Features / The Weekend Stream

Welcome back to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s specially curated review of notable catalogue titles making digital debuts, plus new works from legacy acts and even some personal favorites. One of the best pop bands out there today hits the dance floor, a hip-hop legend’s early work is revisited and an incredible pianist unearths a vintage performance – all this and more, and you’ll find them together only here!

MUNA, Dancing on the Wall (Deluxe Edition) (Dead Oceans) (Apple / Amazon)

California trio MUNA have seen it all over the past decade. They’re a critically beloved major label act whose unique sound, for whatever reason, couldn’t keep RCA Records interested past two albums. But marquee acts (and their devoted, mostly queer fanbase) love them: they’ve performed all sorts of major festivals (returning to Coachella next year, it was just announced) and have opened in arenas and amphitheaters for Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Kacey Musgraves, The 1975 and Phoebe Bridgers, the latter of whom signed the band to her Saddest Factory imprint (now folded into the indie Dead Oceans). Since then, they’ve scored their biggest streaming hit yet with 2021’s upbeat, sapphic “Silk Chiffon.” This year’s Dancing on the Wall, MUNA’s fourth album, was an unrelenting dance record tackling all the band’s usual lyrical themes (relationships, community building, activism) with heart-pounding tempos worth breaking a sweat over. Four new remixes of tracks from the album by Arlo Parks, Porches, Romy and Avalon Emerson have been added to this new digital deluxe edition.

Eminem, Infinite EP (FBT/Org Music) (Apple / Amazon)

Producers/brothers Jeff and Mark Bass had an unusual project on their hands in 1996, working with a scrawny white rapper from Detroit with a tendency to speed through his loquacious verses when the mood struck him. Born Marshall Mathers but known as Eminem, the Nas-inspired delivery of Infinite was an absolute sales flop, selling almost none of the tapes and vinyl the duo had pressed. Undeterred, Em continued working with the Bass brothers and Infinite co-producer Denaun Porter. A year later, he’d created a slickly horrifying alter ego named Slim Shady, and by the end of the decade had signed to Dr. Dre’s post-Death Row label Aftermath, quickly becoming one of the most successful emcees in the genre. (Both of the Bass brothers kept working with Mathers through 2002’s The Eminem Show; Jeff Bass was a collaborator through 2009’s Relapse.) Infinite has never been digitally available since its original release, and even this first time reissue (available on CD and vinyl in January) shortens the LP to an EP, also adding new mixes and additional production by Jeff’s son Jake and Mike “Slim” Wilder. But it represents a crucial early chapter of one of hip-hop’s most notable figures.

Lionel Richie feat. Luke Bryan & Carrie Underwood, “Deep River Woman” (Motown) (Apple / Amazon)

Motown legend Lionel Richie (recovering from some health issues over the summer) closed out his latest season as a judge on American Idol this past spring – a gig he’s held since 2018 – by recruiting his fellow judges, country singers Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood (the latter was Idol‘s fourth season winner), for a live rendition of his Southern classic hit “Deep River Woman.” Originally performed with Alabama on 1986’s Dancing on the Ceiling, “Deep River Woman” may have broken Richie’s incredible streak of 13 Top 10 solo pop hits, but it did net him a Top 10 country favorite – and it sounds quite nice here.

Liz Story, Live 1983 (Jazz Bird/Sony Music) (Apple / Amazon)

New Age pianist Liz Story, a mainstay of the Windham Hill label, has had quite the comeback story, not only recovering from a brain hemorrhage suffered in 2019 but taking time to relearn her instrument as a result. Her resurgence has been incredible, with performances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center as well as a recent all-star tribute concert for Windham Hill’s 50th anniversary. Sony Music, with the help of SuperVisible Multi Media, has also digitally built up Story’s discography with compilations The Essential Liz Story, Songs of Christmas and Jazz Standards & Originals. Now, they’re premiering a fascinating find: a full performance from the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, recorded to cassette in the months after the release of her 1983 debut album Solid Colors. Read more about this special release here.

Amy Grant, Tennessee Christmas (10th Anniversary Edition) (Capitol CMG) (Apple / Amazon)

Contemporary Christian pop icon Amy Grant celebrates the 10th anniversary of her fourth holiday album (and most recent release until this year’s The Me That Remains) with this digital expansion, featuring two new tracks and two remixes (including a new version of “From the Cold” featuring her husband, country legend Vince Gill, and their daughter Corrina). Grant will go into holiday overdrive this month and next with a national Christmas-themed tour alongside Christian rock hero Michael W. Smith and gospel giant CeCe Winans, before heading home for a Yuletide residency at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville alongside Gill.

The Rifles, No Love Lost (20th Anniversary Edition) (Cooking Vinyl) (Apple / Amazon)

London-bred indie rockers The Rifles scored a fistful of U.K. Top 40s from debut album No Love Lost back in 2006, including “Local Boy,” “Repeated Offender” and “She’s Got Standards.” A new digital deluxe edition includes a few new recordings of songs from the album as well as an unreleased cover of the Billy Bragg-penned “A New England,” a U.K. Top 10 hit for Kirsty MacColl. This appears to be different to physical reissues of the album, which boast track-by-track commentary as well as two un-named tracks from the original album sessions.

Jesus Jones, International Bright Young Thing EP (RT Industries) (Apple / Amazon)

While the British alt-rockers Jesus Jones scored their biggest hit in America with the anthemic “Right Here, Right Now” – one of a few singles from their 1991 sophomore album Doubt recently backfilled to digital storefronts – it was actually follow-up “International Bright Young Thing” that reached the Top 10 at home. A digital EP to the track, packed with remixes and B-sides, is now available.

Kennedy Rose, Hai Ku / Walk the Line (Capitol)

Hai Ku: Apple / Amazon
Line: Apple / Amazon

Country singer/songwriter duo Mary Ann Kennedy and Pam Rose had logged time in the band Calamity Jane before striking out on their own, recording these two LPs in 1989 and 1994 for I.R.S. Records and the boutique label Pangaea, formed by Sting, who later took the duo out on the road. As with previous Calamity Jane and Mary Ann Kennedy releases, these are back into digital print courtesy of SuperVisible Multi Media.

The Tennessee Pulleybone, Honky Tonkin’ (RCA/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)

Active throughout the ’70s (during which they opened for Willie Nelson, Bobby Bare and others), The Tennessee Pulleybone mixed country and bluegrass with a little bit of R&B. They recorded a few singles for RCA in 1976, but disbanded in relative obscurity several years later (drummer John Wolters was concurrently a member of Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show, keeping that gig after the Pulleybone split). Honky Tonkin’ may well have been an intended album at the time, including five of their six released single sides (like a cover of Merle Haggard’s “Tonight, the Bottle Let Me Down”) and four other recordings.

Sweet Baby, It’s a Girl! (Ruby) (Apple / Amazon)

Though Green Day got flak from the tight-knit community at the Berkeley club 924 Gilman Street for “selling out” and joining a major label, they weren’t the first ones to do so! Almost a decade before Dookie, Sweet Baby issued It’s a Girl! on the Slash imprint Ruby Records, both of which were distributed by Warner Music. The group’s sole album features the scene’s signature down-‘n’-dirty pop-punk style, and the band at the time included Richie Bucher, who drew the cover of Dookie, as bassist.

Betty & Dee, The Girls… (Buddah) (Apple / Amazon)

Perplexingly little is known about this sole album credited to Betty & Dee and issued by Buddah in 1976. There’s no discernible producer beyond a “Larter Enterprises,” and no liner notes to speak of, either. What we can say is the album benefits from a handful of favorites from country singer/songwriter Jim Weatherly that were already winners for Buddah labelmates Gladys Knight & The Pips, including “Once in a Lifetime” and “The Need to Be.”

Rhythm, Rhythm (RCA) (Apple / Amazon)

Similarly, this hard-to-Google one-album wonder for RCA is pretty obscure if pleasant, mellow soul.

PASSINGS

Not long after last Saturday’s Weekend Stream column published, word got out that the incredible guitarist Richard Lloyd had passed away after a brief battle with bile duct cancer. Guitar was Lloyd’s lifelong passion, and he parlayed it into a fruitful career, most notably as the co-founder of U.S. proto-punk act Television. He’d later play on albums by Matthew Sweet and John Doe of X and worked with a reunited Rocket from the Tombs in the 21st century. His power and style redefined the bounds of guitar-based rock for generations, and for this he’ll be long remembered.

The guitar world recently said goodbye to another innovator, though not nearly a household name. Del Casher had played with Lawrence Welk and The Three Suns and was a composer in his own right. But he’ll be best known as a technological innovator of the guitar. He created the Ecco-Fonic device to create an early version of delay effects in concert and worked with Roland on an early version of the guitar synthesizer – but his crowning achievement was a unique pedal he created with the Vox corporation that gave electric guitar a sort of mute described as “wah.” The wah pedal remains one of rock’s most notable effects.

Over in executive territory, fans recently bade farewell to Gerry Griffith, a former vice-president of A&R for Arista Records. While his illustrious career included finding hits for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and even Santana during his star-studded Supernatural comeback era, Griffith’s crowning achievement came after he saw a young, soulful singer perform at New York’s Seventh Avenue South jazz club. He was so blown away, he insisted Arista founder Clive Davis attend her show at Sweetwater’s the following night. That was the first time Davis met Whitney Houston, who became one of his greatest and most successful discoveries. (Griffith, whom the late Davis duly credited in his memoir The Soundtrack of My Life, also connected Houston to several of her most notable songs, including “How Will I Know,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and The Bodyguard standouts “I Have Nothing” and “Run to You.”)

Finally, The Second Disc and all appreciators of catalogue music owe a serious debt to Richard Weize, the self-described “rather crazy collector” who founded Bear Family Records in 1975. Under his guidance, Bear Family has been one of the purveyors of authoritative and exhaustive anthologies and box sets of early rock and roll and country music – not unlike what Mosaic is to jazz. Anyone who’s added a Bear Family set to their collection knows their colorful packaging and comprehensive approach, and we thank Weize for his service and offer condolences to his family and friends.