Old King Gold Re-Re Launched! Volumes 2 and 3.

Volume 3:
Side One:
01) Have Mercy Baby - Billy Ward & The Dominoes
02) Let Them Talk - Little Willie John
03) Let's Go, Let's Go - Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
04) Guess Who - Ivory Joe Hunter
05) This Little Girl Of Mine - The Hurricanes
06) Soft - Tiny Bradshaw

Side Two:
01) Hearts Of Stone - Otis Williams & The Charms
02) I Love You, Yes I Do - Bull Moose Jackson
03) Think - The "5" Royales
04) Tomorrow Night - Lonnie Johnson
05) Over The Rainbow - The Checkers
06) Tonk Game - Hank Marr

Volume 2:
Side One:
01) Honky Tonk (Part 1) - Bill Doggett
02) Honky Tonk (Part 2) - Bill Doggett
03) Talk To Me - Little Willie John
04) Sixty Minute Man - Billy Ward & The Dominoes
05) Down The Aisle - Patti Labelle & The Blue Bells
06) White Cliffs Of Dover - The Checkers

Side Two:
01) Harlem Nocturne - Earl Bostic
02) Beside You - The Swallows
03) Sexy Ways - The Midnighters
04) Dedicated To The One I Love - The "5" Royales
05) Well Oh Well - Tiny Bradshaw
06) It Hurts To Be In Love - Annie Laurie

"Great Googa Mooga," I hear you cry. "Has Be Bop Wino finally lost it? Why does he keep posting this stuff? Again and again." OK what now follows over the next few posts is the final, best possible iteration of my five Old King Gold LPs. The new rips I was going to put up (and already did with Volume 2) were definitely overdriven with far too much volume on the mp3s.

Another issue came to light as I listened to the rips - distortion and crackling on a few tracks where none was audible on the original vinyl. I traced this to my use of the clean up function on my Audio Cleaning Lab software. If I used the clean up function to eliminate clicks and crackling across the whole album in one sweep then on a few tracks very short bursts of distortion could be heard. On the other hand, if I cleaned up each track individually then there was no such problem.

So over the last couple of days I have re-recorded and re-ripped the LPs at a more reasonable and sensible volume and without the distortion problem. You'll still hear the occasional crackling, clicking and popping but that's what you get with beat up vinyl that I've been playing for over 40 years. Here are your new and final links for Volumes 2 and 3 (ripped at 320 kbps, complete artwork):

Old King Gold Volume 2 best (Mega)

Old King Gold Volume 2 best (Zippy)

Old King Gold Volume 3 best (Mega)

Old King Gold Volume 3 best (Zippy)

Why go to all this bother with these cheapo knock off LPs? They are the very embodiment of the bargain bin ethos - cardboard sleeve, no inner sleeve, tasteless artwork, generic back cover, no info about the tracks which seem to have been randomly thrown together, and poorly pressed on poor quality vinyl. Well, on the surface they may well appear to be low quality exploitation tat but the music they contain is guaranteed to turn the squarest of squares into the heppest of hep cats. It happened to me.

And that brings me back to the question with which I started this post. The answer is sentiment.

The Grim Reaper stalks the land. We may all be socially isolated but we can keep on rockin'.  More Old King Gold comin' up soon, so hang on in there.