Search - Lightnin Hopkins :: Remember Me: The Complete Herald Singles

Improvement over Collectables' Herald recordings

Tim Weber | Iowa | 02/19/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This release by the British Ember Records does with Lightnin' Hopkins' very fine Herald material what cheap American label Collectables should have done long ago - issues it on a single CD. The sound is a bit better than Collectables' "The Herald Recordings" Vols. 1 and 2. But the confusing CD history of these 1954 recordings gets even more strange. Because Herald reissued five of these songs, four under DIFFERENT TITLES, Collectables stupidly repeated the same error on two separate discs (see my reviews of those two CDs). While this new reissue by Ember seemingly corrects that problem, another crops up: "Blues is a Mighty Bad Feeling," from Collectables' Vol. 2, is nowhere to be found! But, perhaps balancing out this oversight, "They Wonder Who I Am," from this new disc, apparently is not on either of the Collectables CDs. Typos abound on this package, as if Ember has one employee who slapped together the booklet in five minutes and didn't proofread it. The booklet says there are 28 songs (there are 26) and overestimates the total time by about 10 minutes, in addition to other mistakes. Still, this is the best option for the Herald recordings, with better sound and better value on the single disc. The music itself is outstanding (excepting two tunes sung by Ruth Ames, on which Lightnin' plays guitar), and very nearly gets five stars from me."

Herald Recordings

busotti | 05/16/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Herald Recordings feature Lightnin' plugged in and playing some of his rawest and wild playing. This CD is out of print but a more recent CD "Hear Me Talkin'" has 30 tracks of Herald material to this collection's 26 tracks."