Buddy Miller on "vinyl" (LP)


Buddy Miller’s Your Love And Other Lies and Cruel Moon albums were released by HIghtone Records (a great, great label) on CD only (during the digital dark years, ’95 and ’99 respectively) . They are now available as LP’s on the fantastic Bear Family Records, the German label that in the 80’s and 90’s earned the reputation as the best reissue and compilation label in the world, with prices unfortunately considerably higher than those of Rhino, etc. Their catalog is massive, covering Blues, Jump Blues, Jazz, Rockabilly, 1950’s Rock ’n’ Roll (I find the term Oldies insulting), Hillbilly, Country, Vocalists, and many other genres. They offered both LP’s and CD’s, single discs and boxsets, with superb pressings and packaging, and very detailed liner notes by well-known music historians and authorities. These two LP’s are fantastic pressings, done at the well known Pallis in Diepholz Germany.

If you have yet to discover Buddy Miller, get to it! ;-) He serves as Emmylou Harris’ guitarist/harmony singer/bandleader/producer, and has quite a solo career of his own (including producing other artists). These two albums are amongst the crown jewels in my collection, as good as music gets. Great material (some written by his wife Julie, herself a singer with her own albums), great singing, great musicianship, great production and engineering. The LP’s are considerable cheaper on Amazon that through Bear Family’s website.

The hype sticker on the front of the shrink wrap reads:

"Nothing in the universe sounds as marvelous as a perfectly-made phonograph record, recreating the sound in exactly the same manner as the artist wanted you to hear it."

"Bear Family albums are accurate, pure 180 gram vinyl pressings, derived from the vintage source tapes. Our company is renowned the world over for our sensitive mastering and compulsive quality control. It’s our firm desire to make perfect records at affordable prices."

Mission accomplished! That hype sticker is no hype.


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When I saw Buddy & Julie at The Roxy Theater in Hollywood (right on Sunset Blvd., a block down from The Whiskey A Go Go) in the late-90’s, they had Patty Griffin come on stage for a song. A while later they brought up Don Heffington, whom Buddy employs on some of his recordings. Don was the drummer in Lone Justice, the 1980’s band Maria McKee was in before starting her solo career. Maria’s Brother Bryan was in the group Love in the 60’s (and perhaps into the early-70’s, I don’t know).

Lots of L.A. singer/songwriters were in the audience, including Dave Alvin, sitting at the table next to my gal and I. She was a big fan of The Blasters, the Blues/Rockabilly/Hillbilly band Dave was in with his brother Phil. Dave eventually left The Blasters to join X, leaving them to start HIS solo career.

@doni: My pre-order of the standard version (black PVC) of In The Throes arrived a few days ago, and yesterday I went to Music Millennium to get a copy of the Indi Exclusive version (seaglass blue PVC, autographed cover). I forgot to get a CD copy for the car. 😉