The Thrill Is Gone/ You're Mean

Here's a beautiful promo copy of the original pressing of this classic Blues tune, which became B.B. King's biggest Pop hit and a truly iconic moment in his long and distinguished career beginning in the late 1940s. It might surprise you to learn that both sides of this single are specially edited versions of longer album tracks clocking at 5:30 and 9:39, respectively! Speaking of the 45 edit, the label says 3:55, but my recording of an earlier copy clocked at 4:09. It's not unusual, unfortunately, for label track times to be off by a few seconds, but this looks like a deliberate attempt to make the A side seem short enough for airplay, as 4:00 was becoming a new outer limit for acceptable AM song lengths by 1969, but 4:09 would have put it over the threshold some studios set. Note: This copy comes in a vintage ABC/Bluesway Records factory sleeve. The labels are close enough to perfect that I'm calling them Mint. The vinyl looks only lightly touched. The audio grades Near Mint overall... It has no distortion, but I noted a light "pop" for some duration in the middle of the song. (This scan is a representative image from our archives.)