Hans Theessink - Hard Road Blues

I recorded HARD ROAD BLUES in two nights (October 6-7, 1994) at the OPUS Recorder Music Studio in Austria in analog and in one go. It was quite a meditative affair, which was very well recorded by sound engineer Andreas Fabianek. We used a vocal mic, a guitar mic and a few other microphones to capture the natural space. The recording sounds very organic; you can feel every movement and breath and can literally hear the fingers dancing on the fretboard.

The record was first released on vinyl, CD and music cassette in 1994. HARD ROAD BLUES was highly praised by fans and the press and sold very well. If a copy of this pressing turns up in good condition at all, you will have to pay quite a lot of money for it at the moment. Unfortunately, the firebug has since struck at the German pressing plant - many masters and matrices were destroyed, including those of HARD ROAD BLUES. Re-pressing was therefore impossible.

During Corona 2020, however, I had a lot of time to look through my stock of recordings and I also found the HARD ROAD BLUES master tapes. This gave rise to the idea of reissuing this record. I contacted Christoph Stickl from CSMastering. Christoph had already done an excellent remastering of my "Baby Wants To Boogie" LP from 1987 and was therefore predestined to carry out this rather delicate work for HARD ROAD BLUES as well. He checked the tapes, which were already 27 years old, and then said he would have to "bake" them in the oven in order to be able to play them and start the remastering. Fortunately, the tapes were still in good condition and Christoph was able to avoid having to interrupt the AAA chain.

Hans Theessink

Label: Blue Groove

01 Big Bill’s Guitar
02 You Make Me Feel So Good
03 Prison Blues
04 Blind Willie
05 One Kind Favour
06 Vicksburg Is My Home
07 Hard Road Blues
08 Two Trains
09 Sugar Babe
10 Minnibelle
11 Shotgun Blues
12 Cypress Grove

Pure Master Product Configuration:

1/4” - 2 Track RTM LPR90 - 15IPS - 38cm/sec - CCIR - 320 nWb/m - 1 Plastic Reel(s) - Special Archive Box(es) 

Standard Master Product Configuration:

1/4” - 2 Track RTM LPR90 - 15IPS - 38cm/sec - CCIR - 320 nWb/m - 1 Metal Reel(s) - Special Archive Box(es) - Horch House Deluxe Packaging

Studio Master Product Configuration:

1/4” - 2 Track RTM SM900 - 15IPS - 38cm/sec - CCIR - 510 nWb/m - 2 Precision Metal Reel(s) - Special Archive Box(es) - Horch House Deluxe Packaging