Archive for August 11th, 2010
Houston, Laws Reissues On the Way from Funky Town
Our friends at Funky Town Grooves have recently announced a pair of new reissues restoring to catalogue three LPs by two deeply soulful ladies: Thelma Houston and Eloise Laws.
Earlier this year saw Soulmusic.com’s reissue of Houston’s 1969 baroque soul classic, Sunshower, and now Houston’s fans can rejoice with the reissue of two RCA LPs dating from 1980 and 1981: Breakwater Cat and Never Gonna Be Another One. While neither made much of an impression on the album charts, both boast Houston’s rich voice in its prime tackling originals and covers alike. Of the latter, Breakwater‘s take on “Suspicious Minds” garned some radio airplay and dented the dance charts, as did Never‘s “96 Tears.” Another dance hit was “If You Feel It,” and the same LP saw Houston wrapping her pipes around Bacharach and David’s defiant “Don’t Make Me Over.” The versatile Houston, with a career spanning many labels, continues to record today, and this two-fer fills a nice gap in her recording history on CD. Mark Wilder handles the mastering chores.
Eloise Laws began her career with Holland-Dozier-Holland at their post-Motown Music Merchant label. Her first LP, Ain’t It Good Feeling Good, was released on H-D-H’s Invictus in 1977, but within months, the label had folded, and Laws found herself at ABC Records (one of Houston’s former homes, ironically).There she recorded the LP Eloise, now being reissued by Funky Town Grooves. Eloise was produced by Jerry Goldstein and Linda Creed, with arrangements by the very-much-in-demand Gene Page. Creed, of course, brought her songwriting abilities to the table, too, and Eloise included a rendition of “His House and Me,” originally penned by Creed and frequent colaborator Thom Bell for Dionne Warwick. Laws’ recording catalogue is not a deep one, but she continues, like Houston, to make music today; in recent years, she even conquered Broadway, performing in the Tony-nominated musical revue It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues.
Breakwater Cat / Never Gonna Be Another One can be pre-ordered here, and Eloise (expanded with both sides of a rare 12-inch single) can be pre-ordered here. Both releases are due this month from FTG’s site. Hit the jump for full track listings and more information.
In Case You Missed It: More Hendrix Details
A few days ago we mentioned a second wave of Jimi Hendrix reissues and an upcoming box set, West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology. Hendrix’s Web site issued a press release on Monday adding some more detail regarding those releases. There will be a CD/DVD edition of the posthumous compilation Blues (1994), featuring an extended version of the Hendrix sequence from the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary The Blues. There’s also a 2-CD/1-DVD reissue of the acclaimed BBC Sessions compilation, featuring a previously unreleased track, a reissue of the 2-CD Live at Woodstock and – perhaps most ridiculously – a reissue of the Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year EP. (No new info about the box has been revealed, outside of the fact that the DVD will have a new documentary directed by Bob Smeaton, who directed both The Beatles Anthology and the mini-documentaries that accompanied last year’s Beatles remasters.)
Read the press release here and hit the jump to reacquaint yourself with the track lists for each compilation.
More Boz Scaggs Reissues That We Apparently Missed
There are a few more Boz Scaggs reissues coming from Friday Music this month. The label had four CD reissues of Boz Scaggs titles listed on their Web site, and your humble catalogue correspondent had wrongfully assumed that the top two listings were much more recent than the bottom two. So there is more to report on than the two mentioned last week.
These titles sit back-to-back in Scaggs’ discography, placed right after the singer/songwriter/guitarist’s first album on Columbia Records, Moments (1971). There’s Boz Scaggs & Band, a soulful outing produced by Glyn Johns and featuring Scaggs with his road-tested live backing band. It’s followed by My Time (1972), a rocking crossover record bolstered by the radio hit “Dinah Flo.” Both sets have been expanded with new-to-CD single mixes and live bonus tracks.
You can order each set (including the previously-reported expansions of Moments and Other Roads (1988)) here and hit the jump for the track info.
New at La La Land: “Gunmen” and a Beach Party
La La Land announced their next batch of titles yesterday (their only two for the month), and they’re a pair of appealing titles from the vault.
In a bit of a teaser to October’s planned box set of music from The X-Files, the label is prepping an offering of TV soundtracks composed by the same man (Mark Snow) for the same producer (Chris Carter). This CD (LLLCD 1135) will feature music from the short-lived X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen and the even more short-lived sci-fi series Harsh Realm. The set will be limited to 2,000 copies.
The label’s other title is pretty interesting: an archival presentation of Les Baxter’s music from the 1965 film Beach Blanket Bingo. The film was the fifth of seven beach party flicks put out by American International Pictures in the ’60s, and the last to feature Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in starring roles (Avalon’s role in the next film, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), was more of a cameo, and neither appeared in the final entry, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)). This album (LLLCD 1142) will collate all the surviving music elements from the score plus instrumentals of all the songs performed by Frankie, Annette and company (the full vocals were unable to be utilized for licensing reasons). It’ll be limited to 1,200 copies.
Both titles will be made available to order next week.
