day Masterpiece to life on this vintage Reprise pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The sonics of this superb import are rich, full-bodied, lively, and warm, with solid bass and breathy, clear vocals
  • There are a number of records that Eric Clapton has made over the years that are Must Own titles, and we would have no problem putting this album on that list
  • Consistency has never been the man’s strong suit, but you will simply not be able to find a bad track on this live album from 1992
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Unplugged is the concert and album that established the MTV program as a classy, tony showcase for artists eager to redefine themselves via reexamination of their catalogs, which is what Clapton cannily did here.”

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Fleetwood Mac – The Original Fleetwood Mac

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

  • Here is an original UK import pressing with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Most of the time this album sounds like Fleetwood Mac is playing live in the studio, which they probably were, and on big speakers at loud volumes that is a glorious sound
  • 4 stars: “An undeniably strong collection culled primarily from the band’s first incarnation, featuring John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, and Jeremy Spencer.”
  • If you’re a Fleetwood Mac fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this Peter Green era title from 1971 is one of their best sounding

The music on this album was recorded when they were still a blues band — tracks left off their early albums for one reason or another.

As is so often the case with unreleased material, these songs do not have that overproduced, too-many-generations-of-tape sound. This sounds like Fleetwood Mac live in the studio most of the time. In other words, awesome.

If the drum sound on the first track isn’t enough to convince you this is an amazing sounding record, I don’t know what would.

These British imports are the only way to go. The domestic copies are definitely made from dub tapes. They can sound good, but they sure don’t sound this good! (more…)

Taj Mahal – Giant Step / De Ole Folks at Home

More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • With roughly Double Plus (A++) grades on all FOUR sides, this copy of Taj Mahal’s third studio album will be very hard to beat
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard (particularly on side two, three, and four), and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • A stunning double album that combines killer electric tracks on the first disc, Giant Step, with more intimate “decidedly rural” acoustic sound on the second, De Ole Folks at Home
  • 4 stars: “Parties searching for an apt introduction when discovering Taj Mahal’s voluminous catalogue are encouraged to consider Giant Step as a highly recommended reference point.”

The best copies are not hard to spot. They have the richest, breathiest, most present vocals, surrounded in the most space. The balance between the guitar, bass and drums on the electric side is correct.

On the acoustic side the harmonics of the stringed instruments — banjo and guitar — ring out clearly and naturally.

A sweeter midrange, with less grit and spit on the vocals, was especially welcome. (more…)

B.B. King – Lucille

More Electric Blues

  • Boasting solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout, you’ll have a hard time finding a Lucille (the album, not the guitar) that sounds remotely as good as this vintage Bluesway pressing – impossibly quiet vinyl too, the quietest we’ve come across in twenty years of doing shootouts for this title
  • An exceptionally hard album to find with good sound, but here it is – clean, clear and spacious with a solid bottom end – qualities that bring out the best in B.B.’s Blues
  • It has taken us years to find clean copies with the right stampers for Lucille, but finally our efforts have paid off with this knockout Hot Stamper
  • “The soulful empowerment that comes from Lucille resonates vocally from Mr. King and the signature vibrato and trill of the guitar’s namesake. The album itself is a dedication to thick, yet airy blues filled with quirk and real-world relatives, staying thoroughly intimate through its production. At thirty-seven minutes, the nine-tracked record isn’t a lengthy export, but its replay value is priceless.”
  • If you’re a fan of the Mr. King, this vintage pressing of his 1968 classic surely belongs in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1968 that we’ve auditioned to date can be found here. As of 2026, there are about 100 or so reviews for them, most of them describing the better copies from our shootouts
  • We don’t mess around. We play all the clean copies of good titles that we can get our hands on. It’s the only way to find the hi-fidelity recordings that actually sound good — they’re the ones that were mastered and pressed properly — and you have to clean them and play them to have any hope of figuring out which are which.
  • Everything else is a guess, and we prefer not to guess. We want to know.

Lucille is by far the toughest 60s B.B. King record to find these days in audiophile playing condition. Most copies are just beat, and the ones that aren’t tend to be rare and pricey. The reason for all of the above is simple enough: it’s one of the man’s most consistently enjoyable, best sounding albums. Who can blame people for playing it to death when the music is so good?

Mobile Fidelity remastered the record in the 90s for their consistently awful Anadisq series on Heavy Vinyl, and we used to sell it, albeit somewhat reluctantly. It’s not nearly as bad as most of their catalog from the period, but I would it goes without saying that our Hot Stamper pressing will show you a Lucille that a Heavy Vinyl pressing or Half-Speed can only hint at.

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Taj Mahal – Recycling the Blues & Other Related Stuff

More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • Taj’s 1972 release appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • The sound is huge – big, wide, deep, and open, with a punchy bottom end and rhythmic energy to spare, as well as cleaner, smoother, sweeter upper mids and a more extended top
  • “The first side features laidback in-the-studio work with some nice gospel-inflected back-up from the Pointer Sisters. The second… side offers a good look at Mahal’s stage show.”

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John Lee Hooker – Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive

More of the Music of John Lee Hooker

  • Both sides of this vintage ABC pressing were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • It’s one of the best sounding John Lee Hooker albums we’ve heard – exceptionally well recorded at Wally Heiders’ right here in L.A.
  • Features a host of “the greats” lending a hand, including Van Morrison, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite, and Steve Miller
  • “…this album continues his work with mostly younger musicians and predates similar projects The Healer and Mr. Lucky by about 20 years.”

With superb sound from beginning to end on this pressing, Hooker is in the room with you, as he should be. The sound is big, rich and lively with a huge bottom end, lots of space, wonderful transparency and real immediacy.

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