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/ Joe Marchese

Release Round-Up: Week of July 22

July 22, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Bobby Darin Story

Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Dio, A Decade of Dio 1983-1993 (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) A Decade of Dio 1983-1993 collects all six studio albums released by Warner Bros. and Reprise in the first decade of the band Dio's soaring career. Formed by Ronnie James Dio and drummer Vinny Appice after their split from Black Sabbath in 1982, the group first gained prominence with the title track of debut Holy Diver, a staple of MTV and a recurring metal cult

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Categories: Release Round-Up Formats: Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, Vinyl Genre: Classic Rock, Popular Standards/Vocal, Rock Tags: Bill Wyman, Bobby Darin, Dio, Perry Como, The Allman Brothers Band, Tucky Buzzard, Velvet Crush

RPM Collects Unit 4 + 2 On "Concrete and Clay: The Complete Recordings"

July 21, 2016 By Joe Marchese 2 Comments

Unit 42 Complete

Unit 4 + 2 still gets airplay today thanks to "Concrete and Clay."  The 1965 single which hit No. 1 on the U.K. Pop charts and No. 28 on the U.S. Hot 100, and inspired covers by everyone from Gary Lewis and the Playboys to They Might Be Giants (including Randy Edelman's hit revival in 1976).  But there was more to the British pop band, as evidenced by RPM's double-CD anthology, Concrete and Clay: The Complete Recordings.    The 43 tracks here hail from 1964-1969 and encompass two albums, an EP

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Unit 4 + 2

Ticket to Ride: The Beatles' "Live at The Hollywood Bowl" Arrives In September

July 20, 2016 By Joe Marchese 21 Comments

Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Since the advent of the compact disc era, The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl has been the forgotten stepchild of the Fab Four's legendary catalogue.  That's about to change with the first-ever commercial CD/DD release of the 1977 album on September 9 via Apple/UMe.  The newly-retitled, remixed, remastered and expanded Live at the Hollywood Bowl will arrive one week in advance of the September 16 premiere of director Ron Howard's documentary film Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years which

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Categories: News Formats: CD, Digital Download, Vinyl Genre: Classic Rock, Pop Tags: The Beatles

Sail Away: "The Randy Newman Songbook" Box Set, "Vol. 3" Coming Soon

July 20, 2016 By Joe Marchese 4 Comments

Randy Newman Songbook 1

Randy Newman is back...just when America needs him the most!  While we're all waiting for the mordant troubadour's new studio album, due in 2017, Nonesuch Records has announced the September 23 release of the limited edition vinyl box set The Randy Newman Songbook.  This collection will premiere the third volume of his Songbook series (also available in a standalone edition) which began back in 2003. For more than fifty years, Newman has been a foremost chronicler of the American experience,

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Categories: News Formats: Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, Vinyl Genre: Pop Tags: Randy Newman

That's The Way: Led Zeppelin's "Complete BBC Sessions" Coming In September

July 19, 2016 By Joe Marchese 3 Comments

Led Zeppelin Complete BBC Sessions

A whole lotta love is coming from Led Zeppelin this fall with the release from Atlantic/Swan Song of The Complete BBC Sessions on September 16.  This new collection expands the original double-disc set, from 1997, which was culled from the band's appearances on BBC radio between 1969 and 1971. This updated version has been fully and newly remastered under the supervision by Jimmy Page, and expanded with eight unreleased BBC recordings, including three rescued from a previously "lost" session

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Categories: News Formats: Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, Vinyl Genre: Classic Rock Tags: Led Zeppelin

BREAKING! Isley Brothers' "Groove with You...Live!" Coming From Second Disc Records, Real Gone Music

July 19, 2016 By Joe Marchese 4 Comments

Isley Brothers Groove with You Live

Are you ready to groove with us? On September 2, "The Great Lost Isley Brothers Album" is coming to CD from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music!  In 1980, Ronald, Rudolph, O'Kelly, Ernie and Marvin Isley and Chris Jasper were riding high with their singular, electrifying fusion of rock, funk and soul.  After having transformed in 1973 from a three-man vocal group to a self-contained six-man band, The Isleys cranked out hit after hit.  Original powerhouses like "That Lady," "Fight the

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: R&B/Soul Tags: The Isley Brothers

Last Train To Clarksville: The Monkees Compile Hits and Favorites On "50" and "Forever"

July 15, 2016 By Joe Marchese 12 Comments

Monkees 50 and Forever

"You Bring the Summer," goes one of the brightest tracks on The Monkees' new hit album Good Times!  Well, the summer is bringing more of Micky, Davy, Peter and Mike with the dual August 26 releases of Monkees Forever and The Monkees 50.  This announcement comes hot on the heels of the release of the lavish, definitive Blu-ray collection of The Monkees' television show! These two new collections are timed for the band's 50th anniversary (currently being celebrated on the road by a successful

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Categories: News Formats: CD, Vinyl Genre: Pop Tags: The Monkees

An Apple A Day: RPM Collects Grapefruit's Fab "Yesterday's Sunshine"

July 15, 2016 By Joe Marchese 3 Comments

Grapefruit Yesterdays Sunshine

RPM Records continues to leave no stone unturned as it explores groups and artists that may have fallen between the cracks over the years. A recent release from Grapefruit is no exception. Throughout their relatively short existence, the members of the four-piece pop-psych band Grapefruit enjoyed the imprimatur of The Beatles.  Signed to Apple Music Publishing, the band was given a major promotional push but never attained any major success on the singles chart, and by the time the album

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Grapefruit, The Beatles

Release Round-Up: Week of July 15

July 15, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Little Richard Mono Box

Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up!   Little Richard, Mono Box: The Complete Specialty and Vee-Jay Albums (Concord/Specialty) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) This new, 5-LP vinyl box set collects all of the studio albums that Little Richard recorded for both the Specialty and Vee-Jay labels between 1957 and 1965. The mono albums, each replicating the original label and jacket art, have been remastered from analog tapes. A 16-page booklet featuring new liner

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Categories: Release Round-Up Formats: Box Sets, CD, Vinyl Genre: Classic Rock, Folk, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rock, Soundtracks Tags: Diana Ross, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, Maynard Ferguson, Nina Simone, Sonny and Cher, The Hollywood Brats

I Love You, Yes I Do: Kent Collects The Independents' "Complete Wand Recordings"

July 13, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

The Independents Just as Long

Fans of silky-smooth, orchestral soul likely know of The Independents, the Chicago vocal group that launched the careers of producer-songwriters Chuck Jackson (not the R&B singer of "Any Day Now" fame) and Marvin Yancy.  Before Jackson and Yancy went on to guide the career of Natalie Cole (whom Yancy also married) and numerous other headliners, they were part of The Independents.  Ace Records' Kent imprint has recently reissued the entire Wand Records output - equal parts shimmering and

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: R&B/Soul Tags: The Independents

Lost Era of London Celebrated On Croydon Municipal's "Soho Continental"

July 12, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Soho Continental

Next stop: bohemian London, circa the 1950s and 1960s.  That's the itinerary for Croydon Municipal's latest release in conjunction with Cherry Red, Soho Continental.  This 25-track collection conjures the period in which Soho was dotted not with chain stores and restaurants but with coffee bars, cocktail spots and trattorias populated by artists of every stripe and ethnicity.  As co-compiler Martin Green points out in his liner notes, "this album reflects the international sounds emanating from

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Connie Francis, George Shearing, Various Artists

The Summer Knows: Varese Collects Snuff Garrett's Movie Music On "50 Guitars Go to the Movies"

July 11, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett Movies

Between 1961 and 1973, legendary producer Thomas Lesslie "Snuff" Garrett released over two dozen albums as The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett, making an indelible contribution to the "easy listening" instrumental market.  The multitalented Garrett was at his most prolific, overseeing the 50 Guitars albums during a period in which he produced a variety of artists including Cher, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Vicki Lawrence, Vikki Carr, and Jim Nabors.  Last year, Varese Vintage reissued The 50

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Snuff Garrett, Tommy Tedesco

Cherish The Love: BBR Expands Kool and the Gang's "Emergency"

July 8, 2016 By Joe Marchese 2 Comments

Kool and the Gang Emergency

Over 45 years after their first release, Kool and the Gang remain synonymous with party music and delicious dancefloor grooves, from "Celebration" to "Ladies Night."  Big Break Records has recognized the band's legacy with an ongoing series of reissues, of which the recent Emergency is the ninth.  Originally released on De-Lite Records late in 1984, Emergency has been expanded by BBR into a deluxe, 2-CD set with a full complement of sixteen bonus tracks! Emergency continued Kool and the

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop, R&B/Soul Tags: Kool and the Gang

Release Round-Up: Week of July 8

July 8, 2016 By Joe Marchese 5 Comments

The Monkees The Complete Series

Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! John Coltrane, The Atlantic Years in Mono (Atlantic/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Rhino's new box set, available on both CD and LP, includes original mono mixes of Trane's Giant Steps; Bags & Trane (with Milt Jackson); Ole Coltrane; Coltrane Plays The Blues and The Avant Garde (with Don Cherry) plus one disc of outtakes.  All of these remastered albums are housed in replica jackets and a 32-page

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Categories: News Formats: Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, SACD, Vinyl Genre: Classic Rock, Jazz, Pop, Rock, Soundtracks Tags: Carly Simon, Charlie Parker, David Bowie, John Coltrane, Sid and Marty Krofft, The Beach Boys, The Monkees, The Rave-Ups

Try A Little Tenderness: Morello Reissues Four From Marty Robbins

July 7, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Marty Robbins Today and Dont Let Me Touch You

Morello Records, an imprint of Cherry Red Group, is back with its fifth and sixth two-fers drawn from the considerable catalogue of the late country superstar Marty Robbins.  Today/Don't Let Me Touch You brings together two Columbia LPs from 1971 and 1977, respectively, while All Around Cowboy/Everything I've Always Wanted has Robbins' 1979 and 1981 albums. Singer-songwriter Marty Robbins spent most of his career, spanning roughly thirty years and over 50 studio albums, at Columbia, departing

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Country Tags: Marty Robbins

It's All Happening: "Charlie Faye and The Fayettes" Captures The Girl Group Sound

July 6, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Charlie Faye and the Fayettes

Summer is at last here, and leave it to New York native and Austin music mainstay Charlie Faye to have provided us with one of the first must-have, window-down soundtracks for the season!  In shaping Charlie Faye and The Fayettes, her tribute to the girl-group sound, the singer-songwriter has clearly done her homework.  This brisk and breezily enjoyable listen places Faye's voice up front over sweet, honeyed group harmonies on eleven, new hook-filled tunes. Faye wrote or co-wrote every

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Categories: Reviews Formats: CD, Digital Download Genre: Pop Tags: Charlie Faye and the Fayettes

Review: Chicago, "Quadio"

July 5, 2016 By Joe Marchese 17 Comments

Chicago Quadio

Surround yourself with Chicago!  With the recent release of Rhino's immense - and immensely enjoyable - new box set Quadio, it's possible to enjoy the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-honored band's classic 1969-1976 albums with added dimension: that of 4.0-channel quadraphonic sound.  The nine Blu-ray Audio discs on Quadio (playable on all Blu-ray players) present every one of Chicago's studio albums from Chicago Transit Authority through Chicago X, plus IX: Chicago's Greatest Hits, in remastered

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Categories: Reviews Formats: Blu-Ray Audio, Box Sets Genre: Classic Rock, Pop Tags: Chicago

Back To The Nineties: Cherry Red Expands Suggs, Betty Boo To 2 CDs

July 5, 2016 By Joe Marchese 1 Comment

Betty Boo Grrr

A recent pair of offerings from Cherry Red Records turns the clock back to the 1990s! Suggs (real name: Graham McPherson) came to fame as the lead singer of ska band Madness before striking out on his own with the 1995 release The Lone Ranger.  The album, a No. 14 U.K. hit, has recently been reissued as a 2-CD set with a whopping 23 bonus tracks. The original 11-track album (included in full on Disc One of this release) was largely composed by Suggs with writer/Madness co-founder Mike

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Betty Boo, Madness, Suggs

Cash, Robbins, Jones, Arnold Feature On Ace's "More Country Hits"

July 1, 2016 By Joe Marchese 1 Comment

More Country Hits

Ace Records has recently continued its Golden Age of American Popular Music Series with another volume dedicated to the sounds of country-and-western.  More Country Hits follows The Country Hits, released in 2008, and like that volume, presents a collection of country classics that crossed over to the pop side on the Billboard Hot 100.  Many familiar names from the first collection show up here, too, including Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, Faron Young, Ray Price, George Jones, Skeeter Davis, Marty

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Categories: News, Reviews Formats: CD Genre: Country, Pop Tags: Carl Perkins, Eddy Arnold, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Dean, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Various Artists

Release Round-Up: Week of July 1

July 1, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Delfonics 40 Classic Soul Sides

Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up!  We've got the latest release from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music as well as plenty more that we know you won't want to miss! Eddy Arnold, Each Road I Take: The Lee Hazlewood and Chet Atkins Sessions 1970 (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Our newest release brings together two seminal, never-before-reissued albums by Eddy Arnold on one CD, both from 1970. Love and Guitars captured Arnold

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Categories: Release Round-Up Formats: CD, Digital Download, Vinyl Genre: Cast Recordings, Classic Rock, Country, Folk, Funk, Pop, R&B/Soul, Soundtracks Tags: Betty Davis, Brook Benton, Burt Bacharach, Chet Atkins, Davy Jones, Eddy Arnold, Eric Clapton, Harry Nilsson, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Lee Hazlewood, Micky Dolenz, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Sea Level, Survivor, The Delfonics

These (Cowboy) Boots Are Made For Walkin'! Eddy Arnold, Lee Hazlewood, Chet Atkins Sessions OUT TOMORROW!

June 30, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Eddy Arnold Each Road I Take

Richard Edward Arnold - better known as Eddy Arnold - proved throughout an eight-decade career that he could sing anything.  The countrypolitan crooner scored 147 U.S. chart hits between 1945 and 2008, sold over 85 million records, and earned inductions into the Country Music Hall of Fame and The Grand Ole Opry.  Yet, in 1970, the superstar known as "The Tennessee Plowboy" found himself at a crossroads.  That year, he released two remarkable albums ending one chapter in his career and beginning

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Country, Pop Tags: Chet Atkins, Eddy Arnold, Lee Hazlewood

Masterworks Announces Summer Slate with Kroffts' "Poupees," "Alice" and "Getting My Act Together"

June 30, 2016 By Joe Marchese 1 Comment

Les Poupees de Paris

Masterworks Broadway has announced a new slate of three titles in the Sony imprint's ongoing CD-R/DD initiative restoring classic cast recordings to print.  This trio hails from the RCA Victor and Columbia catalogues, with two titles new to the digital domain. Sid and Marty Krofft are beloved creators of a pantheon of children's television classics including H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, the latter of which has recently been revived as a brand-new program

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Categories: News Formats: CD, Digital Download Genre: Cast Recordings Tags: Bing Crosby, Gretchen Cryer, Jimmy Van Heusen, Liberace, Moose Charlap, Nancy Ford, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Cahn, Sid and Marty Krofft

Too Hot! Big Break Collects Heatwave On "Always and Forever"

June 30, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Heatwave Always and Forever

Heatwave was a band like no other.  American vocalists Johnnie Wilder Jr. and his brother Keith Wilder joined with British singer-songwriter-keyboardist Rod Temperton, Swiss bassist Mario Mantese, Czechoslovak drummer Ernest "Bilbo" Berger, and Jamaican guitarist Eric Johns to form this truly international cadre of first-class R&B purveyors.  Thanks to a string of hits including "Boogie Nights," "Always and Forever" and "The Groove Line," the seductive grooves of Heatwave ruled both the

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Categories: News, Reviews Formats: CD Genre: R&B/Soul Tags: Heatwave

Surfin' Is The Only Life: Omnivore Collects The Beach Boys' Earliest Recordings, Unreleased Tracks

June 28, 2016 By Joe Marchese 13 Comments

Becoming The Beach Boys

Before Pet Sounds, before SMiLE, heck, before "Surfin' USA," The Beach Boys were a scrappy family band with little but big dreams and tight harmonies.  Things happened quickly for brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine; in September 1961, the quintet first captured their voices together, and by the following May, they had signed a seven-year contract with major Capitol Records.  In the few months in between, The Beach Boys recorded nine songs

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Categories: News Formats: CD, Digital Download Genre: Pop Tags: Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys

Magic's in the Air: SoulMusic, Cherry Red Reissue Brook Benton, Esther Phillips Albums

June 28, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Brook Benton Home Style and Story Teller

Two late legends of soul - Brook Benton and Esther Phillips - have recently been feted on a pair of reissues from SoulMusic Records and Cherry Red. By the time Brook Benton signed with Atlantic Records' Cotillion imprint in 1968, he had already enjoyed an illustrious career at labels including OKeh, Epic, RCA, Mercury and Reprise.  The move to Atlantic paid off when his recording of Tony Joe White's "Rainy Night in Georgia" not only reached No. 1 but became a signature song for the vocalist. 

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Jazz, R&B/Soul Tags: Brook Benton, Esther Phillips

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