One of the great blues titles, “Recording of the Month” in Stereophile, “A Shine of Light in the Dark” for the Rolling Stone Give It Up To Love, brought Mighty Sam McClain the breakthrough in 1992, the music critic Jon Perless for him in the New York Times prophesied four years earlier. For the album, the blues singer with the soulful baritone was looking for the support of Bruce Katz (piano), Kevin Barry (guitar), Michael Rivard (bass) and Lorne Entress (drums). If you perk up your ears, you can hear McClain laughing softly during the recording when things are going really well.
About AudioQuest Music
The blues label AudioQuest Music was founded in the late 1980s and is now operated by Valley Entertainment under the name Sledgehammer Blues. The mission of the responsible producer Joe Harley was to produce the best audiophile recordings at the cutting edge of technology. Analogue technology with tailor-made tube electronics was used for this and any noise suppression, compression, equalizer or limiter was avoided. The realistic, spontaneous sound of the recordings, which lacks any overproduction, is characteristic of the result. By inviting the most talented artists to record, AudioQuest Music’s tracks are still some of the most interesting blues recordings available on the audiophile market. Bernie Grundman re-digitized and remastered the analog tapes for the SACDs.
