Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up!

Grateful Dead, The Grateful Dead: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Rhino)

2-CD (Original Album and Bonus Disc): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Picture Disc (Original Album Only): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

The Grateful Dead: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition presents the original 1967 album on Disc 1 and an unreleased concert from July 29, 1966 in Vancouver, Canada on Disc 2.  The first disc has been remastered from the original tapes by David Glasser and restored via Plangent Processes (a tape transfer technique which has been used on other Dead projects).  The second disc has been mastered by Jeffrey Norman.  Exact packaging has not been revealed, but the reissue will feature new liner notes by Jesse Jarnow.  Also being released on the same day is 12-inch picture disc LP limited to 10,000 copies featuring the remastered version of the original album.  These releases kick off a series for the Dead which will see similar reissues for every one of the band’s studio albums tied in to the 50th anniversary of each album – which should take the series through 2039 (!).  Read more here!

Various Artists, Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies from the Canyon (Numero Group) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Numero Group revisits its acclaimed 2006 compilation on vinyl.  This set features 13 folk-rock-flavored tracks “culled from beyond the crop of critic-revisionist darlings Linda Perhacs, Judee Sill, or Vashti Bunyan,” drawing instead on “unlikely heroines who sang beneath the infrastructure of the music business.”

Muhammad Ali in “The Greatest”: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Varese) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Varese Vintage has a newly-expanded edition of the original soundtrack by Michael Masser (“Saving All My Love for You,” “It’s My Turn,” “Touch Me in the Morning”) to 1977’s Muhammad Ali biopic The Greatest, starring the legend himself.  The Greatest introduced Masser and Linda Creed’s “The Greatest Love of All” by George Benson, later famously covered by Whitney Houston, and also features Benson’s performance of Masser and Gerry Goffin’s “I Always Knew I Had It in Me.”  Varese adds four bonus tracks – the 1964 single of “Stand by Me” performed by Ali (Cassius Clay) b/w “I Am the Greatest,” plus Benson’s single version of “Greatest Love of All” and Masser and Mandrill’s single version of “Ali Bombaye (Zaire Chant).”  A. Scott Galloway provides a new essay.  Chas Ferry and Daren Chadwick have remastered.  Watch this space Monday for a chance to WIN a copy!

Randy Newman, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country/Putin vinyl (Nonesuch)

Vladmir Putin’s been in the news lately, and Randy Newman is hardly one to let that go unnoticed!  “Goddamn, I’m the Putin man!”  Newman’s timely slice of musical satire (previously available only in digital form) is paired with “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” his scathing tune written in January 2007 as a response to a State of the Union address by then-President George W. Bush.  This special 7-inch single, timed for Inauguration Day, is available today from the Nonesuch store.