Cassette Cover Art Library: Freddie King

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Freddie King

OK here's where I "concatenate" all my Freddie King cassettes.. and having ANY of them at all, other than the cheap budget knockoffs, is a challenge ...
Let's start in order.. his first album...This is a Modern Blues issue.. these huys were HOT back in the day, not only for even issuing Freddie in the first place, but using 'Cedar" or something similar, they remastered the mono only tapes into what they called "stereo"...

Tape shell scans coming soon

Thought I'd slide this one in this spot.. this is actually a very hard to find reissue of a hard to find original, of a really easy to find CD ;-) Tapes were never King's and Gusto's medium .. both labels were VINYL oriented ... (hey no 't ated")

Next is his MASSIVE album "Let's Hide Away and Dance Away" .. maybe if The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton *hadn't* covered it, it might have been just another blues classic, but it was Eric's rendition of 'Hideaway', that prompted the guitar smitten pub crawler, to write on the wall in England..'Clapton is God" as an "after closing time affectation".. back then.. Eric was 'weaving" a great deal, on the guitar, given the freedom proffered by his then-current employer John Mayall.. like.. folks PAY for the opportunity to do, what he was earning a weekly stipend for, as a kid barely out of his teens.. not to lessen his recorded contribution in any way.. he certainly knew where the right notes were.. because of FREDDIE KING!
Even my old bass player, (William Cardinal) who recorded with the likes of Ronnie Hawkins, the Bells, and Ocean, who wasn't fazed by ANYTHING, was in awe of Eric's contribution on 'Bluesbreakers'..
Here's where it started...

Freddie was pure R&B, and definitely under the spell of Syd Nathan at the time (Who wuz the "big cheez" at King records.. by Big Cheez i mean he gave James Brown his start)

So when he was asked to help out singer Lula (Lulu) Reed, he could hardly refuse..

The resulting album was 'Boy Girl Boy' which also featured his steady studio keyboardist Sonny Thompson..

On this next one I am going to break with practice, and feature a "homemade' cover..

The new "Highland Music' owned 'King' label never saw fit to issue the third in this series, that is 'Bonanza of Instrumentals'.. Since I have the CD of it (a Japan issue) I thought I'll just make a cassette from scratch.., seeing as I have scanned so many tape sleeves, i had enough experience to make a third sleeve from scratch..

This is it: I am VERY proud of it, and think it fits in with the others perfectly.. I can't make a printed plastic cassette to match, but I'll probably just label a chrome for it.. What do you think? Good job?

Back to the REAL cassettes.. I haven't yet found a cassette copy of his 'Atlantic/Cotillion' releases, but have got a couple of the 'Shelter' ones..

First up... "Getting Ready' ,, this and the next one, are part of the Steve Hoffman DCC remasters.. (Hi Steve!)...

For those who don't know, Steve Hoffman is an Audio Engineer, who's done a lot of the good remasters of 60's albums.. his main claim to fame (in my eyes) is that he does NOT believe that maxing out the compression (making it real loud all the time) is a GOOD THING.. his remasters keep ALL the dynamics of the original album.. He also talks to ANYONE on his blog .. which is how I can say 'Hi Steve' ;-)

You should know that once a master has been made 'Louder" it can't be reversed.. so many albums have been RUINED by wannabe engineers who are pressured by the large labels to "Make it Loud' (the recent Rolling Stones remasters are a perfect example).. because of the mistaken idea that volume catches the attention..

And, yes, it does, but that's not always a GOOD thing,.. I hav a special 'APP' to turn down the volume if it's too loud, like a bad commercial in a TV show..

It's called a 'Volume Control'.. and it's the BIG dial on a preamp