Notes:
- The first Bo Diddley album was recently reissued by Acoustic Sounds in their Chess Records 75th Anniversary Series. I already owned an original pressing, but side 2 of that one is very noisy, so I bought this reissue as well.
- Acoustic Sounds is famous for their near perfect reissues, almost always housed in beautiful old-school tip-on covers. The problem I have with this album is the gatefold cover, as it’s a useless feature with the disadvantage of taking the space for 2-3 regular albums in your cabinet. Space matters. I’m not against gatefolds in general, but I’ve seen too many now with just two photographs printed on the inside – these could have been included on an insert as well. And, if the original pressing has a non-gatefold jacket, maybe the reissue shouldn’t have one either? Or is this purist talk? I guess this was all started with Music Matters and Blue Note’s Tone Poet series later on. Of course, in the case of Blue Note reissues, the photographs on the inside of the gatefold were (and are) an hommage to Francis Wolff as well, and in general it was done tastefully, but still… I think inserts would have done perfectly as well. See below for pics and more examples.
- A review of this reissue can be found here.
are fine for this purpose, well done!