Features / The Weekend Stream

Welcome back to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles making digital debuts, plus new works from legacy acts and even some personally curated favorites. This week is delivering the goods: vintage George Michael mixes, Beach Boys rarities, new tracks from some of our favorite elder statesmen of pop and rock, and so much more in so many genres.

George Michael, I Want Your Sex EP (Columbia/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)

There’s things that you guess and things that you know – but we honestly weren’t expecting this! After the recent reissue of George Michael’s solo debut Faith on vinyl and CD – only featuring the 12″ “Monogamy Mix” of lead single “I Want Your Sex” as a bonus track, which wasn’t included on the 2011 deluxe edition of the album – the British singer’s estate is partnering with Sony Music to roll out digital re-creations of Faith‘s singles “as…first mastered by George in 1987.” With the chart-topping, button-pushing “Sex” in the lead position, not only is the Monogamy Mix (combining Parts 1, 2 and 3 in one 12-minute opus) digitally available for the first time, but so is the original single version, featuring a unique percussive intro and a clean ending with no segue into Part 2. They sound great, and we can’t wait to see what gets dug up on further rollout!

The Beach Boys, selections from The Pet Sounds Sessions (Deluxe Edition) (Capitol/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

As Joe noted earlier this week, highlights from the revelatory 1997 Pet Sounds box set are coming back to physical print, as well as the whole anthology on digital. Currently, several alternate versions of “Sloop John B” from that set are featured as teaser tracks for the digital reissue, available either on an EP or as part of the product alongside the remastered mono and remixed stereo versions of the original album.

Paul McCartney, “Days We Left Behind” (MPL/Capitol) (Apple / Amazon)

The gentle first single from Paul’s forthcoming The Boys of Dungeon Lane is, as most of the album is slated to be, a musical reflection on Paul’s early days before The Beatles. It’s never a bad time to hear Paul do his thing, although it is worth pointing out that Macca, who recently said “I don’t normally spend a lot of time looking back” in a statement about a podcast companion to his recent archival documentary about material anthologized on a compilation last year and several deep-dive box sets is, uh, spending a lot of time looking back!

Barry Manilow, “Sun Shine” (Stiletto) (Apple / Amazon)

Barry has finally announced a June release date for What a Time, his final studio album. The 82-year-old singer/songwriter – recovering from a recent lung cancer surgery that forced the cancellation of a spate of tour dates – still sounds pretty solid, and this sturdy tune (co-written with Gary Barlow of Take That!) plays in the same vein of bouncy Manilow hits like “Daybreak” and “Can’t Smile Without You.”

Bette Midler, “All You Fascists Bound to Lose” (self-released) (YouTube)

The Divine Miss M has found new resonance in Woody Guthrie’s rousing fight song, written during World War II. “We’ll show these fascists what a couple of hillbillies can do,” Guthrie announced before performing the song on a 1944 radio broadcast with Sonny Terry on harmonica. Guthrie wasn’t just talking about the fascists the United States was facing, but also of those who would emerge on his home soil. With some lyrical twists, Midler has captured the spirit of the original while tailoring it for the current era. Somewhere, Woody Guthrie is smiling down.

The White Stripes, The First Show: Live on Bastille Day / Jack White, “Fly Farm Blues” / “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” (with The Electric Mayhem) / “Battle Cry” / Kneeling At The Anthem DC / No Name Live EP (Third Man/Legacy)

The First Show: Apple / Amazon
“Fly Farm Blues”: Apple / Amazon
“Sunshine”: Apple / Amazon
“Battle Cry”: Apple / Amazon
Kneeling: Apple / Amazon
No Name Live: Apple / Amazon

We’re not sure if these are redeliveries through Legacy Recordings’ pipeline or reappearances after a long absence, but several non-album singles and EPs from Jack White (plus a 2012 Record Store Day single from The White Stripes) are “newly” digitally available, and we can’t pass up the opportunity to see this rocker cover Stevie Wonder with The Muppets!

Soft Cell feat. Nona Hendryx, “Out Come the Freaks” (Mute/BMG) (Apple / Amazon)

Fans of synthpop pioneers Soft Cell at once mourned the passing of the duo’s co-founder and primary instrumentalist Dave Ball while celebrating that he’d completed one final album with singer Marc Almond. That album, Danceteria, is now previewed with a terrific new cut featuring guest vocals from Nona Hendryx of Labelle.

Don Williams, “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” (Craft) (Apple / Amazon)

From country’s gentle giant will come Epilogue: The Cellar Tapes in May, a collection of 12 unreleased full-band songs Williams cut in the late ’70s and early ’80s that were recently discovered in the Williams family’s Tennessee homestead. “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” is a (re)introduction to a fine country crooner.

Rodney Crowell, Airline Highway (Deluxe) (New West) (Apple / Amazon)

Rodney Crowell has expanded his 2025 album Airline Highway with a couple of previously unreleased tracks including “When You’re with Him.” Crowell explains that the song was written at Joni Mitchell and Larry Klein’s house as his marriage to Rosanne Cash was dissolving. Joni overheard as he worked on the song and tapped him on the shoulder: “So you’re giving up! Just make sure you don’t come off sounding weak.” Crowell put the song aside, finishing it a couple of years later but leaving it unreleased – until now, 30 years later. “Now that it’s going to be out in the world,” he writes, “I’m obliged to say two more things about the song: the last line is a bitch to sing! And I can’t think of a better man than John Leventhal [Cash’s current husband] to be the ‘him’ of which I wrote and now sing about.”

Rogue Wave, Out of the Shadow (Deluxe Edition) / Descended Like Vultures (20th Anniversary Director’s Cut) (Sub Pop)

Shadows: Apple / Amazon
Vultures: Apple / Amazon

The first two albums by Oakland indie rockers Rogue Wave have been expanded and reissued on vinyl and digital with bonus demos and, on sophomore release Descended Like Vultures, the group’s original intended track list for the full album, with several unheard songs and interludes.

David Forman, David Forman / Who You Been Talking To (Arista/Legacy)

Forman: Apple / Amazon
Talking: Apple / Amazon

David Forman’s songwriting was compared favorably in Rolling Stone to Springsteen and Zevon after his self-titled debut album was released in 1976. Perplexingly, he all but vanished afterwards, only re-emerging as the frontman of quirky rock group Little Isidore and The Inquisitors in the ’90s. But Forman, whose Joel Dorn-produced debut featured rhythm arrangements by Michael Zager and vocal arrangements by Cissy Houston, hadn’t meant to exit the public eye; in fact, he recorded Who You Been Talking To a year later with producer Jack Nitzsche and a murderer’s row of session legends including drummer Jim Keltner and guitars from Ry Cooder and David Lindley. It’s finally available physically from High Moon Records, with Legacy releasing both albums digitally.

Various Artists, A Winter’s Solstice / A Winter’s Solstice II / A Winter’s Solstice III (Windham Hill)

Solstice: Apple / Amazon
Solstice II: Apple / Amazon
Solstice III: Apple / Amazon

Pioneering New Age label Windham Hill had a unique idea in 1985 with the compilation A Winter’s Solstice: turning the canon of holiday music on its head by digging into classical works and obscure carols as their roster of unique talents could deliver like no other. The album spawned several sequels, and the first three installments (including sequels originally released in 1988 and 1990) are now available digitally. They feature unique recordings by label co-founder Will Ackerman, Michael Hedges, the Modern Mandolin Quartet, Mark Isham, Liz Story, Turtle Island String Quartet and many others. Our friends at SuperVisible Multi Media have given us a Christmas in March, and have now helped deliver more than 600 tracks to digital in the process since their founding.

Ella Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Song Book (Verve) (Apple / Amazon)

Newly restored to digital for its 70th anniversary, this 2LP set gathers 34 favorites from the venerable composing duo. (Lorenz Hart’s last days and estrangement from Richard Rodgers were recently chronicled in the Richard Linklater film Blue Moon, starring Ethan Hawke in an Oscar-nominated turn as the lyricist.) Highlights include “Blue Moon,” “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “Isn’t It Romantic” and many more.

Eddy Grant, File Under Rock (Ice) (Apple / Amazon)

The “Electric Avenue” singer was keen to prove a point on this 1988 album, which featured the anti-apartheid anthem “Gimme Hope Jo’anna,” a smash across Europe. Grant’s longstanding resistance to digital music has lost another brick! (Thanks to reader Tom Riise for pointing this out!)

Gail Davies, Where is a Woman to Go (RCA Nashville) (Apple / Amazon)

A celebrated country journeywoman in the early ’80s (a rarity in that she produced most of her albums herself), Gail Davies had already scored some genre hits for Warner Bros. before briefly signing to RCA, who released Where is a Woman to Go in 1984. Co-produced by bass legend Leland Sklar and featuring backing vocals from Dolly Parton on the album cut “Unwed Fathers,” this LP is ripe for rediscovery.

The Goo Goo Dolls, Live from NPR’s Tiny Desk (NPR/Warner) (Apple / Amazon)

For all the terrific Tiny Desk Concerts put on by National Public Radio every week, not many of them are officially released. John Rzeznik and Robby Takac of The Goo Goo Dolls want to change that for theirs, at least, making their November 2025 appearance (featuring the immortal “Iris,” “Slide” and two others) available both digitally and on vinyl.

Nina Simone, “Four Women” (DESIREE Remix) (Verve) (Apple / Amazon)

Six decades after its release, this original Miss Simone composition – an oft-misunderstood but deeply powerful Black anthem – has been remixed by South African house DJ DESIREE.

READING LIST

We thought we’d share a few articles we found interesting this week:

• Bob Mehr has an incredible celebration at The New York Times of Minutemen’s D. Boon, featuring recollections from bandmates Mike Watt and George Hurley – a deeply felt elegy for the late guitarist, who tragically passed away in a van accident in 1985, when he was only 27.
• Angie Martoccio has penned a deeply thoughtful posthumous profile of Laura Nyro at Rolling Stone, featuring insights from several who knew her well.
• Devon Ivie of Vulture has been covering the classic rock and pop beat like few others, particularly the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so it’s a treat to not only found out she became a voter last year, but is making this year’s public.
• Finally, music writer/gadfly Ned Raggett has posted to his free Patreon a thoughtful meditation on “the fragility of the recent musical past” – a topic with resonance for readers of our site.

PASSINGS

Though he was also a prolific performer (as on the pop duo Just Us with frequent collaborator Al Gorgoni), Chip Taylor (1940-2026) was one of those lucky musicians primarily known and buoyed as a songwriter, penning pop classics including “Wild Thing” (a No. 1 hit for The Troggs), “I Can’t Let Go” (performed by The Hollies and Linda Ronstadt, whose killer live version can be heard above) and “Angel of the Morning” (a Top 10 twice over for Merrilee Rush and Juice Newton, plus the basis for the ’00s hit “Angel” by reggae/dancehall icon Shaggy). His songbook and his tireless work ethic remain admirable and immortal. (Fun fact: Taylor was born James Voight, and his older brothers are Barry, a prolific geologist and volcanologist, and Jon, noted actor and father of Angelina Jolie.)

Singer-songwriter-musician Darrell George “Dash” Crofts (1938-2026) helped create the sound of soft rock. Crofts met his future musical partner Jim Seals (who died in 2022) in The Champs, and in the waning days of the ’60s, they teamed up to record their first studio album together. It took a couple of LPs to perfect their signature blend, but once they got there, the sky was the limit. Seals & Crofts charted a dozen singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in the 1970s. Three of those made the top ten – “Summer Breeze” (1972), “Diamond Girl” (1973), and “Get Closer” (1976) – while a further trio notched spots in the top twenty: “Hummingbird” (1973), “I’ll Play for You” (1975), and “You’re the Love” (1978). The duo had similar success on the AC chart, with “We May Never Pass This Way (Again),” a No. 21 pop hit, reaching No. 2 in 1973 – the same position notched by “Get Closer” and “You’re the Love.” Though Seals & Crofts made their final recordings in 2004, their string of ’70s hits remain in frequent rotation on soft rock and yacht rock playlists. Last year, Cherry Red’s Lemon imprint collected the lion’s share of their classic albums on the 5CD box set Gold and Rainbows: The Warner Bros. Years 1969-1978. Seals & Crofts’ music was smooth but impassioned, sensual but spiritual, and rooted in the duo’s deep musicality. Crofts was a multi-instrumentalist whose mandolin became a key part of the Seals & Crofts sound. Their music, now and always, will make us feel fine.

A journeyman drummer noted for keeping time in folk bands like The Pentangle (alongside Scottish singer/guitarist Bert Jansch) and The Humblebums (featuring future comic legend Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty of Stealers Wheel), Terry Cox (1937-2026) had a formidable session career throughout the United Kingdom in the ’60s and ’70s. Among the songs that bear his percussion include David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water.”

This week we lost a towering figure in British blues music. Mike Vernon (1944-2026) was one of the genre’s most pivotal producers across the pond, founding the Blue Horizon label and overseeing sessions like John Mayall’s Blues Breakers (a pivotal moment for Eric Clapton) and the early Peter Green-led albums of Fleetwood Mac. (He’d also produce albums by Chicken Shack, as well as the solo debut by their keyboardist Christine Perfect, who’d later marry the Mac’s John McVie and became the arguable linchpin of the group in their transition to pop/rock immortals in the ’70s and ’80s.) Vernon also co-managed Blue Horizon’s in-house studio, the amazingly-named Chipping Norton, which would welcome plenty of classic acts beyond the label. Duran Duran’s debut, The Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” Focus’ “Hocus Pocus,” Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” and Radiohead’s “Creep” are just some of the legendary tracks cut there.

Even if you don’t know the name of Ted Nichols (1928-2026), you likely know his music. From 1963 to 1972, Nichols was one of the in-house composers working at Hanna-Barbera Productions, composing memorable cues for such perennial programs as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Josie and the Pussycats, Space Ghost, Jonny Quest, Wacky Races, and others as well as the big-screen feature A Man Called Flintstone. A Montana native and veteran of both the U.S. Navy and Air Force, Nichols was one of Disneyland’s earliest Dapper Dans (the barbershop quartet which continues to this day). Serving as minister of music at the Church of the Open Door, Nichols was introduced to producer-director William Hanna. Before long, Hanna recruited him to the studio’s music department. When H-B’s musical director Hoyt Curtin left the studio in 1965, Nichols was promoted to that position.  A versatile composer, he was equally at home with high adventure and comic hijinks, and his cues would be heard for decades to come – including today, on cable stations including (the wonderful) MeTV Toons. After leaving Hanna-Barbera, Nichols wrote numerous operas and continued to make music for various religious organizations.