Variant chronology
1959 - US mono original, black/silver A2 deep-groove label, MS1/MS1 lacquers
1959 - US mono original, black/silver A2 deep-groove label, MG 20479A MS1/MG 20479B MS2 <- this copy
1959 - US DJ promo with NOT FOR SALE marking
1959 - US stereo original SR-60158, black/silver deep-groove label
1959 - Canadian Quality Records mono MG 20479
1959 - UK Mercury mono MMC 14030
c. 1960-62 - US later black/silver labels, including three-stroke A3 and oval-logo variants
1969 - US Mercury stereo reissue
c. mid/late 1960s - US red-label mono or stereo reissue
2018 - French 180-gram reissue
2026 - Verve Vault 180-gram all-analog reissue, Ryan K. Smith/Optimal
The Album
Recorded at Fine Recording in New York during sessions running from February through August 1959, the album was built around Washington's breakthrough crossover recording of 'What a Diff'rence a Day Makes.' Producer Clyde Otis and arranger-conductor Belford Hendricks placed her blues-rooted attack, gospel inflections, and famously precise diction within polished string-and-rhythm settings. The title song began as María Grever's Spanish-language 'Cuando vuelva a tu lado' and received an English lyric from Stanley Adams; Washington's dramatically retitled reading reached No. 4 on the Billboard pop chart. It also won Best Rhythm & Blues Performance at the second annual Grammy Awards, the first year that category was presented. The surrounding program balances newer material with standards including 'I Remember You,' 'Cry Me a River,' 'Manhattan,' and 'A Sunday Kind of Love,' showing how completely Washington could command both jazz-inflected phrasing and mainstream pop. The album crystallized the decisive late-career shift that carried the former 'Queen of the Blues' toward 'Unforgettable' and her Brook Benton duets. Its title performance became her signature recording and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame, while the album itself remains a defining example of late-1950s jazz, R&B, and orchestral-pop crossover.
The Label
This copy has Mercury's early black/silver mono A2 label: arched MERCURY, LONG PLAYING/MICROGROOVE rim wording, catalog number at the left, 'A Custom High Fidelity Recording' at the right, no oval logo above the spindle hole, and a pronounced deep groove. Microgroove.jp's Mercury labelography places A2 in the early MG-20000 mono sequence; the subsequent A3 adds three parallel strokes associated with reissues, followed by the oval-logo type B designs. The typed MG 20479A MS1/MG 20479B MS2 runouts fit Mercury's Richmond-style matrix sequence: MS1 is the first lacquer on side 1, while MS2 indicates a second lacquer for side 2. These details establish an original 1959 US mono issue rather than a later black- or red-label reprint, although the transcription contains no FF, I, or other finisher mark that would settle the final pressing-plant attribution beyond the likely Mercury/National Record Pressing operation in Richmond.
Fidelity
George Piros engineered the sessions at Fine Recording, New York, with separate mono and stereo recordings documented on the jacket; this disc uses the original mono tape. The typed matrix supplies no cutting-engineer initial, so it should not be described as a Fine Recording FF cut. Its deep-groove manufacture is consistent with Mercury's Richmond/National Record Pressing era and is generally preferable to routine later black-label and red-label reissues. Collector feedback often favors the original SR-60158 stereo for its spacious, though conspicuously separated, presentation, while this original mono offers the more focused vocal image and earliest mono tape configuration. The 2026 Verve Vault edition, cut all-analog by Ryan K. Smith from the original tapes and pressed at Optimal, is the clean modern stereo benchmark; this original mono remains the canonical vintage mono choice.
