The Second Disc

Today, May 17, 2012, Taj Mahal turns 70.  Though the bluesman has reached a venerable age, he’s still some 289 years younger than his namesake structure in Agra, India.  But the man born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks Jr. has packed in at least a couple lifetimes of breaking new musical ground.  A singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Taj Mahal has fused traditional blues with rock, pop, jazz, folk and world music influences drawing on his own West Indian heritage and beyond.  In celebration of Mahal’s birthday, Legacy Recordings is launching a new catalogue initiative for the artist which begins on August 21 with the release of The Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal 1969-1973.  This set features two CDs comprised entirely of unreleased finished material, both live and in the studio.  The first disc debuts studio recordings from the period of 1967-1973, and the second disc premieres a full-length live concert, recorded April 18, 1970 at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London.  Plans are afoot for the entire Columbia Records catalogue of Taj Mahal to eventually see reissue in definitive editions.

Columbia was the label where two-time Grammy winner Taj Mahal got his start.  Born in New York but raised in Massachusetts, he relocated to California in 1964 and soon formed The Rising Sons with another up-and-coming talent, Ry Cooder.  A club sensation, the Rising Sons managed to release one single on Columbia, though an album of unreleased material produced by Terry Melcher (The Byrds, Paul Revere and the Raiders) escaped from the vaults years later.  The eclectic music of The Rising Sons anticipated the catholic approach Taj Mahal would take as a solo artist; the band’s repertoire included Bob Dylan (“Walkin’ Down the Line”), Blind Willie McTell (“Statesboro Blues”) and even Carole King and Gerry Goffin (“Take a Giant Step”).  Though the group soon disbanded, Columbia kept tabs on Taj Mahal, and released his self-titled solo debut in 1968.  The blues-oriented set featured compositions from McTell, Robert Johnson and Sleepy John Estes, and featured Cooder on rhythm guitar.  Taj played lead guitar, slide guitar and handled vocals.  More albums followed, with 1969’s half-acoustic, half-electric Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home a particular milestone.  The album took half of its title from the Goffin and King song that was becoming a Taj Mahal signature, and also included material from The Band’s Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson as well as Sonny Boy Williamson and Huddie Ledbetter on the electric side.  The acoustic volume primarily consisted of traditionals.

Taj Mahal played the Royal Albert Hall on a bill with Santana between Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home and 1971’s Happy to Be Just Like I Am.  Taj Mahal remained with Columbia Records until 1976, writing more of his own material but frequently spicing his albums with songs from other musicians ranging from Mississippi John Hurt to Bob Marley and Chuck Berry!  In 1976 he left Columbia for Warner Bros. Records, a sister label of Reprise Records, where Mahal’s old friend Ry Cooder had started his own solo career in 1970.  Taj Mahal continues to perform and record today; his 2008 album Maestro celebrated his long career with guest spots from Los Lobos, Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley and Ben Harper.  Legacy’s 2005 The Essential Taj Mahal offered a retrospective of his career.

Hit the jump for more on Hidden Treasures, plus the full track listing! Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a compilation that slipped through the cracks a few weeks back: Best of Beserkley ’75-’84, a new disc covering the work of The Greg Kihn Band, for many years the flagship artist of Beserkley Records.

The Berkeley, California-based indie label trafficked in power pop and alt-rock stylings, with early acts including Earth Quake, The Rubinoos and Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers. Kihn, a Baltimore-born singer/songwriter living in Berkeley was an early signee, as well; his debut recording was released on the label’s first LP, the audaciously titled Beserkeley Chartbusters Vol. 1.

Despite the size of that claim, Kihn would indeed become the main (and by the ’80s, among the only) artist for the label, with huge hits in “The Break Up Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em),” which peaked at No. 15 in 1981, and “Jeopardy,” a No. 2 hit in 1983. (The latter was, of course, an early tune parodied by “Weird Al” Yankovic as “I Lost on Jeopardy.” Kihn even appeared in the video!)

The Greg Kihn Band stopped putting out records in 1986, a few years after Beserkley folded; Kihn now operates as a radio DJ in San Jose. Rhino issued a compilation of their work in 1989, and other labels have licensed the Beserkley catalogue in the decades since. The Riot label takes the reins on this new disc, which gathers 21 of the band’s best singles and album cuts for a new generation to enjoy.

The set is out now, and can be ordered after the jump.

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Another Kinks-size box is on the way.

Following the recent, well-received series of deluxe album reissues and the limited-edition Kinks in Mono box set, Universal U.K. and Sanctuary Records have announced the latest project celebrating the quintessentially English rockers.  Due on August 13, the 5-CD/1-DVD box set The Kinks at the BBC isn’t the first survey of the band’s BBC live recordings, but it’s by far the most comprehensive.  It has been compiled from all of the existing recordings made by The Kinks still residing in the British Broadcasting Corporation’s archives, and includes “a raft of sessions and live recordings from throughout the band’s career including the rare concert and unheard session recordings,” according to the label.  In addition to the five CDs’ worth of audio tracks, a DVD will present live appearances from programs including Top of the Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test.  And no fear!  If this is too much Kinks for you, a 2-CD “Best Of” distillation will also be offered.

Sanctuary first packaged the Kinks’ BBC recordings in 2001 as BBC Sessions 1964-1977 (06076 84504-2).  This 35-track compilation, remastered by Andy Pearce and Ray Davies himself, included many of the band’s most iconic songs like “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night” and “Waterloo Sunset.”  As the group’s early recordings were supplemented with seasoned session players, the live recordings often had a raw dimension that the more polished studio cuts lacked.  The Kinks’ association with the BBC was a long one, and especially in the early days, covers were played alongside originals.  As “You Really Got Me” was climbing to number one, the band recorded its first BBC session on September 7th, 1964 at London’s Playhouse Theatre.  The Kinks’ last BBC performance to date took place just over thirty years later, on October 8, 1994.  A total of 24 visits were made by the band to the media giant’s studios.

Hit the jump for details! Read the rest of this entry »

It will be a sixties flashback on June 26 when Real Gone Music ushers in the summer with five releases from that golden decade of music.  “Complete Singles” collections are due from experimental rockers The Electric Prunes and big-voiced soul queen Timi Yuro, and the label is also anthologizing the legendary folk group The New Christy Minstrels.  Last but certainly not least, two original LPs are being remastered and expanded: an outré pop classic from The Tokens and the debut of “international teen-age sensation” Rita Pavone.

One of the most indelible of the Nuggets compiled by Lenny Kaye for the original 1972 compilation of psychedelic garage-rock “artyfacts” – and indeed, the first cut on the seminal anthology – was The Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night.”  That No. 11 hit was only the Prunes’ second single, but it announced that the Seattle, Washington-formed band had plenty to say.  The story of the Prunes is a tumultuous one, with dominating producers (Dave Hassinger, David Axelrod) shaping the band’s sound and identity through a variety of changes to both the group sound’s and its line-up.  Yet the remarkably diverse music released under the Electric Prunes name has endured thanks to its consistently high quality.  The Complete Reprise Singles compiles for the very first time all 23 of the band’s Reprise single sides.  The Prunes’ music was described by band members James Lowe and Mark Tulin in 2007 as “Electric, eclectic, sinister, existential, whimsical, [and] innocent,” and all of those qualities are very much in evidence on these singles.  They’re presented in their original mono mixes, and Richie Unterberger supplies sleeve notes including commentary from the band and photos of the original singles.  And as a bonus, you’ll hear the Prunes’ demonstration of the Vox Wah-Wah Pedal!  The Complete Reprise Singles should make the perfect companion to Rhino U.K.’s 2007 compilation Too Much to Dream: Original Group Recordings 1966-1967, which presented the group’s first two LPs in expanded form.

The next artist to receive Real Gone’s “Complete Singles” treatment is Timi Yuro (1940-2004).  The Complete Liberty Singles is described by the label as the first to feature original mono single mixes rather than “after-the-fact stereo remixes or album tracks.”  This 2-CD collection includes for the first time the A- and B-sides of all of the U.S. singles Timi released on Liberty Records during her two stints with the label, , all remastered at Capitol Studios.   Despite her young age, the Chicago-born Yuro’s style was deeply soulful, influenced by R&B and jazz vocal greats.  In addition to her signature 1961 hit “Hurt,” The Complete Liberty Singles features Phil Spector’s uncredited production of “What’s A Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You),” the rare single and Northern soul favorite “It’ll Never Be Over for Me/As Long as There Is You” and the early Burt Bacharach/Hal David song “The Love of a Boy,” also arranged by Bacharach.  The set’s co-producer Ed Osborne writes the liner notes and supplies a singles discography along with photos.

Hit the jump to see what’s coming from The Tokens, The New Christy Minstrels and Rita Pavone! Read the rest of this entry »

Back on July 26, 2010, we reported on Sweets, Spice, Sugar, Pins and Needles, a 4-CD, 120-track boxed retrospective dedicated to The Searchers, the second-most famous band to emerge from Liverpool during the British Invasion!  We wrote:

One of the best and most successful bands to come out of Liverpool, The Searchers may have toiled in the shadow of that other band from Liverpool, but hits like “Sugar and Spice,” “Pins and Needles” and “When You Walk in the Room” remain some of the strongest recordings to come out of the mid-1960s. Now, Universal U.K.’s Sanctuary arm is bestowing the band with the lavish box set treatment. Entitled Sweets, Spice, Sugar, Pins and Needles, the box turns the spotlight on 120 tracks over four discs. Those tracks include rough demos, BBC recordings, solo turns by group members and material from the late-1970s power pop discs released here in the USA on the Sire label, not to mention all of those classic hit singles.

This box comes hot on the heels of a recent single-disc anthology which saw the band back in a Top 10 position on the British pop charts, but it should satisfy fans both abroad and stateside. The Searchers may have suffered for a lack of original songwriting, but the cover versions they chose were almost uniformly top-notch, whether emanating from the East or West Coasts of America. Sun-kissed songs like Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono’s “Needles and Pins” and Jackie DeShannon’s “When You Walk in the Room” both were reworked a la Merseyside, while the Brill Building catalogs of Pomus and Shuman (“Sweets for My Sweet”) and Leiber and Stoller (“Love Potion No. 9”) were likewise beneficiaries of the Searchers’ hitmaking prowess. Release date information and the track listing for Sweets, Spice, Sugar, Pins and Needles hasn’t been revealed to the public yet (although favorable reviews have shown up at both Record Collector and Mojo), but watch this space for such news when it arrives.

Well, it’s taken almost two years, but The Searchers’ box set has finally been confirmed with a release date of June 25 as well as a new title: Hearts in Their Eyes.  Hit the jump for the full specs including a track listing with discography! Read the rest of this entry »

Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power: 20th Anniversary Edition (ATCO/Rhino)

One of the heaviest albums of the ’90s, expanded with one bonus track from the vault and a bonus DVD of live material and music videos.

Diana Ross, Live in Central Park (Shout! Factory)

Both of Miss Ross’ iconic nights in Central Park in 1983 – one with rain, one without – on DVD for the first time anywhere.

The Tubes, Outside Inside: Expanded Edition (Iconoclassic)

Step inside another world with The Tubes’ most famous of pop/rock albums, newly remastered with bonus B-sides.

Various Artists, No Room for Rockstars: The VANS Warped Tour (Shout! Factory)

A documentary on the history of the influential punk rock concert tour, with a bonus CD of studio tracks by some of the tour’s most famous acts.

What defines country music?  The answer isn’t an easy one.  Dolly Parton is undoubtedly singing a country-and-western song when she reminisces about “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” but how about when she’s warbling “Here You Come Again” by the Brill Building team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil?  Are Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift country artists as pop stars, or pop stars as country artists?  Billboard recently described none other than Bruce Springsteen as “a symbolic fencepost in modern country.”  Clearly, country music comes in all varieties.  This hasn’t been lost on the fine folks at Real Gone Music, who have recently issued a group of country-themed collections that are about as different as different can be.  The artists are three late troubadours: Cowboy Copas (1913-1963), Eddie Rabbitt (1941-1998) and Mel McDaniel (1942-2011).  Real Gone’s three new compilations prove that these singers were able to carve out their own niches in the overall country-and-western landscape.

The Taylor Swifts of the world might be most indebted to Eddie Rabbitt, whose music practically defines “crossover country.”  Perhaps this was due to his upbringing; Rabbitt was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised across the Hudson in East Orange, New Jersey, a highly unlikely breeding ground for a country music superstar.  Rabbitt’s 13 Original # 1 Hits (Real Gone Music RGM-0047, 2012) is not one of Real Gone’s more comprehensive collections, but despite its brief running time, it nonetheless traces Rabbitt’s ascendancy from rising country star to pop crossover success.

Though Rabbitt made his debut on record in 1964, this collection of his thirteen No. 1s (on various charts) picks up in 1976.  That was six years after Elvis Presley made the world take notice of Rabbitt when he recorded the songwriter’s “Kentucky Rain,” still a perennial favorite of the late King’s fans.    Rabbitt remained a consistent hitmaker until 1986, and Real Gone has gone the extra mile in licensing these tracks from labels including Capitol, Warner Bros. and RCA.  Rabbitt was equally comfortable as a songwriter and interpreter of others’ material, and was quite adaptable in musical styles.

The earliest track here is pure honky-tonk country, musically and lyrically (“Drinkin’ My Baby (Off My Mind),” co-written with Even Stevens) but by the second song, from 1978, the change in Rabbitt’s style is pronounced.  The piano is no longer rollicking but plaintive for the Alan Ray/Jeff Raymond composition “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” a big, sumptuous pop ballad with not a twangy guitar in sight.  Soon enough, strings and backing vocalists were added to the radio-ready equation (“I Just Want to Love You,” written by Rabbitt, Stevens and David Malloy) in a sound that was more AM pop than countrypolitan.  The change paid off, with both songs hitting pole position on the C&W chart.

Rabbitt continued his climb atop the charts, bringing a light country flavor to pop tunes (the movie theme “Every Which Way But Loose”) or abandoning the Nashville overtones altogether (the slick, blue-eyed soul song “Suspicions”).  His crossover gambits worked beautifully, as the endurance of smash hits like jukebox sing-along “I Love a Rainy Night” (No. 1 Pop, C&W and AC in 1980) and Crystal Gayle duet “You and I” (No. 1 C&W, No. 2 AC and No. 7 Pop) proves.   The collection concludes with the romantic “Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)” which found Rabbitt joining Juice Newton in an attempt to recapture some of the magic of his Crystal Gayle duet.  Bill Dahl offers a solid and informative essay to accompany 13 Original # 1 Hits, but unfortunately the booklet contains no discographical information to the original issue number of each single and chart positions.

The next release in Real Gone’s country trio comes from a contemporary of Rabbitt’s, Mel McDaniel.  Hit the jump where you’ll find baby with her blue jeans on! Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a winding road for Black Sabbath fans, likely anxious over the band’s somewhat perilous reunion late last year. Original members Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward announced their plans late last year to tour and release a new album in 2012 – a plan that’s been semi-sidelined by Iommi undergoing treatment for lymphoma and contractual disagreements with Ward. Only three dates have been announced for the band this year, including a pair of overseas gigs and a stint at Lollapalooza in August.

That said, Sanctuary, the controller of the band’s catalogue in Europe, is planning a modest push for new fans with the release of a new compilation this summer. Iron Man: The Best of Black Sabbath is a 14-track disc featuring material from six of the band’s first eight albums, all of which featured Osbourne as lead vocalist.

If you’ve purchased the many, many releases of the band’s back catalogue, there’s certainly nothing here you don’t already own. But new fans might want to spin “Paranoid,” “Iron Man,” “Snowblind” and other killer cuts, and they’ll have a shiny new disc with which to do so when this appears in shops on June 4.

Check out the track list after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ooh-wah, ooh-wah, cool, cool kitty!  Tell us about the boy from New York City…

And indeed, much of America listened to the Ad Libs tell of that kinda tall, really fine guy in his mohair suit.  The Top 10 hit turned radio’s attention from Swinging London back to New York City for a brief moment, but the group was never able to repeat the song’s success.  It wasn’t for lack of trying, though, as Real Gone Music’s The Complete Blue Cat Recordings (Real Gone RGM-0500, 2012) proves.  Though the Ad Libs’ released output at Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and George Goldner’s Blue Cat Records consisted of just four singles (eight sides), the Real Goners have added a wealth of unreleased material to create the definitive portrait of the vocal group.

Blue Cat, an imprint of Leiber, Stoller and Goldner’s Red Bird label, boasted its own cool kitty, a blue, horn-playing feline on each of its records.  “The Boy From New York City” was the group’s first A-side for Blue Cat.  And how could the song, written by John Taylor, have gone wrong, with Leiber and Stoller producing, future Philly soul legend Leon Huff on piano, Artie Butler arranging, and Phil Ramone engineering the session at New York’s Mira Sound studio?  In his introduction to the liner notes here, Tim Hauser of The Manhattan Transfer states most accurately and succinctly that the 1964 song was a “’60s Brill Building version of classic street-corner doo-wop,” and that mix, indeed, marks the small but enjoyable crop of music recorded at Blue Cat by the Ad Libs.  The group was born from the remains of Bayonne, New Jersey’s The Arabians and The Creators, and initially signed by Red Bird/Blue Cat as The Cheerios!  Taylor, too, was residing in Bayonne when he wrote “The Boy From New York City.”

Like contemporaries The Essex (“Easier Said Than Done”) and Ruby and the Romantics (“Our Day Will Come”), The Ad Libs were distinguished by the presence of a female vocalist, Mary Ann Thomas.  Spotted in Hoboken, Thomas filled out the quintet also including Hughie Harris, Danny Austin, Dave Watt and Norman Donegan.  John Taylor had been providing them with material since 1962, but George Goldner knew that “The Boy From New York City” was the song with the most hit potential when The Ad Libs offered an a cappella performance of it at an audition.

Hit the jump for more! Read the rest of this entry »

Great catalogue music often arrives in the unlikeliest of places.  Universal Music Classics and Jazz’s German division has created the budget Jazz Club label, celebrating artists from the various labels under the Universal umbrella.  And though its titles may not be available at your local shop, they’re well worth seeking out, offering plenty of material not available elsewhere.  Two of the most recent Jazz Club releases are of a particularly rare vintage.  Wir Lieben Bacharach! collects 18 German-language renditions of famous songs from the Burt Bacharach and Hal David songbook…and some not-so-famous songs, too!  Quincy Jones’ Originals, on the other hand, pairs Songs for Pussycats and Quincy in Rio, two rare themed LP compilations of Jones’ 1960s Mercury recordings on compact disc for the first time.

Wir Lieben Bacharach! – or We Love Bacharach! – is a particular treat.  With 18 tracks recorded between 1965 and 1973, it contains the songs that are the crème of the crop of the Bacharach and David ouevre: “Close to You,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “A House is Not a Home.”  But listening to this compilation, you might know those tunes as “So wie ich,” “Ich wunsche mir so viel von dir” and “Ein Haus ist kein Zuhaus” as performed by Karel Gott, Bata Illic and Corry Brokken, respectively!  But in addition to the familiar classics, there are rare German renditions of “The Green Grass Starts to Grow,” “Hasbrook Heights,” “Paper Mache” and “The Wine is Young,” too, all favorites of Bacharach diehards including yours truly.  Some arrangements hew closely to the originals (Gus Backus’ “Hallo, Pussycat” – you can guess the English title!) while others offer unique re-interpretations (Die Caravelles’ “In Gedanken bin ich bei dir,” or “True Love Never Runs Smooth”).  For those who understand German, the translations are often far from literal, so that adds another dimension to these recordings.  The booklet has full-color reproductions of sixteen original LP and single sleeves, plus discographical information and liner notes – in German, of course!

Hit the jump to explore some of the earliest productions from the man known as Q!  Plus, we’ve got track listings with discography and order links for both releases! Read the rest of this entry »