Hot Tuna
Final Vinyl

Listening notes

Hot Tuna's *Final Vinyl*, released in 1979 on Grunt Records (catalog number BXL1-3357), arrives with a title that signals a deliberate endpoint. Whether that designation reflects the band's circumstances at the time or functions as something more rhetorical is a matter the record itself leaves open, but the name is not easily ignored by anyone pulling this out of a bin.

The album is catalogued under Blues and Rock, a pairing that accurately describes the territory Hot Tuna had worked across their career. The ten-track sequence is divided evenly across two sides, with Side A opening on "Hesitation Blues" at just over five minutes and closing with "Day To Day Out The Window Blues" at three and a half. Side B follows a similar pattern, beginning with "Easy Now" and running through to "I Wish You Would," which closes the record at four minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

Several of the titles — "Hesitation Blues," "Candy Man," "Keep On Truckin'," "Hot Jelly Roll Blues" — point toward the traditional blues repertoire the group drew on throughout their existence. Others, including "Funky #7," "Water Song," and "Song From The Stainless Cymbal," suggest material that may sit further outside that tradition, though the titles alone cannot confirm that.

The longest track on the record is "Funky #7" at five minutes and forty-seven seconds, while the shortest is "Hot Jelly Roll Blues" at three minutes and eight seconds. Total running time across both sides places this firmly within standard album length for the period.

Collectors looking for this pressing should note the Grunt label designation listed here as Grunt (3), which may help distinguish it from other Grunt pressings or imprints. The BXL1 prefix in the catalog number is consistent with RCA-affiliated releases of the era.

This draft requires fact-checker review before publication.