Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc's review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. This week brings new music from Billy Idol and The Chills, cast albums aplenty and some soulful tributes to artists we lost this week.

Billy Idol, "Still Dancing" (Dark Horse) (iTunes / Amazon)

The recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee is going on tour this year with Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, and will release Dream Into It, his first full-length album in more than a decade (and a few years removed from two EPs in 2021 and 2022). "Still Dancing," the closer to what Idol has described as an autobiographical album, was co-written with longtime guitarist Steve Stevens and producer Tommy English, who worked on Idol's The Cage EP as well as tracks by Kacey Musgraves and Carly Rae Jepsen.

The Chills, Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs (Fire) (iTunes / Amazon)

Led by frontman Martin Phillipps, The Chills were heroes of the New Zealand music scene with a jangly brand of indie-pop on hits  in the late '80s and early '90s like "Pink Frost," "I Love My Leather Jacket," "Heavenly Pop Hit" (a modest U.S. alternative radio hit) and "Male Monster from the Id." At the time of his death last year after a long series of health issues, Phillipps was finishing a double album of unheard songs from the band's glory years; it's since been completed by friends of the band and other New Zealanders who cite The Chills as an influence, including Split Enz/Crowded House's Neil Finn, his son Elroy, Julia Deans of Fur Patrol, Manic Street Preachers producer Greg Haver and others. The album is also available on gold vinyl with a limited scrapbook zine.

I Can Get It for You Wholesale: New Cast Recording (Concord Theatricals) (iTunes / Amazon)

Concord has given a digital release to the 2023 Off-Broadway Cast Recording of Classic Stage Company's revival of Harold Rome and Jerome Weidman's 1962 musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. While the original production directed by Arthur Laurents may be best remembered for introducing Barbra Streisand to the Broadway stage, the revival directed by Trip Cullman proved its relevance to contemporary times. Jerome's son John Weidman (Pacific Overtures, Assassins) penned new revisions to the musical set in New York's garment district circa 1926, and added previously unheard Rome songs to its score. The revival and its cast recording boast an all-star cast including Santino Fontana (Tootsie, Frozen), Adam Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal), Greg Hildreth (Company), Sarah Steele (The Good Fight), Judy Kuhn (Pocahontas, Les Miserables), Joy Woods (Gypsy, The Notebook), Rebecca Naomi Jones (Oklahoma!), and, in Streisand's role of Miss Marmelstein, Julia Lester (Into the Woods). A six-piece band accompanies the illustrious cast on this reinvention of this stirring and provocative musical. As of this writing, no CD or LP has been announced.

Joy Huerta, Makin' It Work with Joy (from Jesse and Joy) (Ghostlight) (iTunes / Amazon)

Singer-songwriter Joy Huerta of the Grammy-winning Latin music duo Jesse and Joy previews her score to the upcoming Broadway musical Real Women Have Curves on this new four-song EP. Makin' It Work with Joy (From Jesse and Joy) includes "Make It Work," "Daydream," "Flyin' Away," and the musical's title song. Real Women Have Curves, on which Huerta collaborated with composer/lyricist Benjamin Velez and librettists Lisa Loomer and Nell Benjamin, opens at The James Earl Jones Theatre on April 27, with previews beginning on April 1. Tatianna Córdoba stars as high school senior Ana, and she's joined by One Day at a Time star Justina Machado as her mother. The cast also boasts Florencia Cuenca as Estela; Shelby Acosta (1776) as Prima Flaca; Carla Jimenez as Pancha; Aline Mayagoitia (Six Boleyn Tour) as Itzel; Mauricio Mendoza as Raúl; Mason Reeves (Frozen National Tour) as Henry; Jennifer Sánchez (Elf) as Rosalí; and Sandra Valls as Prima Fulvia. Ghostlight will release the musical's Original Broadway Cast Recording later this spring; until then, this EP serves as a tasty appetizer of the colorful score.

Goddess, Moto Moto Presents Nights in Mombasa: "Honey Sweet" (Arts Music) (iTunes / Amazon)

Warner Music Group's Arts Music label showcases Goddess - a musical launching in late April at New York's Public Theater - with the release today of "Honey Sweet," the first track off a five-track EP showcasing the show's stylish blend of dance, soul, and R&B. Composer-lyricist Michael Thurber (bassist in Jon Batiste's Late Show band and the orchestrator of Broadway's upcoming Bobby Darin bio-musical Just in Time) joins with The Public Theater's Associate Artistic Director Saheem Ali (who conceived the project) and cast members Amber Iman, Austin Scott, and Nick Rashad Burroughs for Goddess; Jocelyn Bioh wrote the book for the musical. Like what you hear? "Honey Sweet" will be followed on March 21 with "Boom Boom," and then the full EP will arrive on April 11.

We'd like to offer a few words in memory of some musical heroes who've recently passed away. First up, Joe pays tribute to the late, great Jerry Butler, who died on February 20 at the age of 85. 

The original lead voice of The Impressions, the Mississippi-born, Chicago-raised Butler enjoyed his first taste of success when "For Your Precious Love," the group's first single, shot to No. 3 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 11 pop. Butler both led and co-wrote the ballad which would later be adopted by artists ranging from Otis Redding to The Rolling Stones. But Butler's time in The Impressions was ultimately short-lived, as he embarked on a solo career before The Impressions ever released a full-length album. (He left them in good hands, however, with his friend Curtis Mayfield; Butler and Mayfield had sung together in church choirs and in gospel groups before forming The Impressions.) In 1960, he scored his first R&B chart-topper with another song he co-wrote, "He Will Break Your Heart." Like "For Your Precious Love" before it, "He Will Break Your Heart" (co-written with Mayfield and Calvin Carter) became another oft-covered crossover success, inspiring versions from Lulu, The Righteous Brothers, and Tony Orlando and Dawn, who took it straight to No. 1 pop in 1975.

While recording at Vee-Jay, Butler brought his powerfully resonant tones to a wide range of material including Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's "Moon River" and Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Make It Easy on Yourself."  Butler introduced the latter song, famously prompting Dionne Warwick - who had sung the demo - to assert "Don't make me over, man!" to Bacharach and David...thus launching her own extraordinary career. In 1966, Butler moved to Mercury Records, where he remained through 1974; at Mercury, he teamed with Philadelphia's Gamble and Huff production house (as well as the likes of arranger-composer Thom Bell and arranger Bobby Martin), co-crafting such future soul standards as "Brand New Me," "Hey Western Union Man," "Only the Strong Survive," "Moody Woman," and "Never Give You Up." In the years that followed, he recorded for Motown and Gamble and Huff's own Philadelphia International label; the 1980s saw him continue to make sublime soul records for a variety of smaller labels even as he took his own life in a new direction. He sought public office, and between 1985 and 2018, he served the people of Illinois as a Cook County Commissioner. He never turned his back on music, though, appearing in various television specials and chairing the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

Butler, christened "The Ice Man" by a Philadelphia DJ, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of The Impressions, but his remarkable solo career deserves the same accolades. In truth, Jerry Butler was equal parts fire and ice - always smoldering and cool, and one of the most recognizable and thunderous voices in the pantheon. Hey, Western Union Man, send a telegram: Jerry, we'll miss you.

Next, Mike shares some thoughts on the life and work of Chris Jasper, who died on February 23 at 73 years old.

Is it possible for a band like The Isley Brothers to be underrated? Their power and influence has stretched on for the last seven decades or so: standing on the crossroads of soul, rock and gospel with 1959's "Shout," eking out modest hits for Wand and Motown's Tamla before taking the reins themselves with their own T-Neck label, the debut release of which was the strutting R&B chart-topper "It's Your Thing"; spending the '70s and early '80s crafting extended, spacey funk rock odysseys that would be sampled for decades to come; and kickstarting Black fashion trends by dressing to the nines.

This was a story that the brilliant box set The RCA Victor and T-Neck Album Masters (1959-1983) set out to tell in 2015. I had a bit of a front-row seat to its process at the time, helping plot out some of its release strategy on social media, and by far one of the coolest people I ever met in the business as a result of that project was Chris Jasper, the group's sole non-Isley: a childhood friend and bandmate of younger siblings Ernie and Marvin (and brother-in-law to co-founding member Rudolph), all three of whom joined the group for the aptly titled 3 + 3 in 1973 and remained there for over a decade. Beyond the indelible keyboards Jasper played on a dozen studio albums with the Isleys - pianos, Moogs, ARPs, the works - it's perhaps a well-kept secret that many of the group's songwriting and production ideas at this time started with him. (When original Isley Brothers O'Kelly, Ronnie and Rudolph split off into their own group again in the mid-'80s, Jasper and his friends continued as Isley Jasper Isley, scoring with the indelible "Caravan of Love.")

That period of reissue - which included a killer live-in-studio disc in the box called Wild in Woodstock that was gussied up for a shelved pseudo-concert album called Groove with You...Live (later released on Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music with typically stellar liner notes by Joe Marchese!) - remains among my happiest times in the music business, and a microcosm of all that made it good. Immersing yourself in an act's body of work - and even getting to be treated with a mini-masterclass from Jasper himself - is a reminder of why we even bother to consider catalogue the way that we do. The Isley Brothers may have, at their best, been 3 + 3 - but thanks to Chris Jasper, they were a perfect 10.