Paul:
There are so many "King" products in circulation from different eras and different nations that you need to be more specific. In the 1970s Gusto was notorious for altering the sound of King/Dixie/Starday masters by adding echo and changing equalization. ACE Records UK acquired a large number of masters from Gusto and anything they reissued was untainted. But anything coming out of King/Gusto US is suspect until you can compare it to an original release. When I master tracks for my radio show, I go back to original 78s and 45s and accept the surface noise as preferable to changes Gusto frequently made in reissue mastering.
Jay Bruder
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Stephen Canner
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2020 3:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Oddity
In 1975 Gusto Records (actually their parent company GML, Inc.) acquired the King master recordings, at least everything except the James Brown catalog. They pretty much immediately began churning out budget reissues of the King catalog, sometimes with fuzzy graphics that made them look like bootlegs. The releases would usually maintain the original King logo on the cover, while the label would usually either bear the Gusto logo or a totally updated King logo (that did make it appear to be a totally different label.) During the vinyl and cassette heyday (mid-70s at least into the mid-90s) I would often see their releases in truck stops, especially in the south. I think of these as "super budget" releases. The label is very much American, though. Unfortunately, I'm no help on the technical side of the source of the discs. I can only say that many of the copies I've heard, in the cases where I was familiar with the original, also sounded "decidedly odd," especially on the compilations. At times I often wondered if on some of the compilations they put together if they weren't releasing alternate takes.
Hope that helps a bit.
Stephen CannerMediated Signals
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Mediated Signals
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On Saturday, November 14, 2020, 02:03:37 PM CST, Paul Stamler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi folks:
Has anyone on the list run across the King reissue label from the 1970s?
This is NOT related to the Cincinnati label that issued 78s. They mostly
did reissues of R&B; the label looks like it's English, but they were
distributed by Gusto Records of Nashville.
I ask because I'm working on transferring one of their LPs, for possible
use on-air, and it sounds decidedly odd. To my ears, the disc master was
cut from tape using a tape deck calibrated for IEC playback
compensation, not NAB, though the tapes it's working with are from the
USA and thus presumably NAB. As you'd expect, the bass is boomy and the
highs are down.
Anyone here know anything about this reissue label?
Peace,
Paul Stamler
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