Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs From Vinyl Me, Please

The Boulder, Colorado-based vinyl curating service Vinyl Me, Please aims its releases more at new vinyl collectors looking for some guidance and order than at established vinyl aficionados and audiophiles interest in provenance purity.

The company began shipping its reissues back in 2013 and has so far attracted around 15,000 subscribers, who for an annual fee of $284 receive by a record a month. That works out to a little under $24 a record. A quarterly $75 subscription is also an option as is, for the super cautious, a month to month $27 trial subscription.

They press on 150 gram and up vinyl from various pressing plants depending upon the release, each of which includes a wraparound folder in which is a commissioned piece of art on heavy stock.

The wraparound includes a poem of sorts, notes on the fold over plus a mixed drink recipe—I’m not kidding.

When the company offered to send me their reissue of Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs (Folkways Records FA 2328) I took them up on the offer. The Smithsonian owns the Folkways catalog and recently expressed an interest in vinyl reissues so Vinyl Me, Please perused the catalog and chose well.

Broonzy (real name Lee Conley Bradley) passed away in 1958 at age 65. This record, released in 1962 consists of unreleased studio recordings for Moses Asch’s Folkway Records and some songs recorded during a 1956 concert at Northwestern University’s Chan Auditorium with Peter Seeger, first broadcast on Chicago’s WFMT. By that time he’d been performing for almost forty years.

Broonzy was born in rural Arkansas in 1893 and began his musical career as a fiddler in a black string band. When he moved to Chicago in the 1920’s he saw that single artists accompanying themselves on guitar were popular so picked up a guitar and learned to play it. He was sufficiently successful at it to record for Paramount Records, which was the premier blues label of that era.

He was a very popular blues and folk artist in the ‘30’s and ‘40s, even playing Carnegie Hall in 1938, where he debuted a new song called “Just A Dream” in which he imagined a black getting a warm White House welcome in the Oval Office by the President. In the song he wakes up, realizing it was “just a dream”. Times have changed far beyond his wildest dream!

After WWII Broonzy toured Europe to appreciative audiences, changing his music to appeal to white politically active audiences Vinyl Me, Please has done an excellent job with the physical package. Anyone owning original Folkways records will find the cover art and packaging authentic down to the matte sepia cover, pebbled black jacket back and black inner sleeve, here plastic lined. Inside is a folded and stapled booklet containing the original notes as well as new ones by Broonzy biographer Bob Riesman in which he describes Broonzy’s early ‘60s English television appearances, said to have influenced Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Ray Davies and Eric Clapton who said watching Bill perform felt “…like I was looking into heaven.”

The songs here include familiar ones like “This Train”, “Bill Bailey”, “John Henry” and “Glory of Love” as well as some that are less well known. These are country blues, beginning with “Backwater Blues”. You can almost hear the crickets chirping.

Maybe you’ll hear how Broonzy may have influenced Muddy Waters, who was a fan. In fact, in 1960 Waters recorded for Chess an album called Muddy Waters Sings “Big Bill” (Chess LPS 1444). In 2003 Speakers Corner produced a nicely done reissue mastered by Willem Makkee that’s still in print.

This reissue came packaged in a foldover containing a piece of original color artwork by McKenzie Nelson of an abstract “hair” train topped by an old Shure microphone riding on “hair” tracks. The mixed drink is a sidecar: Cointreau, lemon juice and cognac.

The value added by these extras is something you’ll have to judge for yourself if you pick this title up or try a trial subscription.

The master tape resided at The Smithsonian and could have been used to cut lacquers, but instead the decision was made to first digitize it. Ridiculous in my opinion, but as you’ll see and hear, the mastering engineer did a meticulous job using gear you’ll like.

The recorded mono sound quality is pretty good to begin with—especially the studio recordings, which are remarkably transparent— and whatever the digits added or took away doesn’t do anything objectionable. However, this one is not about sonic spectacular-ness.

Vinyl Me, Please has done an excellent job with this reissue and when I imagine young subscribers receiving and playing this record, which they otherwise probably would never have heard, it makes me think that Vinyl Me, Please is doing a great thing, surpassed only by the vinyl resurgence itself.

The first YouTube video shows the tape being mastered to digital by Pete Reiniger

The second shows Pete Reiniger approving the test pressing. Dig the playback system your tax dollars have bought. I approve of the spending!

This YouTube is of Studs Turkel interviewing Broonzy in 1953 on WFMT.

COMMENTS
sennj's picture

Thanks for posting all of this, Michael.

teachscience's picture

Why go digital if the analog master is right there? Is it an issue of safety for the tape as they can't cut a lacquer on sight?

All in all this seems pretty good, the sound on YouTube wasn't all that bad.

Michael Fremer's picture
It does sound pretty good. Look at his playback gear, for one thing. However, why not just cut from the tape? The engineer would say he was able to "clean up" things on the tape. I say it's a historical document. Leave it alone!
VirginVinyl's picture

I agree with Michael that this is a historical document and getting rid of extraneous noise on the tape is like using an eraser on a famous artist sketch.
Has anyone had the opportunity to listen to what a guitar amp sounds when idle? It's noisy, and that's part of the signal to noise ratio that's laid on to tape.
On AC noise, the engineer was so quick to use his digital wand to get rid of anything he thought wasn't good. It makes me wonder how often these master engineer go in to get their hearing evaluated. He has been doing it for so long that more then likely lost the top end of his hearing, and is now more dominant in his lower part of his hearing at his age.
This eyeopener goes to show how mega record giants are just in it to sell you something that is less expensive and more profitable for generations to come.

Gladys's picture

Um, BBB played acoustic guitar.

And don't you think the head of Smithsonian audio knows the difference between guitar hum and AC hum?

VirginVinyl's picture

I agree with Michael that this is a historical document and getting rid of extraneous noise on the tape is like using an eraser on a famous artist sketch.
Has anyone had the opportunity to listen to what a guitar amp sounds when idle? It's noisy, and that's part of the signal to noise ratio that's laid on to tape.
On AC noise, the engineer was so quick to use his digital wand to get rid of anything he thought wasn't good. It makes me wonder how often these master engineer go in to get their hearing evaluated. He has been doing it for so long that more then likely lost the top end of his hearing, and is now more dominant in his lower part of his hearing at his age.
This eyeopener goes to show how mega record giants are just in it to sell you something that is less expensive and more profitable for generations to come.

Bob Levin's picture

Thanks to keeping my 'cans' at ridiculous volume during my days in radio. (It gave a higher energy level on air.) I have elevated sensitivity to high-frequency sounds.
Noodling around on my Strat/Marshall combo, I can still hear all of the extraneous noises. Single coil pickups can really screw up the s/n ratio!
When Warners 'no-noised' Jimi Hendrix's albums in the late eighties, it completely ruined the sound by whiting out those anomalies. Jimi kept some of those down by setting his pickup selector out of phase, to eliminate the hum to an extent.
Low-level hum can be very fatiguing to listen to. I don't mind when engineers try to attenuate that. Unfortunately, those sonic tools frequently get overused when there are so many buttons and tweaks available.
Rather than testing their hearing, I'd hope that whoever is doing the mastering is a musician, or someone with experience with live recording.

swimming1's picture

I prefer lps with noises. Just adds realism to the ambience,just like a real performance!

Martin's picture

That was a funny moment seeing that plate.
Willi Studer - Regensdorf - Zürich
I'll think of this the next time I'm on a train passing through Regensdorf....

Agree with Michael, better to use the original tape. Vinyl pressed that way has an authenticity to it, a feel, that goes missing in the digital transfer.
I'm a great fan of high resolution digital downloads, but not digital on my vinyl.

thomoz's picture

Beats the pants off the farce that record store day has become. Even if they used a digital intermediate, what matters is the end is an overall high sound quality, good pressing and presentation. This lp reissue is a "win" by almost any standard.

Anton D's picture

I joined, sounds like fun!

Thanks for posting this.

jimhb's picture

I have this release and I think it sounds awesome and my pressing is really really good. So far VMP is doing a good job. I hope they commission more releases.

my new username's picture

We've seen some examples (none of which I can remember, maybe a Springsteen title? No, Grateful Dead?) where something like the Plangent Process fixed some analog ills such as above-average scrape flutter that would detract.

Anything else is probably hurting as much as it helps.

From my YouTube comments:

"In part of the clip Mr. Reiniger plays a portion where the inverse of the noise filter is heard. This is done as a check to see how much of the baby got tossed with the bathwater but in that example you can still hear some music getting deleted. Whether or not he applied that to the file, or some other judgement call we'll never know."

If that doesn't raise a serious question for anyone, consider that the 1989 reissue LP was cut from a digital file, too. Back then, a 16-bit file, possibly NoNoise'd, was considered by someone to be better than the original tape.

And here we are again, except "this time" it's truly better.

Until possibly the next time, when it'll be "for sure!" to be better.

Or maybe yet one more time in the future, when "no foolin'" it'll be the one.

Ejcj's picture

So I've been a member of the record club for over a year now, I started with a monthly and recently changed to the quarterly membership. I also consider myself an audiophile as in pursuit of wonderful home listening experiences through my own audiosystem. I bought the Bill Broonzy record through the club and I love the way it sounds. One of the things I like about the club is that I am surprised by music that I would not have purchased if left to my own devices. I am a jazz nut so I usually try to buy every jazz record they offer but I've gotten some really nice rock, blues, indie music, hip hop etc on vinyl. I love that the pressings are usually all done especially for the club and the vinyl itself is often unique. Often but not always pressings are limited edition, the jackets are sometimes unique and the record of the month comes with a piece of unique artwork and a unique drink mix to experiment with. All of which add fun to the equation. I discovered for example that their is a company that makes real Tonic for Gin and tonics and my audio buddies came over and we drank authentic Gin and tonics while we listened to music and had a blast.

Elton

darkstar's picture

Personnel I get the its a historical document argument. I do, if fact I have more than a couple on my shelf. That being said I really enjoy owning this for the simple fact its really nice to hear a clean copy of an old blues record. They did a good job on this. Some of the tracks on side two really sound nice to me. I don't get the digital uglies from it.

Also Vinyl Me Please just had 20th anniversary re-release of the Fugees the Score. It sounds about as amazing as anything I have. I really like the club because it is more music lover than audiophile but from the limited releases I have gotten so far most of it sounds pretty good too. They are definitely taking SQ into consideration.

I for one am not ready to be one of the old guys complaining about kids and there new fangled music. I just can't be that guy...

Gladys's picture

<< The master tape resided at The Smithsonian and could have been used to cut lacquers, but instead the decision was made to first digitize it. Ridiculous in my opinion. >>

You are wrong. Because you don't actually do anything in audio.

Let me count the ways: Hum. Clicks. Pops. Hiss. Editing. Preserving the master tape. Preventing stretching of the tape. Fixing glitches. Lossless duplication of CDs, LPs and cassettes (and even MP3s).

AnthonyP's picture

Seems odd to me that they would pull out the master tape and do a meticulous job digitizing it, then make the LP available only through Vinyl Me, Please. Or you can try to buy it through the used market.

X