Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time  Getting AAA Vinyl Reissue

It's difficult to believe that 25 years have passed since the original release of Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time LP, an album whose title song deals with running out of time but that's how long it's been.

Capitol/UMe will re-issue it on vinyl-only June 24th.

Raitt's 10th album sold five million copies, won three well-deserved GRAMMY® Awards, including "Album of the Year" and was her "comeback" album after having been dropped by Warner Brothers.

The title track is a powerful meditation on aging that struck a nerve among "Baby Boomers" when first issued in 1989 when the average boomer was around 40 with parents in their 60s. Now the boomer generation finds itself at that age. It's damn sobering. The song and the rest of the album hold up well—which is more than can be said for some boomers—but not Raitt who's still going strong.

The original producer, Don Was, now president of Blue Note records, oversaw the reissue along with original recording engineer Ed Cherney. The publicity blurb said "..remastered from the original analog tapes" but we know how that can often go so analogplanet received clarification from the publicist who confirmed the lacquers were cut from analog tape.

Nick of Time is a superbly engineered recording that was well-reissued by DCC Compact Classics some years ago, with Steve Hoffman supervising the cut by Kevin Gray. This time we have the producer and engineer of record at the helm, probably cut by Ron McMaster at Capitol Studios. Not sure where it is being pressed but we'll soon find out.

Here's hoping for the best. This is an album well-deserving of a first class AAA vinyl reissue.

COMMENTS
Steve Edwards's picture

and it still sounds great. Would love to see her Luck Of The Draw get the same treatment.

Michael Fremer's picture
DCC 2031….. but yes, it needs to be done again...
Ortofan's picture

Nick of Time reached #1 on the Billboard album chart but Luck of the Draw only made it to #2. Can you name the album/artist that kept Luck of the Draw out of the top spot?

mschlack's picture

I would love to see decent vinyl and hi-rez versions of her early albums, especially the first two or three and Home Plate. Great singing and playing and great material. Deserves to be heard again and heard well. Home Plate, especially, she was playing a much nastier tone of slide than she does these days. I want to hear that bite!

AnalogJ's picture

Agreed. I like her rawer, raunchier stuff better than most of her ballads. To me, Luck Of The Draw was too mellow. I bought the DCC of Nick Of Time and it's lovely and, in my opinion, superior to an original. We'll see how this new one goes.

Paul Boudreau's picture

I had forgotten that DCC released both "Nick Of Time" and "Luck Of The Draw" (also that I had them both) - time to give them both a scrub and a spin. That leads me to Richard Thompson, who is on the second of those two LPs. I think I read somewhere (here?) that there were plans to give 1982's "Shoot Out The Lights" the 2x45rpm treatment. Any news on that?

It also occurs to me that the three superb records RT did with then-wife Linda during 1973-75 would be good candidates for the deluxe reissue treatment.

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