The Second Disc

On a typical day, longtime readers of The Second Disc would do well (if you aren’t already) to check out Matt Rowe’s excellent MusicTAP site. It’s harder to imagine a bigger music fan than Matt, who’s got a knack for posting great, thought-provoking pieces on favorite albums, artists and genres and is a valuable asset to any music enthusiast’s online conversations. It’s safe to say that without his spirit, there might have never have been the impetus to start The Second Disc, so for that, we thank him.

It’s also why we want to let you know that, if you point your browser toward the site, you’re not getting anything for a reason. Matt’s been hacked! Not cool, Internet. Rest assured, though, he’ll be up and running before long – and you can, if you’re not already, keep abreast of TAP on Facebook and Twitter.

Frederick Long’s nickname “Shorty” was ironic considering his surname, but the diminutive pianist, songwriter and vocalist was indeed a mere 5’1”.  Yet Shorty was Long on talent.  Harvey Fuqua brought Long to Motown with him from Tri-Phi, and Long was eventually selected by Berry Gordy to inaugurate the new Soul label, designed to showcase the funkier side of the Sound of Young America.  That single arrived in 1964, but Gordy didn’t release a Long solo album until 1968, just one year before the artist died at the age of 29 in a boating accident.  Here Comes…Shorty Long: The Complete Motown Stereo Masters, the latest release in Ace Records’ ongoing series of vintage Motown platters, serves up Long’s two solo albums (1968’s Here Comes The Judge and 1969’s The Prime of Shorty Long) plus two bonus tracks on one CD (Kent/Ace CDTOP 369) and offers ample evidence of a singular, if short-lived, talent.  If you like your Motown off the beaten path, you’re in the right place.

The anthology doesn’t include every track recorded at Motown by Shorty, but rather his complete stereo masters as issued on the Soul imprint.  That means you’ll find two full LPs here, plus the stereo debut of a track first unearthed in 2010 in mono, and a new stereo mix of one single side.  Shorty is best known for the percolating “Function at the Junction.”  That irresistible invitation to the dance (co-written with Eddie Holland and produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier) appeared as a single in 1966 before finding a home on the Here Comes the Judge LP.  “Don’t Mess with My Weekend” continues the party-time groove, as does “Night Fo’ Last,” on which the H-D-H team tried to recapture the “Function” magic.  It’s heard here in both instrumental and vocal renditions.

Meet you for that function after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Though some credit him with creating the very first rock and roll song (1951’s “Rocket 88,” credited to Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats), Ike Turner’s tumultuous personal life has long taken priority in the public eye over his groundbreaking musical achievements.  Yet Turner, in addition to maintaining a grueling schedule on the road with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, turned out a prodigious amount of studio material on a variety of labels.  The latest addition to Ace Records’ Producers Series, Ike Turner: Studio Productions – New Orleans and Los Angeles, 1963-1965, explores in depth a brief but fruitful period in Turner’s overlooked career.  Naturally, Tina Turner appears, but the emphasis is on Turner’s other singers including The Ikettes, Jimmy Thomas, Stacy Johnson and Bobby John.  Nearly half of this head-spinning anthology of raw rhythm and blues is previously unreleased, including stripped-down tracks, never-before-heard songs, unreleased versions and alternate takes. You’ll also hear rare 45s not issued on CD in longer versions.  In short, this is a treasure trove of rough-and-tumble rock and roll and R&B.

The electrifying Ike and Tina Turner Revue was well-known on the Chitlin Circuit and also on the teenage club circuit, as rock and roll ascended to the forefront of popular culture.  But pop success largely eluded Ike Turner.  Ace’s collection, produced and annotated by Brian Nevill, picks up Turner’s story in 1963, by which time the songwriter, producer and performer had notched a couple of hit singles on the Sue label as Ike and Tina Turner, and more for The Ikettes on Atco.  Turner signed with Modern Records and set up shop in New Orleans for sessions at the legendary Cosimo Matassa’s studios.  The restless Turner recorded a variety of performers, some issued on Modern, others on labels founded by Ike and some leased out to other imprints altogether.  The liner notes by Nevill provide the background on these songs, the history of which has often been muddled due to Turner’s re-recordings, reissues of the same song under a different name or artist, and issues on various labels.  Thankfully, the Ace team has been straightening out the prolific Turner’s catalogue for years, and this release is just the latest result of their efforts.

Hit the jump for more, including the full track listing with discography and an order link! Read the rest of this entry »

My Bloody Valentine, Isn’t Anything / Loveless / EPs 1988-1991 (Sony U.K.)

Can it be? Remastered editions of the MBV discography, including the first-ever CD compilation of the band’s B-sides and EPs, are available after years and years of development and release date shifts.

Barenaked Ladies, Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before! (Rhino)

A single-disc compilation of mostly unreleased odds and ends from the BNL catalogue.

Bill Withers, Just as I Am: 40th Anniversary Edition (Big Break)

A remaster of Withers’ breakthrough 1971 album, featuring the immortal “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Grandma’s Hands.”

Phil Collins, …But Seriously (Audio Fidelity)

Collins’ 1989 solo album, featuring hits “Another Day in Paradise” and “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven,” has been mastered for a 24K gold disc.

Various Artists, Da Doo Ron Ron: More from the Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry Songbook (Ace)

The legendary songwriting team penned classic cuts for Phil Spector’s stable of hitmakers – some of which are on this disc – but they also wrote tracks for Jay & The Americans, The Monkees, Sonny & Cher, Lesley Gore and other neat hidden gems on this compilation.

Mariah Carey, The Essential Mariah Carey (Columbia/Legacy)

Although we’d reported this was a straight reissue of Mariah’s double-disc Greatest Hits (2001), it’s actually ever so slightly different, boasting vintage remixes of “Emotions,” “Anytime You Need a Friend” and “The Roof (Back in Time).” Plan accordingly!

Julie Andrews & Carol Burnett, The CBS Television Specials: Live at Carnegie Hall/Live at Lincoln Center / Liza Minelli, Legends of Broadway: Live at the Winter Garden (Masterworks)

From Masterworks, a handful of Broadway legends’ classic concerts brought back to CD.

The success of rock and roll has many fathers, but for many, it has one birthplace: Memphis, Tennessee, the home of Sun Records. Sam Phillips’ label was crucial in bringing blues and rock music to a mainstream audience, providing early breaks for artists like B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins.

Last month, Curb Records released a special double-disc set chronicling the label’s heyday in the ’50s and early ’60s, in honor of the label’s anniversary back in March. Sun Records 60th Anniversary features early recordings from future blues legends King and Wolf (recorded at Sun Studios and released on the RPM and Chess labels), early sides by future superstar Presley (including “That’s All Right” and Elvis’ first two private demo recordings for the label), a track from the famous “Million Dollar Quartet” session (when Presley, Lewis, Cash and Perkins all enjoyed an impromptu collaboration in 1956), two tracks by Harold Jenkins – who would later enjoy success under the name Conway Twitty – and much more.

You can check it all out after the jump. (Thanks to Eric Luecking of Record Racks for the tip.)

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Twenty-five years is quite a long time for any pop star to survive, much less thrive. Australia’s darling Kylie Minogue has been doing just that for a quarter century, and is celebrating that landmark with a new greatest hits album to be released this summer.

The Best of Kylie Minogue compiles 21 tracks – 18 of them Top 5 hits in the U.K. – to celebrate the anniversary of the singer’s first single, a cover of Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion” produced by the Stock Aitken Waterman team that became a worldwide Top 10. For the first chunk of her career, Minogue was Europe’s go-to girl next door, with a clutch of hits from the SAW/PWL team. She ultimately left the team’s employ in the mid-1990s to find her footing as a more mature performer, and eventually struck gold in the early 2000s with tracks like “Spinning Around,” “On a Night Like This” and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” – the latter a No. 1 smash in nearly every territory (save for the U.S., which still welcomed it into the Top 10, her second-highest charting single on our shores).

While there’s no new material on this compilation, which will be available as a standard CD and deluxe CD/DVD with music videos, The Best of Kylie Minogue serves as a healthy primer for the pop diva’s career, who’s booked a high-profile gig at The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert in London on June 4, the album’s international release date. (The disc is out in America on June 19.)

Check out the track list after the jump.

Kylie Minogue, The Best of Kylie Minogue (EMI Catalogue, 2012)

1. Can’t Get You Out of My Head
2. Spinning Around
3. I Should Be So Lucky
4. Love at First Sight
5. In Your Eyes
6. Kids (with Robbie Williams)
7. Better the Devil You Know
8. All the Lovers
9. Give Me Just a Little More Time
10. Celebration
11. Slow
12. Red Blooded Woman
13. I Believe in You
14. On a Night Like This
15. Confide in Me
16. Get Outta My Way
17. The Loco-Motion
18. Tears on My Pillow
19. Wow
20. In My Arms
21. Never Too Late

Tracks 1 and 4-5 from Fever (Parlophone, 2001)
Tracks 2, 6 and 14 from Light Years (Parlophone, 2000)
Tracks 3 and 17 from Kylie (Mushroom/PWL, 1988)
Track 7 from Rhythm of Love (Mushroom/PWL, 1990)
Tracks 8 and 16 from Aphrodite (Parlophone, 2010)
Track 9 from Let’s Get to It (Mushroom/PWL, 1991)
Track 10 from Greatest Hits (Mushroom/PWL, 1992)
Tracks 11-12 from Body Language (Parlophone, 2003)
Track 13 from Ultimate Kylie (Parlophone, 2004)
Track 15 from Kylie Minogue (Mushroom/Deconstruction, 1994)
Tracks 18 and 21 from Enjoy Yourself (Mushroom/PWL, 1989)
Tracks 19-20 from X (Parlophone, 2007)

With the heartbreaking news of the passing of Adam “MCA” Yauch of The Beastie Boys, who’d been battling cancer for several years, we invite you to enjoy this Back Tracks special from October 27, 2010, in which we revisited the band’s discography and its reissues.

The slightly bizarre news that The Beastie Boys’ upcoming album Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2, slated for release this coming spring, will feature virtually every track recorded for the delayed Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1 is classic Beastie Boys. It’s a specifically off-kilter announcement that reflects the humor we’ve come to expect from the Brooklyn rap trio over the past quarter-century.

Naturally, news of a new album warrants a rediscovery of the band. Adam “MCA” Yauch, Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-rock” Horovitz have been rhymin’ and stealin’ since the mid-’80s, after a brief stint as a hardcore punk outfit. Their fanbase has extended from urban white boys, to suburban white boys to anyone with a good appreciation for rap-rock stylings.

After the jump, take a look at the many releases, reissues and compilations of The Beastie Boys. It’ll sound so soothin’, we promise. Read the rest of this entry »

What can I say about UMe’s ICON series that I haven’t already said? Nothing. The answer is nothing. LL Cool J, Musiq Soulchild and DMX are out now, Aerosmith and Hank Williams, Jr. are out on May 15. Check ‘em out after the jump.

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It’s rare when musicians do any amount of press on reissues, usually because they’ve got bigger things to worry about or are deceased. So the notion that some of the people behind three major catalogue campaigns have all had something notable to say in the past few days is certainly worth the attention of any catalogue fan:

• Johnny Marr gave an extensive interview with The Onion‘s AV Club about his memories of The Smiths as filtered through the assemblage and release of Rhino’s The Smiths Complete box. While he expressed regret that “monitor mixes and instrumental versions and slightly different versions of songs” weren’t included on the box (owing to “some kind of legal issue there that I never want to talk about”), he said working on the box bought back a lot of memories – all of them good. “I can only speak for myself, and say that I don’t have any negative thoughts about the times back then or the times now, or the people in it,” he said.
• A rare interview with Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine for Pitchfork sheds some light on one of the strangest catalogue stories of the last few years. It turns out the saga of the MBV remasters was even lengthier than Slicing Up Eyeballs’ vigil, stretching for more than a decade. The problems, Shields says, stemmed with not only negotiating a deal with Sony U.K. to his liking (in which he maintains control of the master recordings), but the tapes themselves went missing. And Shields thinks Sony might have hidden them on purpose. “Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear,” he said. “The true story is as yet to be determined, but we’ll fight that one out in the near future.” But fear not – relations are seemingly good enough for Shields to promise vinyl remasters ”probably in a few months.”)
• Doing press for the release of Martin Scorsese’s Living in the Material World, a new documentary on George Harrison (and companion outtakes disc, released today), the former Beatle’s widow Olivia promises more material will emerge from the vaults someday. “There is some music that possibly will come out, some more early tapes, demos, nice things, nice performances of George,” she said, also suggesting a “nice idea” of allowing other notable musicians the opportunity to finish some of his unused song sketches.

The English-speaking world was let in on a secret when, early in 1968, it was revealed that Belgian songwriter/actor Jacques Brel was Alive and Well and Living in Paris.  The musical revue opened at New York’s Village Gate and counted among its cast Mort Shuman, the Brill Building-era composer of “Viva Las Vegas,” “This Magic Moment” and “Save the Last Dance for Me,” all co-written with Doc Pomus.  Shuman had become enchanted with Brel’s hauntingly dramatic music, and in addition to performing in the show, he and Eric Blau fashioned English translations of his stark chansons.  They didn’t shy away from the lyrical subjects that set Brel’s songs apart.  Very little was taboo for Brel, whose songs often lacked sentimentality and addressed death, whores, opium dens, homosexuality, abuse and venereal disease.  Yet those songs caught on.  The musical ran in New York for over four years and spawned a film version, while the profile of Brel’s songs remained high.  Even before the play opened, Scott Walker had popularized a number of his works with the Shuman lyrics, but Walker wasn’t the first or the last to perform Brel’s songs in English.  Others have included David Bowie, Sting, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Judy Collins and one Terry Jacks, who made a smash hit out of Brel’s “Seasons in the Sun” in 1974.

The Cherry Red Group’s El Records label is offering a chance to hear some of Brel’s earliest compositions on the new release The Ballad of Jacques Brel.  This 28-track collection covers the period between 1958 and 1961 when Brel’s star was in the ascendant; in 1959, aged 30, he had even topped the bill at the Paris Olympia.  The centerpiece of El’s collection is the 1961 album No. 5, later reissued after one of its most famous songs as “Marieke.”   In addition to “Marieke” (later recorded in English by Judy Collins, among others), No. 5 introduced “Le Moribond,” the tale of a dying man’s farewell to his family and friends.  In a Rod McKuen translation first recorded by The Kingston Trio, “Le Moribond” became “Seasons in the Sun,” perhaps still Brel’s most famous song.

Hit the jump for more, including the complete track listing with discography and an order link! Read the rest of this entry »