The BeAst of Lightnin'
Most of my subscribers know me as a writer, but I've had a serious hobby as a songwriter and sometimes performer going all the way back to the 1980s and really even further back than that. My songwriter persona was Lightnin' Stubblefield. As Lightnin' I recorded three albums on a low end Tascam four-track home recording studio and distributed the tapes, duly outfitted with cover art in the cassette format, to friends and family. The sound quality was decidedly low tech, with enough hiss and unintended distortion that nobody will mistake this as digital. The copies I kept for myself have aged noticeably as the years have passed, and I've just put them away for keepsakes. The quality had become low enough that I wouldn't share my old recordings with even my worst enemies. But...
There were also the master copies, which were a generation cleaner than the albums I distributed, and unworn because unplayed. (You who remember tape recording know what I mean by "generation": The master was the original, second in quality only to the individual four tracks from the Porta-Studio, and the
tapes people got were copies of the master, thus somewhat degraded in quality by the time they were put in their cases. The masters sound comparatively crisp and clear. And although the quality of my songwriting, performing, and recording techniques leave something to be desired, for some time I've wished I could share the tracks I like best with some of the friends I've made in later years.
Enter Stubblefield Productions, my son Nick's high-tech music production company. A few years back, he "cleaned up" some cassetted music from a band I'd been in back in the 80's, and the result was impressive. By the way, you could do the same if you have music on cassette you'd like transferred to digital and cleaned up or otherwise enhanced to your specifications. Just go here:
So I sent Nick the three master tapes and asked him to make them nice. He created digital versions of all three albums, from which I chose eight tracks for what I've dubbed "The BeAst of Lightnin' Stubblefield."
Although each of the three original albums contain some blues tracks, most of the music is more pop and rock. I'd be so pleased if you gave it a try. To do so, just click the link below. You'll see the BeAst as well as the three complete albums just for the record. And please, if at all possible, use your best earphones, as some of the licks didn't pick up all that well on the trusty-not Porta05.