Lady In Satin - Billie Holiday - Analogue Productions 45rpm Reissue

In this video, I take a look and listen to the new Analogue Productions reissue of Billie Holiday's wonderful final album, Lady In Satin, which was originally released by Columbia Records in 1958. Featuring Ray Ellis and his orchestra. I had the original 33 and 45rpm reissues from Classic Records onhand, which feature a superb mastering by Bernie Grundman. The new reissue uses the metalwork from the Classic Records 45rpm release. Pressed at Quality Record pressings in a double LP format and presented in a gatefold jacket with rare photos.
Correction: This album was released shortly before her passing, not after as stated in the video
Other reviews I've done on Billie Holiday:
Body And Soul Review: • Billie Holiday Body An...
All Or Nothing At All Review: • BILLIE HOLIDAY - ALL O...
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Please watch: "RCA Living Stereo - Analogue Productions Resurrects A Legendary Label"
• Golden Age Classical R...
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[@karlsmith2052]

This was her second to last studio album and she was very much alive when it was released.

[@ThePressingMatters]

Yes, I realized the error shortly after publication and I think I corrected it in the description. I have since learned about the MGM album also done with Ray Ellis. Sorry for the error.

[@garyrobinson8665]

Scott I've been listening to this over the past couple of days. I adore it. I was out walking the dog this morning listening to this. I nearly brokedown in tears. The second half of this record got me really emotional. I listened to the first 6 tracks the other day and thought it was good. Listened to the second half today from violets for your furs onwards it blew me away I wasn't prepared for it. The voice the music just got me i nearly had to stop listening and go home but I held my composure just.

[@ThePressingMatters]

Hi Gary, that's exactly what I was referring to in the review. Her voice is more powerful than ever before as a vehicle to convey real emotion. It's so effective and easy to get choked up listening to her. So glad you enjoy it as I do.

[@garyrobinson8665]

@@ThePressingMatters the instrumentation in the background is just wonderful. I love it when you hear background voices coming and going. I will have to hunt down a decent pressing of this too.

[@ThePressingMatters]

@@garyrobinson8665 That effect was just perfect for this record. I've heard it used in many records from this era, in fact I have one that is ALL that and nothing else! Jackie Glason's album "Oooh!" A record you must hear before you die lol!

[@thejoyofthemusicinmylife7897]

While years of hard living had taken a toll on the upper range of Billie's voice, what was lost there was more than made up in her vocal phasing, emotional depth she brought to the songs. Ray Ellis said of the album in 1997: I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of "I'm a Fool to Want You". There were tears in her eyes...After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.

[@ThePressingMatters]

I had read that comment from Ray Ellis before and it hits the nail on the head. This is an emotional tour de force. I think the vocal quality only adds to it. What a gem in her catalog. Thank you so much for your comments. I love hearing from other fans of this singular artist.

[@thejoyofthemusicinmylife7897]

@@ThePressingMatters One last thing I will add. This may be putting it in derogatory terms but my best friend who is a huge Holiday fan committed that he liked the too much smoking, drinking, drugs and hard living Billie than the sweet tone of her voice in earlier years. Interesting. As for me I am a all periods Holiday fan. :)

[@ThePressingMatters]

@@thejoyofthemusicinmylife7897 I think I understand his thought, and at this point that is the Billie I'm most familiar with. I haven't ventured past this and the Verve years so I have no reference, just a vast earlier catalog to discover! I'm sure I'll love it all too!

[@ginntonic123]

Awesome video Scott, amazing record

[@ThePressingMatters]

Thank you so much Jorge, I appreciate the encouragement. Loving this record too!

[@cave70]

Hi Scott, I set a reminder so I'd be among the first to see this video. You're eloquent and heartfelt description of this album is so respectful of Billie. This is one of my Top 5 albums ever. I bought this on cassette in the early 90's, and was blown away. I purchased a 33 rpm release a few years ago, which sounded really nice. When I got the email from AS they were releasing it on 45, I pre-ordered immediately. I have a very modest system, and even with that, the difference is astounding. IMHO, no one does a ballad like Miss Holiday. I actually prefer Billie from the 50's. I don't know what I can add to what you said. Thanks for all you do. Best, Johnny K.

[@ThePressingMatters]

Thank you so much for your comment. I absolutely love Billie Holiday and feel she is unmatched at really pulling meaning out of a song. This album proves that in spades. A quibble or two about some aspect of the sound is dwarfed in comparison to the great interpretations by Miss Holiday. Glad to hear you love it too.

[@ThePressingMatters]

Thank you so much for your support, Johnny. Much appreciated :-)

[@ThePressingMatters]

I really must start working backwards with Billie Holiday's catalog. There's a whole world of earlier stuff I've never heard.

[@leon9021]

Just what I needed to know, thanks.

[@ThePressingMatters]

You're welcome Leon, glad you got something out of it.

[@ThePressingMatters]

Thank you to RC and Johnny K for the support and donation. Appreciate you both so much.

[@David-lw4vl]

Thanks for this Scott. This is one of my favorite albums of all time so I have many different copies of it. I also have the Classic Records 1998 version but I haven’t listened to the Acoustic Sounds yet. I love all stages of Billie Holiday’s career: her 1930’s recordings on Columbia, her 1940’s on Decca with orchestra, and her 1950’s on Verve (except Lady in Satin being back on Columbia in 1958). Also the Commodore recordings from 1939 & 1944 and a few other labels. There’s a lot of live stuff available on major labels and not-so-major labels. If you love Lady in Satin you should pick up two astonishing CDs all on Columbia: 1997 CK65144 which tells the story of the recording of “At the End of a Love Affair” which was only on the mono version of the LP but appears in stereo for the first time on this CD, and 2015’s “The Centennial Edition” 88875082822 which contains all of the alternate takes from these sessions. I didn’t realize what bad shape she was in until I heard all the outtakes and alternates because Irving Townsend did an incredible job of choosing the right versions - and in some cases pieces of versions to be strung together. Her final album was released posthumously on MGM which was also with Ray Ellis and his orchestra.

[@David-lw4vl]

Btw the two CDs I mention are both “Lady in Satin” - the first is a single CD and “The Centennial Edition” with all the alternates and outtakes is a 3-CD set.

[@ThePressingMatters]

Thank you David! I did pick up a CD collection of Decca material on CD a while back. It's 3 discs in a cloth bound booklet. I'll have to go back and dig it out for a fresh listen. That sessions set you mentioned must be really interesting. I can imagine the decisions that has to be made to get this stuff presentable. I'd love to hear that last album. I had no idea there was a second one with Ray Ellis. What year was that recorded?

[@David-lw4vl]

The second one was recorded in March of 1959. She passed away in July that same year. In that one it’s interesting because it sounds like her voice is sped up slightly, and it was later found that someone involved in the production of that album was known for speeding up vocals, but he always denied that he did it on that album. I didn’t believe him until years ago I came across a live recording of Billie in a small club that was recorded around 2 months before her passing, and her voice did sound the same to me as on the last album, so I don’t think it was sped up. You should definitely listen to that album and let me know what you think.

[@ThePressingMatters]

@@David-lw4vl was it recorded by Columbia or MGM? Can you tell me the title?

[@David-lw4vl]

Yes it was recorded on MGM (now put out by Verve) and I believe originally self titled, then changed to “Last Recording.”

[@rufus_the_cat]

Thanks so much. I had a wax time of this but I got ride of it. I hope to get my copy soon

[@ThePressingMatters]

I read a comment somewhere about the waxtime version of this. I think you're in for a treat! Thank you for watching and commenting!

[@ThePressingMatters]

Please come back and let me know how you like this edition. I'm very curious of your reaction to it vs what you recall about the Waxtime reissue.

[@jonathanharvey8956]

Billie Holiday made one more recored it was called "Billie Holiday with Ray Ellis and His Orchestra" (Last Recording) can you review that one it was her last and final record she made it sounded great and some of the songs on there and how she sings them, some of them will make you cry.

[@ThePressingMatters]

I have since heard that album, aka "Last Recordings" on the MGM label. I didn't expect much from MGM, but from the stream I heard it sounds pretty good! I liked it quite a bit. I don't know if there are good pressings out there on vinyl, but that is one I'm happy to stream on occasion. Thanks for bringing it up.

[@sidesup8286]

Billie Holiday is one artist I have never really gotten into. Not that I've really tried and failed to get into her music. I just haven't really played much of her music. Same with Ella. Maybe some day. Chalie Parker I tried to get into from that same era, but the recordings of his I've played, the sib par sound quality interfered with the music enough, that I didn't really want to come back to it that often. I'll probably give each of the three some more listens in the future as legends often tend to be great. Some music kind of depends on how you listen. I knew a guy who idolized Bach, especially the Cantatas, and he said with Bach, you have to listen down lower, and concentrate lower down in frequency to the cellos etc. I once had a preamp which had 4 little holes on the circuit board. You could put different value resistors and load the cartridge from 10 ohms to over 100,000 ohms, and everything in between. My system wasn't near as clean back then and to get the sound to where it had no grain at all, I used to load it down to below 100 ohms. Everything was so smooth. Too smooth, I realized one day. On a whim one day, I took the resistors out and with the open holes the impedence went from 80 ohm, to way up into the thousands. The smoothness was gone, but there was such liveliness to the music, that I realized that was foolish to listen to it the other way I had been for so long; maybe over a year. My $600+ preamp for a year had the smoothness of multi thousand dollar preamps. But nowhere near the amount of detail and life. After that I worked toward getting both; having my cake and eating it too. That probably was the thing that started me on my tweaking and modifying adventures, which go on today in different ways, incorporating creativity in thinking up new ways to improve the sound. Mine is truly an audio adventure. That same preamp of many years ago, which I wouldn't use anymore, took being plugged in continuously into the AC outlet for 3 days straight, before it reached it's maximum sound quality. You could actually easily hear it improving from day 1 to day 3 in becoming cleaner and cleaner, playing the same records, and the warmth and bass increasing too. It sounded like a totally different preamp from day 1 to day 3. Some people who unplug their equip. or turn off the power strip it is plugged into, never do hear their equipments true potential. When playing various formats, cd is best to try this with, since some say playing the same record many times in a row can degrade the grooves; try doing something radically different. Put a cd on repeat. Listen to it closely all the way through. Then play it again. It must be the same cd. In the hour or better part of an hour that it took to play it the first time, your equipment has started to warm up. Listen how the instruments are noticeably bigger sounding. The spaces and seperation between the instruments have increased with the more airy presentation that starting to warm up equipment provides. Play the same cd the third time to get further increases in sound quality. Play it a 4th time. Devote one evening to it, to see for how long your sound continues to improve. At some point the sound can get too warm. Musical transient edges may start getting too blunted. The sound will get duller, and with the apparent reduction in highs, the sound will start going in the other direction again in the way of decreased airiness. Most people have never tried it. Playing the same cd or tape or record that many times in a row. I guarantee that unless you have some pretty strange equipment, your sound after 3 hours will be very different than your first 15 minutes of listening. I used to use VHS HIFI to dub albums. I'd record at the SLP or LP speed, giving up to 6 hours recording time on one tape. One time I was playing back a tape over headphones and forgot to turn the machine off. When I came back in 4 hours it was still playing. I put the headphones on and couldn't believe how fast its transient response sounded and how clean it sounded. Never had I heard that from it before It's electronics had fully warmed up. Because of the continual warming up and equipment correspondingly getting cleaner and better sounding, the right thing to do when evaluating different pressings of a record, would be to narrow that time window for the sake of accuracy of evaluation. That means comparing tracks from one lp with the other, instead of playing the full record and then the next pressing. Playing a record all the way through and then playing another pressing of the same record after it; well, the "After" part might be too long after. Your equipments sound has changed for the better in all that time with warmup. Impossible to guage how much of the difference you hear is due to the different pressing, and how much of the difference you hear is due to the increased warmup time. If.an equip. modifier like myself, wants sound quality so good that the images are on the ceiling, which is where they are, you have to be scientific and be sure a step is in the "right" direction, before you repeat things inside your equipment multiple times. If you repeat a bad thing 15 or 20 times; that's 15 or 20 times in the "wrong" direction. You have to have not only creativity and innovation but scientific method and "Ears."

[@ThePressingMatters]

Very interesting points as usual. I do leave my equipment on continuously. It's definitely noticiable when it has to be shut down for some reason, that it's not as enjoyable for several hours. Then everything comes together. I do make sure the system has been on at least a day before doing evaluations if for some reason it had to be turned off. My amp is recommended by the manufacturer to be always on.

[@ThePressingMatters]

You really should check out the Verve recordings of both Billie and Ella. I'm hoping we see Ella's Songbook series in new LP editions. I an planning to pick up Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie that's on APs Verve 45 series, but I'd love if the do a bunch of Ella and Billie in the Acoustic Sounds Verve Series. Great mastering, quality and reasonable pricing. An Ella Gershwin Songbook box would be a thrill!

[@sidesup8286]

@@ThePressingMatters Scott, I remember a night that I was going to return a set of speakers to Radio Shack the next day, because they sounded too small to be believable. I like realism. I was drinking and didn't feel like getting up. It was around Christmas and I had my cd on repeat. For what a great song it is; Whote Christmas by Bing Crosby never impressed me sonically. On the the 4th or 5th repeat of the compilation which included White Chritmas started to sound like it had nothing wrong with it sonically. I couldn't believe it. The bpokshelf speakers sounded big as life; I swear it. They were NOT going back to Radio Shack after all. They had a kevlar mi/bass unit and a Linnaeum tweeter. They were voted the speaker bargain of the century by FI magazine. I don't even know how many listens for sure. Maye it was on the 5th repeat. I was using a tube integrated. No problem with image size at all, after everything was that warmed up. I celebrate Christmas all January, as is the custom on the other side of the world in some places. There is no rock instrumental group in history that compared with The Ventures from the early 1960s. I just played their Xmas album. Listen to how good the musicians were. And the sound quality on cd is so unbelievable. They had the best selling instrumental album from around 1960 to mid 1980s. Which is an all time record. Love vinyl too, but the cd often beats it if you are listening on something great.

[@ThePressingMatters]

@@sidesup8286 Incredible story, and goes to show how important it is to give he system a chance to do its best. I may be adding cd playback to my system in the near future. I miss certain aspects of it for sure

[@sidesup8286]

@@ThePressingMatters It doesn't have to be either /or. It can be both. Vinyl is beautiful; so can cd be beautiful. I don't think I can hear anything digital about my cd playback now at all. It was the players; not the cds themself. I think the best direct to disc lps still rule for ultimate sound quality, but not by much. My cd playback is up to about or beyond the best examples of early half speed masters. My latest cd player tweak? Using mpingo wood in critical places. It's known as the wood with musical qualities in Africa.

[@ceejaydeesoozaa]

since sony music doesnt allow the use of their analog master tapes, how is this cut from tape? or was this cut from DSD?

[@ThePressingMatters]

This was cut back in the Classic Records days when access to the tapes was allowed, and Bernie cut the lacquers at that time for release, in the late 1990's. When Chad Kassem bought out Classic Records, the metalwork (plates) for all the albums that Classic released were included in the sale. Analogue Productions has been using these plates when possible, such as with the Kind Of Blue UHQR, among others.

[@ceejaydeesoozaa]

@@ThePressingMatters wish i can click heart for this reply. im sure one day google will allow it. superb and ultra helpful reply. means tremendously a lot to me. thanks so much. sorry was watching this late at night hours ago so the volume was low. just heard you mention that the deadwax info matches that of the prev released classic records 45rpm release. thanks for that too. discogs doesnt have the deadwax info for the AP release

[@ThePressingMatters]

@@ceejaydeesoozaa Your very welcome, in fact anytime you have questions, please contact me. I love to have discussions like this in the comments. Hope to see you in the comments of other videos. Take care.

[@MichaelChong100]

Would you do one for Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and Sings for Only the Lonely?

[@ThePressingMatters]

Would I do a review? Actually that would be a good idea! I love both of the albums.

[@MichaelChong100]

@@ThePressingMatters Can you also do reviews on his other two albums, Come Fly With Me and Songs for Swingin' Lovers?

[@ThePressingMatters]

@@MichaelChong100 I'll see if I can do an overview of a few Sinatra albums