Sonny Boy Williamson – Keep It To Ourselves (Ultra Tape)

Two rare Copenhagen sessions, acoustic and close

Rice Miller, known on records as Sonny Boy Williamson, was among the first to play harmonica through an amplifier. This album gathers the best of two rare acoustic albums recorded in Denmark in 1963: voice, harp and guitar, personal and unhurried.

The original LP appeared on Stereophile’s “Records To Die For” list. What carries it is the directness of the playing rather than any studio effect.

This edition: Ultra Tape, and what you need to play it

Analogue Productions issues this recording in its Ultra Tape series: a ¼-inch analogue tape running at 15 ips with IEC equalisation, in two-track (half-track) stereo. Each copy is made in real time from a copy of the original analogue master tape, transferred on an ATR-modified Ampex machine with flux magnetic heads, and it arrives in a custom slipcase.

Playing it needs a reel-to-reel machine that runs at 15 ips and reads two tracks. The format leaves out the steps a record takes between master tape and groove, which is the reason collectors reach for it.

Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe