Jimmy Reed: Jimmy Reed At Carnegie Hall [BLUESVILLE]

Why you'll love it

This Bluesville Acoustic Sounds Series edition is cut all-analog from the original tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab, pressed on 180g vinyl and packed in a tip-on jacket with an obi. It opens with "Bright Lights Big City," a No. 3 R&B hit.

This edition

• Bluesville Acoustic Sounds Series
• 180g vinyl
• All-analog remaster from the original tapes
• Mastered by Matthew Lutthans
• Tip-on jacket
• Obi strip
• Notes by Scott Billington

About the album

Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall wasn't recorded at Carnegie Hall. Reed did play the famous room in May 1960, on a bill with Muddy Waters and Big Maybelle, and Vee-Jay celebrated with a double album the following year. This LP is its first disc, a set of studio recreations cut at Bell Sound in New York and Universal Recording in Chicago.

The sound is pure Reed, which is to say lazy, loping and impossible to sit still to. His high harmonica and easy drawl ride over Eddie Taylor's walking guitar lines, and Mama Reed, his wife Mary, is there in the background on "Bright Lights Big City," as she was on so many of his hits. "I'm Mr. Luck," "Kind of Lonesome," "Tell Me You Love Me" and the instrumental "Blue Carnegie" keep the groove rolling, and "Blue, Blue Water" closes things gently.

The Rolling Stones played his songs in their early sets, Sonny James took "Bright Lights Big City" to No. 1 on the country chart in 1971, and Reed went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. A live album made in a studio, then: the blues have always been relaxed about paperwork.

Also at Kops: more Jimmy Reed on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Vee-Jay / Bluesville, a reissue of the 1961 album.