On the heels of my recent retrospective about Whitley, I have been seeking out good copies of some of his repertoire. This is not as easy as you might think. Living with the Law was his first, and most popular album; that one was released on vinyl in Europe and reissued recently. The original pressing is good; I haven’t listened to the reissue, which comes from Music On Vinyl.
So, I was pleasantly surprised when I finally got my hands on a copy of National Steel, a promotional record tied to the release of Living with the Law.
It contains select tracks from Law and sounds significantly better than my original pressing of the full album. Whether it’s the result of more real estate for fewer tracks, a different mastering (or both), the improvement in sonics over the original issue of the complete album is quite noticeable. This tells me a seriously good sounding re-do of the entire Living with the Law is possible. I strongly recommend National Steel in the meantime.
I also found a new old stock copy of Rocket House from Germany:
I will report on that record when time permits.
I also found (from Germany) a copy of Reiter In:
I was pleasantly surprised by the following information on the jacket:
As noted in the retrospective, some of Whitley’s albums were never issued on vinyl. One that has so far proved elusive on vinyl is Dislocation Blues, with Jeff Lang. I have reached out to Rounder Records, who had the rights to the master. I’ll report back if I learn anything more.