Audio Beat Rated 4.5/5 Music, 4.5/5 Sound! Featured in Michael Fremer’s Heavy Rotation in the May 2012 Issue of Stereophile! Re-mastering by Ron McMaster at Capitol Studios! Pressed on Limited Edition 180g Vinyl! Pressed at Pallas in Germany!
Cassandra Wilson started out as a jazz singer, doing gigs with several innovative bands (including Brooklyn’s experimental M-Base collective) and at the same time recording typical jazz-singer let-me-entertain-you stuff “Night and Day” and “Blue Skies” and shoo by dooby dooby. Eventually the Mississippi-born New York based vocalist, who reigned among the elite jazz singers of the 1980s, became restless, and began to look beyond torch songs for inspiration. So she looked outside of jazz for inspiration. In interviews, she’s recalled how she began seeking new challenges for her voice, a mighty instrument blessed with husky overtones and an alluringly smoky woodish hue. She began to integrate gospel and blues and pop songs into her performances, eventually assimilating them into music that blurs genre distinctions entirely. Blue Light ’til Dawn is the first album to capture that shift. It features wondrously spare, molasses-slow versions of Robert Johnson (“Come On in My Kitchen,” “Hellhound on My Trail”), Philly soul (Thom Bell and Linda Creed’s “Children of the Night,”), pop (Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey”), and torch song (“You Don’t Know What Love Is”).
(2-LP set) Cassandra Wilson is blessed with a distinctive voice and is not afraid to take chances with her eclectic choice of material. This 1993 release was her breakout recording that includes songs by Robert Johnson, Joni Mitchell, Ann Peebles, Van Morrison and a couple of her own originals.
“This Pure Pleasure two-record set was not the first vinyl issue of this album, but it was certainly worth the wait. While I have no quibbles about the sound of the CD, these LPs improve on it meaningful ways. Wilson’s voice is stunningly real, her presence anchoring each tune within the delicate soundscape that the recording captures so ably. Midrange density and treble filigree combine with a strong bass underpinning, guitars and percussion launch dynamically into digital territory, yet it is the small shifts in volume differentiating the touch of the musicians on their instruments that give the sonic picture its completeness. If you are used to the CD, these LPs will give you both a different and better window on the music, and they cost far less than a first-edition LP. As is usual for Pure Pleasure, the Pallas pressing is top notch, both in terms of its lack of surface noise and bottom-of-the-groove whoosh.”
-Marc Mickelson, www.theaudiobeat.com, Music 4.5./5, Sound 4.5/5
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