B.J. Thomas-"Billy And Sue"

Comparing the 45 and the Rhino Greatest Hits cd it is obvious that the 45 was sped up.

I'm a huge fan of the early career of B.J. Thomas with the Triumphs, though this song is not a particular favorite of mine (I gravitated towards the B side the first time I heard the record when I was a kid and the B side is still my favorite on the disc). As such, I have multiple copies of this song on vinyl. Since the Hickory pressing has already been discussed, I do not need to time it (but I will say that they kept the song in print through at least 1973 as I have seen a Hickory red label promo copy with the original number, from 1970, and have seen it on MGM/Hickory with the original number as well, I would assume the same stampers were used throughout its Hickory life).

I have a stock copy of the first issue of the song on Bragg records #B-103 and it has a listed time of 2:48 but an actual time of 3:05.

I have two stock copies (red label and orange label) of the second issue of the song on Warner Brothers records #5491 and both have a listed time of 2:48 but an actual time of 3:05.

I have mono and stereo pressings of The Very Best Of B.J. Thomas (Hickory LPM/LPS-133). The mono version, i believe, is a straight fold-down of the stereo LP on every single song (as far as I can tell anyway, as the original 45's for some other songs on the LP had overdubs not found on the mono lp, and the mono lp seems to match how the songs sound on the stereo lp). On this LP, for both pressings, the song has a listed time on the back cover of 2:48 but a listed time on the record label of 3:09, and an actual time of 3:10.

TomDiehl1 wrote: Two of my friends have reported to me that their copies of the Bragg single contain different recordings of Billy and Sue than the Hickory label pressing (all three of ours have yellow labels, and I know the Bragg 45 also comes with red labels and blue labels, yet my 45 matches the Hickory pressing). All of my 45's are currently in storage now so I can't dig the Bragg 45 out to get the deadwax info on it, however one of my two friends has the 45 up for sale on ebay with the alternate version so I hope to win it and eventually get to the bottom of this.

I have pulled my Bragg 45 out of storage and received the other version on a Bragg 45 from one of my friends. It appears that the Bragg 45 had been bootlegged with the A side being replaced by the later Scepter remake of the song, in an attempt to pass it off as some rarer earlier pressing of the song (I assume, anyway). Whoever bootlegged it attempted to re-create the deadwax info exactly like the original but they failed to make the grooves look like they would have back in the 60's (way too much deadwax area compared to the original). Also the B side of the boot is much muddier sounding than the original Bragg pressing.