Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

For those wondering about the album art change for Claudia Thompson:
85c67afe-3b1c-1a71-87a4-fa07287e918a.jpg

​
This is a 1958, early stereo marvel of a vocal jazz record. The woman has a smooth and smoky voice that created a lot of mystery over the years. It has a darkness and sort of sadness to it too. But no one knew anything about Claudia beyond the original cover photo (below) and the somewhat sterile liners.
​
c07faec7-6e73-1139-fc3d-93bd2967953f.png
Goodbye to Love (2016 cover)
​
We reissued it in 2016. A few years after that, a person posted a story online about someone buying a bunch of film negatives at Salvation Army and wanting to find the subject of those images. It even got national news coverage. It turned out that those photos were the outtakes from the original Edison International Claudia Thompson - Goodbye to Love album cover photoshoot (but wait it gets better).
​
19ea9e38-1c7f-6856-ea59-02562925fac7.jpg

​
That same year, an individual purchased an original copy of the Claudia Thompson album that had an autographed photo inside. It was an 8x10 of Claudia who in reality is a woman of color and not the white woman on the cover. It turns out, in with the original negatives were essentially alternates of the cover art with the real Claudia Thompson on the cover! We’ve updated the cover to correct the white-washing of 1958, finally putting Claudia’s photo on her own album.
​

This is from the Sundazed newsletter. That's why the album art changed! Pretty cool.
 
That's awesome and I think I remember about those photo negatives being rediscovered, now that I think about it. This is definitely an instance where I would much rather have the new album cover instead of trying to replicate the original as closely as possible.

Edit: I was hoping I could find the link where I think I saw some of those rediscovered photos but am striking out. I recall it being some bloggy site as opposed to a standard news outlet and I don't think a connection to Claudia Thompson and that album had been made at that point. It was more along the lines of "look at these gorgeous, haunting photos discovered randomly at a thrift store." But then again, there's probably a lot of those kinds of articles out there...
 
Last edited:
NewsFedora said:
That's awesome and I think I remember about those photo negatives being rediscovered, now that I think about it. This is definitely an instance where I would much rather have the new album cover instead of trying to replicate the original as closely as possible.

Edit: I was hoping I could find the link where I think I saw some of those rediscovered photos but am striking out. I recall it being some bloggy site as opposed to a standard news outlet and I don't think a connection to Claudia Thompson and that album had been made at that point. It was more along the lines of "look at these gorgeous, haunting photos discovered randomly at a thrift store." But then again, there's probably a lot of those kinds of articles out there...
Click to expand...
Pretty neat Google doc chronicling it all: findthegirlsonthenegatives

Looks like the newsletter is a touch inaccurate in that the search to #findthegirlsonthenegatives preceded the reissue in 2015. Given that, it's a bit surprising that it took the internet five years to connect the dots. Thanks for sharing, @MikeH!
 
With all the talk of the Claudia Thompson I'm kind of surprised that it's still in stock.

Theres 'only' 500 copies which I would have expected to sell out really. Its the kind of album that I can see having a lot of discussions on Instagram amongst the people that I follow (as Gábor Szabó and Dorothy Ashby did). Maybe they aren't aware of it yet.
 
Selaws said:
With all the talk of the Claudia Thompson I'm kind of surprised that it's still in stock.

Theres 'only' 500 copies which I would have expected to sell out really. Its the kind of album that I can see having a lot of discussions on Instagram amongst the people that I follow (as Gábor Szabó and Dorothy Ashby did). Maybe they aren't aware of it yet.
Click to expand...
Shhhh, I’m waiting for my next paycheck to pull the trigger

Edit: goddamnit nevermind, I grabbed one
 
Selaws said:
With all the talk of the Claudia Thompson I'm kind of surprised that it's still in stock.

Theres 'only' 500 copies which I would have expected to sell out really. Its the kind of album that I can see having a lot of discussions on Instagram amongst the people that I follow (as Gábor Szabó and Dorothy Ashby did). Maybe they aren't aware of it yet.
Click to expand...
I’m surprised it’s in stock too. can’t figure it out. It’s an AAA KG cut that’s not really available anywhere else. And it’s a solid listen. I think it’s gonna be one of those titles that people will really want later.
 
Ohhhh now I remember how I saw these photos! In summer of 2015 I worked at a Richmond Va. TV station and we a did story on the local photographer who found the negatives. Man, small world. I now work at another station in Norfolk, maybe I should see if we can do a follow up…

Edit: now with an actual working link to the article, which I am about 75% certain I wrote/edited myself lol
 
Last edited:
MikeH said:
I’m surprised it’s in stock too. can’t figure it out. It’s an AAA KG cut that’s not really available anywhere else. And it’s a solid listen. I think it’s gonna be one of those titles that people will really want later.
Click to expand...

I don’t think it says AAA , and $35 for non-AAA lesser known jazz albums is a lot
 
MikeH said:
The modern harmonic pressing says from the original master tapes and is cut by KG. Seems like this is just another color variant.
Click to expand...

I think sundazed/mh are very vague about their sources , usually it’s digital unless specific. But I was going by the VMP store page which almost always specifies AAA nowadays if it actually is.
 
keylime_5 said:
I think sundazed/mh are very vague about their sources , usually it’s digital unless specific. But I was going by the VMP store page which almost always specifies AAA nowadays if it actually is.
Click to expand...
MH says: An Early Stereo marvel from the original 1959 tapes!

Discogs also says from the original master tapes (which I know anybody can add so shouldn’t be gospel).

Either way it’s a KG cut for $30 limited to 500 that’s an actual exclusive now.
 
Boognotik Reaktion said:
Played Claudia Thompson in the background yesterday and on a couple of occasions different people asked ‘Who the hell is that???’. To my taste, this is vastly superior to Blossom Dearie or the Abbey Lincoln Classics pick but to each their own!
Click to expand...
With Blossom Dearie I often find her vocals to be sickly sweet. When I listen to her music I often only listen to one album rather than one after another, because it becomes too much. I have a few of her albums and her vocals tend to be consistent. With Claudia Thompson, I found (from recently streaming) that I didn't get the same feeling from hers.

Im really looking forward to getting the album, perfect timing as well as I tend to listen to female jazz vocal albums more during the Christmas period for some reason.
 
Boognotik Reaktion said:
Played Claudia Thompson in the background yesterday and on a couple of occasions different people asked ‘Who the hell is that???’. To my taste, this is vastly superior to Blossom Dearie or the Abbey Lincoln Classics pick but to each their own!
Click to expand...
I probably like Blossom and Claudia equally so far. Never got into the Abbey Lincoln though for some reason.

I’m with @Selaws about Blossom occasionally being TOO sweet but I only have the one VMP album so it’s not like I listen to a string of her albums back to back.
 
Being UK based and no fan of country music, every time i see some VMP marketing with Joshua RayWalker, I can’t help but think it’s just Andrew Winistorfer taking the piss in standard country Garb.
“I wonder what we could sell just through advertising, I bet most don’t spin this shit anyhow.”
Ievery time I see that guy and it seems I keep on seeing him In every email they send me I smile !
 
ByersVinyl said:
Being UK based and no fan of country music, every time i see some VMP marketing with Joshua RayWalker, I can’t help but think it’s just Andrew Winistorfer taking the piss in standard country Garb.
“I wonder what we could sell just through advertising, I bet most don’t spin this shit anyhow.”
Ievery time I see that guy and it seems I keep on seeing him In every email they send me I smile !
Click to expand...
Canada based and I always have the same thought
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top