Originally Posted by
Philles/Motown Gary
My copy of Jimmy Ruffin's "Groove Governor" CD arrived on Friday. A lot must have happened in a short time because Thursday morning I received an email from Amazon stating that they finally had an American release date of August 5. By Thursday afternoon, however, I received a shipping confirmation that my CD had not only been shipped, it would be delivered the next day [[Friday), as part of my Amazon Prime membership. And it indeed arrived Friday, as promised!
The CD is great, as expected! The packaging is a cardboard replica of the original front and back album cover. Surprisingly, unlike the original, the CD cover opens like a book. The entire album cover -- inside and out -- is made of a high quality, shiny cardboard [[lamination perhaps?) with the lyrics to each track printed inside the "book". Another surprise is that the CD label itself replicates the Motown label, rather than the Soul label as originally released. Not a problem; just an oddity and ever-so-slight disappointment authenticity-wise.
The sound quality of the CD digital transfer is excellent. It was remastered good and loud -- not obnoxiously loud to the point of distortion like some reissue labels were guilty of, but perfectly loud, just as Motown Select always remastered their reissue masterpieces. In other words, it sounds great and impressive on my portable Sony CD player. There were a few shrill moments in an occasional track, here and there, which I don't recall having existed in the original LP release, but my Sony Monitor headphones, which have a lot of bass response [[down to 5 hz), helped to overcome that. I'm not sure how the CD would sound on another set of headphones without good bass response, but that's a matter of personal opinion.
Overall, to my eyes and ears, Jimmy Ruffin's "The Groove Governor" CD is a huge success! At last, I can replace the download-to-CD version that I created last year and replace it with the real deal!
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