Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today! As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Fleetwood Mac, 1975 to 1987 (Warner/Rhino)
5CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
6LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Rhino.com (with bonus 12")
Fleetwood Mac's 1975 to 1987 is exactly what it states: a box set of Fleetwood Mac (1975), Rumours (1977), Tusk (1979), Mirage (1982) and Tango in the Night (1987) - available as a 5CD set or a 6LP crystal-clear vinyl box. (D2C orders from Rhino will add an additional reissue of a promotional 12" on crystal clear vinyl, offering stereo and mono versions of Rumours-era non-album cut "Silver Springs" and that album's standout "Go Your Own Way.") This set features no bonus material and is designed in the style of a companion to Rhino's 1969-1974 set, first issued in 2020. Read more here!
Iron City Houserockers, Blood on the Bricks: Expanded Edition (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Omnivore)
Following last year's releases of Houserocker: A Joe Grushecky Anthology and the singer-songwriter's newest album, Can't Outrun a Memory, Omnivore Recordings returns to the Grushecky discography with the worldwide CD premiere of The Iron City Houserockers' 1981 album, Blood on the Bricks. The band's third album, it was produced by Steve Cropper and features "Friday Night," "Saints and Sinners," and more. It's been newly remastered by Michael Graves and expanded with a whopping 11 previously unreleased bonus tracks. TSD's Joe Marchese has written the new liner notes based on an interview with Grushecky. The expanded edition is also available digitally. Read all about it here!
Sex Pistols, Live at Longhorns Ballroom, Dallas, TX - 1/10/1978 White LP (Virgin/UMC) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
Sex Pistols' Live in the U.S.A. 1978 will mark the first complete and official releases of three of the punk quartet's seven American concerts in January 1978. Presented for the first time in sequence are the tour's opener at the South East Music Hall in Atlanta, Georgia on January 5, a particularly raucous performance at Dallas, Texas' Longhorns Ballroom five days later, and the premature conclusion of both the tour and the band at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on January 14, which ended with an essential onstage resignation by frontman John Lydon. The 3CD set (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) features each album individually packaged in its own cardboard wallet, with a booklet of rare photographs. Each album will also have staggered standalone releases on vinyl (pressed on red, white and blue vinyl, respectively) as well as digitally, available February 28, March 28, and April 25 - the latter day also being the street date for the CD box. Today's the date for Live at Longhorns Ballroom, Dallas, TX - 1/10/1978. Get more details here.
Pete Townshend, The Studio Albums (UMC) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
The Studio Albums brings together new CD pressings of Who Came First (1972), the Ronnie Lane collaboration Rough Mix (1977), Empty Glass (1980), All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982), White City (A Novel) (1985), Iron Man (1989) and versions of Pyschoderelict (1993) with and without dialogue. While a 2006 reissue campaign from Hip-O Records featured bonus tracks on all albums (and Who Came First was later expanded for a double-disc reissue in 2018), those tracks are not included in this box. However, all audio is newly remastered by Jon Astley, with newly redesigned packaging and art by longtime Townshend collaborator Richard Evans (in what appears to be rigid LP-style sleeves), and a 28-page booklet featuring rare photos, memorabilia and liner notes by band archivist Matt Kent with a foreword by Townshend himself. This box appears to be unavailable as of this writing in the U.S. and Canada, but is available from Amazon's U.K. store. Get the track listing and more here!
Dio, The Complete Albums 1983-1993 (Mercury/UMC) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
Dio's The Complete Albums 1983-1993, a U.K. vinyl collection, chronicles the seven original studio and live releases from the legendary metal vocalist and his band. (Vertigo/Mercury distributed all the albums overseas, while Warner Music continues to handle this portion of the catalogue stateside.) The box offers new pressings of Holy Diver (1983), The Last in Line (1984), Sacred Heart (1985), the live EP Intermission (1986), Dream Evil (1987), and double-vinyl editions of 1990's Lock Up the Wolves and 1993's Strange Highways. These pressings use the latest masterings and have not been newly remastered or pressed for color vinyl; artwork has been faithfully reproduced, however, with replicas of the original album jackets and inner sleeves. Though the links are active, this release isn't currently available at the North American Amazon store. Read more here.
The Exciting Sounds of Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, Live from Richmond, Virginia 1964 (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
Omnivore has unearthed what they're describing as the earliest full concert recording of Buck Owens and his legendary band onstage. The Exciting Sounds of Buck Owens and His Buckaroos Live from Richmond, Virginia, 1964 arrives on vinyl - no CD version has been announced yet - with eighteen cuts from the Bakersfield group including renditions of "Act Naturally," "My Heart Skips a Beat," and even "Twist and Shout." The recording has been newly restored and mastered by Michael Graves for this release. Get more details here!
Robert Hunter, Tiger Rose: 50th Anniversary Edition (Rhino)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
1LP (Original Album Only): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
Following last year's expanded reissue of Grateful Dead collaborator Robert Hunter's Tales of the Great Rum Runners, the late lyricist is once again being celebrated by Rhino with a new deluxe edition. The label is revisiting 1975's Tiger Rose for its 50th anniversary. Produced and arranged by Jerry Garcia with Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor engineering at Rolling Thunder Studio in Novato, California, Tiger Rose boasts appearances by Garcia, Mickey Hart, and Donna Jean Godchaux. The album has been remastered for all formats by David Glasser using the Plangent Processes for tape restoration and speed correction. It's available as an expanded 2CD set, a 1LP remaster of the original album, and digitally. The CD bonus tracks will arrive on vinyl as part of Rhino's Record Store Day slate on April 12. Get the track listing and more here!
Santana, Sentient (Candid)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
More than 25 years after a collaboration-heavy album rocketed Carlos Santana back into the spotlight, the guitar legend is releasing another - albeit one assembled from an assortment of solo tracks and guest spots spanning his last five decades of work. Sentient brings together joint tracks with Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Smokey Robinson, and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run-DMC, along with select deep cuts. The 11 tracks span from "I'll Be Waiting," from his 1977 studio/live hybrid double album Moonflower, and the title track off 1987's Grammy-winning Blues for Salvador, all the way to last year's single "Let the Guitar Play," a team-up with McDaniels released as a Record Store Day single last year. Three of the tracks are billed as previously unreleased: an alternate take of "Please Don't Take Your Love," as heard on Smokey Robinson's Time Flies When You're Having Fun (2009); the track "Coherence," a duet with Santana's wife and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana; and a live instrumental cover of Michael Jackson's mid-'90s ballad "Stranger in Moscow," cut with Narada Michael Walden and his band in 2007. ("Whatever Happens," a post-"Smooth" track issued in 2001 on Invincible, the final album of Jackson's lifetime, is also featured.) The rest of the album is devoted to some lesser-heard work with Italian jazz-rock keyboardist Paolo Rustichelli including a couple of tracks posthumously released with Miles Davis on trumpet. Read more here.
So what's the deal with the Pete townshend click on the Amazon us link and it says not available
For Amazon Canada it says "This title will be released on April 4, 2025."
This box is an import and Amazon appears to be having some difficulty sourcing it; as I recall, the same happened with the Townshend live box last year. Hopefully Amazon US receives stock soon.
Hoping this new Buck Owens release will get a CD release or at least become available as a download in FLAC or wav files.
As mentioned in the earlier review on this site (linked to above) some of these songs were also included on Buck's Carnegie Hall live album recorded in early 1966. That performance also included the silly skit with the song Twist & Shout. It was included in a Beatles parody with the band donning Beatle wigs. Pretty hokey stuff but Buck's audiences in that era seemed to love it. The Beatles at that time were viewed as a teenage fad rather than the musical force that they ultimately would become.
One error in the above listing - according to the track list Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass is not included on this album. Buck did not write that song until several years later. Recorded in December 1968 it became a #1 country single in late March 1969. Earlier that month Buck recorded a live version for his "Buck Owens In London" concert album. That album was released on CD by Sundazed in 2005 with several bonus tracks. Another of Buck's great concert performances.
The three Fleetwood Mac “bonus tracks” are available on streaming services as “disc 3”.