Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up!

Glen Campbell, Adios (UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Glen Campbell’s final recordings, produced by his longtime band member Carl Jackson, comprise this release.  Selections include the lead-off single “Everybody’s Talkin’,” and four songs by Jimmy Webb (including the touching title track as well as “Postcard from Paris,” “Just Like Always” and “It Won’t Bring Her Back”), plus compositions from Bob Dylan, Jerry Reed, Dickey Lee, and Roger Miller.  The late Miller is heard is on his demo of “Am I Alone (Or Is It Only Me?)” which segues into Campbell’s recording featuring Vince Gill, and Willie Nelson also appears on his “Funny How Time Slips Away.” The U.K. edition adds a bonus disc of greatest hits.

Paul Simon, The Concert in Hyde Park (Legacy)

2CD/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 
2CD/BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. TBD / Amazon Canada

Paul Simon’s July 15, 2012 Hyde Park concert, closing night of the Hard Rock Calling Festival, is coming on 2CD/1DVD and 2CD/1BD editions. The performance spanned the entirety of Simon’s career through his 2011 album So Beautiful or So What.  He welcomed to the stage original Graceland musicians including Hugh Masekela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, as well as special guests Jimmy Cliff and Jerry Douglas.  The troubadour’s setlist featured many of his solo classics (“Kodachrome,” “Graceland,” “Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”), a pair of Simon and Garfunkel favorites (“The Boxer” with Douglas, “The Sound of Silence”), plus a mini-set with reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, who performed his original songs “The Harder They Come” and “Many Rivers to Cross”, and duetted with his host on “Vietnam” and “Mother and Child Reunion.”  (Note that Cliff’s two originals are only included on the DVD/BD, not the CD.)  Read more here!

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie (Atlantic/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie have come together for their first joint album, consisting of 10 original songs.  Mick Fleetwood and John McVie lend able instrumental support to the singer-songwriters.  Available on CD, LP, and DD.

Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind: 20th Anniversary Edition (Elektra/Rhino)

2CD: Amazon U.S. /  Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

The 1997 Elektra debut of Third Eye Blind gets the 20th anniversary treatment on 2 CDs or 3 LPs with a host of bonus material. The album is augmented with an extra eight tracks, nearly all of which are unreleased. There are two new tracks (“Alright Caroline” and “Scattered”) based on song ideas from the Third Eye Blind sessions; demos of “Semi-Charmed Life” and a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin”; and early versions of songs from the band’s 1999 follow-up Blue (“Kiss Goodnight,” later rewritten as “Ode to Maybe,” and “Slow Motion,” released as an instrumental on Blue but reissued with its controversial lyrics on the group’s 2006 greatest-hits set). A Japanese bonus track, “Tattoo of the Sun,” rounds out the bonus material.  Read more here!

Chuck Berry, Chuck (Dualtone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Before shuffling off this mortal coil earlier this year at the age of 90, the rock-and-roll pioneer Chuck Berry left behind his first new album in almost 40 years, featuring almost all new material written by the legend.  Chuck was recorded around his home base of St. Louis, and features the local group that has backed him on 200+-dates over the past two decades.  The group includes his children Charles Berry Jr. (guitar) and Ingrid Berry (harmonica), plus Jimmy Marsala (Berry’s bassist of forty years), Robert Lohr (piano), and Keith Robinson (drums).  Available on CD, LP, and DD.

Various Artists, American Epic: The Sessions (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

A cadre of modern artists (Alabama Shakes, The Americans, Ana Gabriel, Ashley Monroe, The Avett Brothers, Beck, Bettye LaVette, Bobby Ingano, Elton John, Frank Fairfield, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Los Lobos, Stephen Stills, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Nas, Pokey LaFarge, Christine Pizzuti, Raphael Saadiq, Rhiannon Giddens, Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, Taj Mahal, Jack White, and Willie Nelson and the late Merle Haggard) joined producers T Bone Burnett and Jack White to recreate a 1920s recording session using vintage, reassembled technology.  Engineer Nicholas Bergh recreated this recording system from original parts, consisting of a single microphone, a six-foot amplifier rack, and a live record-cutting lathe, powered by a weight-driven pulley system of clockwork gears. The musicians had roughly three minutes per track to record their song direct to disc before the weight hit the floor. Hence, all of these performances are live, with no editing or enhancements.  This 32-song release, available on CD and DD, arrives on LP next week along with numerous individual vinyl releases from the original, classic artists spotlighted in the American Epic film.

Various Artists, Iconic Performances from the Monterey International Pop Festival (Ode) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

As the Monterey Pop Festival turns 50, and a new festival gears up to happen on the original site next weekend, Ode celebrates the original fest with a new single-CD compilation.  Previously unissued performances from Laura Nyro (“Poverty Train”) and Grateful Dead (“Out in the Cold, Rain, and Snow”) join festival selections from Simon and Garfunkel (“The Sound of Silence”), Jimi Hendrix (“Like a Rolling Stone”), The Mamas and the Papas (“California Dreamin'”), Otis Redding (“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”) and more.  This release also features a 16-page booklet, a replica of the festival’s original artist pass, new liner notes written by NME writer and Monterey Pop attendee Keith Altham, and gold-foil packaging.

Lynn Castle, Rose-Colored Corner (Light in the Attic) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Light in the Attic’s ongoing Lee Hazlewood Archive Series turns the spotlight on Lynn Castle, a sixties survivor once known as “The Lady Barber” who also happened to be quite a songwriter!  This CD presents previously unreleased demos recorded by Castle with Jack Nitzsche in 1966 as well as a couple of tracks made with Hazlewood himself for his LHI Records label.  Lavishly packaged with full liner notes, this release is available on both CD and LP.

John Coltrane, Trane: The Atlantic Collection (Atlantic/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

This new collection – available on CD, LP, and DD – has nine tracks from John Coltrane’s groundbreaking Atlantic Records tenure between 1959 and 1961 including the single version of “My Favorite Things (Part I)” as well as the full versions of “Giant Steps,” “Naima,” “Equinox,” and more.  Look next week for individual reissues of Trane’s mono Atlantic albums as released on CD last year as part of the box set The Atlantic Years in Mono!

Del Shannon, The Dublin Sessions (Rockbeat) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

It looks like today is the day for this delayed release.  Del Shannon recorded this previously unreleased album in 1977 with his U.K.-based touring band called Smackee at Ireland’s Dublin Sound Studios. Shannon originally mixed and then remixed the tracks at Cherokee Studios in California but opted to never release them.  This posthumous CD is the album’s first official release.