For the past few years, Cherry Red imprint Morello Records has been reissuing the Epic Records catalog of county legend Tammy Wynette on a series of twofers (or more). With its latest release, out now, Morello is taking a look at the late 1960s and early 1970s with a 2-CD set featuring the four albums The Ways To Love a Man, Tammy's Touch, My Elusive Dreams and Inspiration. By the time she moved to Nashville in 1966, 23-year old Virginia Wynette Pugh had already experienced a lot of living.
The Living Word: New Box Sets Chronicle Wattstax in Full, 50 Years On
One of the greatest music festivals of the '70s is getting celebrated with an exhaustive array of reissues in 2023: Wattstax, the multi-dimensional Los Angeles celebration of soul, funk, blues and gospel courtesy of Stax Records. A half-century after the premiere of a Golden Globe-nominated documentary on the star-studded 1972 event, Craft Recordings, custodian of the Stax catalogue, will release the most definitive looks at Wattstax, most recently addressed in a 3CD box set in 2003 that took
Respectable: The Rolling Stones Release Star-Studded 50th Anniversary Show on "GRRR Live!"
Ten years ago, The Rolling Stones named their tour 50 & Counting which turned out not to be an exaggeration at all, considering The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band is still going strong today even after weathering the loss of drummer Charlie Watts. On February 10, Mercury Studios will commemorate a special night on that tour with the release of GRRR Live!, a 24-song set recorded at Newark, New Jersey's Prudential Center on December 13 and 15, 2012. The concert will be released in a
Mo' Onions: Booker T. and The MG's "Green Onions" Returns in February
A little more than sixty years ago, Booker T. and The MG's tasty serving of "Green Onions" became one of the summer's biggest dishes. The largely improvised 12-bar blues entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 11, 1962 and peaked at No. 3 the week ending September 29. It also made it all the way to the top of the R&B Singles Chart, peaking there on four non-consecutive weeks. On February 24, Rhino will reissue Booker T. and The MG's Green Onions album on both CD and translucent "green
Hey, Love: Vinyl Me, Please Celebrates Cadet Records Legacy on New Anthology Box Set
Following recent releases celebrating The Comedy Store, Ghetto Records, and the Philadelphia International label, the Vinyl Me, Please record club has announced the next title in its lavish Anthology series. The Story of Cadet Records, with eight albums spanning the halcyon era of 1968-1972, is available for pre-order now. Cadet Records emerged in 1965 as the successor to Argo Records, the jazz imprint of Chicago-based rhythm-and-blues label Chess Records. When brothers and co-founders
What a Surprise: Neil Sedaka Reissues His Four Elektra Albums on New 2-CD Set
Sedaka's Back was no understatement. Neil Sedaka's 1974 LP - in actuality, a compilation of tracks from his previous three albums issued only in the U.K. - yielded a No. 1 Pop and AC hit with the sparkling "Laughter in the Rain," earning the artist his first chart-topper since 1962. It also spun off another No. 1 AC with "The Immigrant," and a top ten AC/top thirty Pop hit with "That's When the Music Takes Me." That wasn't all; the album also contained the future standards "Solitaire" and
Just Being Herself: Dionne Warwick's Warner Bros. Recordings Collected on SoulMusic's "Sure Thing" Box
Between 1962 and 1971, Dionne Warwick put New York's Scepter Records on the map with over fifteen original albums and forty chart hits, more than twenty of which reached the top 40. Seven hit the top ten. Dionne earned her first two Grammy Awards during this period for "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" - just two of the timeless songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David which she brought to stunning life. In 1971, though, Warwick made the move to Burbank,
Easy To Love Again: Carole Bayer Sager's "Sometimes Late at Night," with Burt Bacharach, Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, Returns from Iconoclassic
Carole Bayer Sager was still a student at New York's High School of Music and Art when her song "A Groovy Kind of Love," co-written with Toni Wine, topped the U.S. Cash Box and Record World charts and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966. Though some at the time thought it wouldn't last due to its prescient use of the word "groovy," Sager and Wine's youthful tune more than proved its endurance. 22 years later, Phil Collins took it to No. 1 Pop and AC in the U.S. - not to mention No.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: La-La Land's 2022 Black Friday Batch May Be Their Best
Black Friday isn't just a day for holiday sales and Record Store Day's second event of the year - it's also the day La-La Land Records announces their final (and often biggest) soundtrack reissues of the year. And it might not get bigger than 2022's batch of titles, which feature two underrated scores from a pair of legendary composers, two massive franchise favorites with rich themes, and the soundtrack to what some consider the greatest American film ever made. Up first is one of those
Dancing in the Moonlight: Thin Lizzy's Major Live Works Getting Reissued
For all the great songs Thin Lizzy cut in the studio like "The Boys Are Back in Town," "Jailbreak," "Dancing in the Moonlight," "Waiting for An Alibi" and "Killer on the Loose," the Irish rockers really did shine as a live unit. At the top of 2023, Universal's U.K. label UMC will truly show fans how with an expanded box set and sought after CD reissue of the two live albums they released during the lifetime of frontman/bassist Phil Lynott. 1978's Live and Dangerous was the culmination of two
The Second Disc's Guide to Black Friday Record Store Day 2022: Our Essential Picks
From all of us here at Second Disc HQ to all of you, we hope you've enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving in the company of beloved family and friends. Of course, from this day which conjures nostalgic and warm feelings comes a celebration of a different kind with this year's annual Black Friday Record Store Day event. In keeping with tradition, Mike, Randy, and Joe have once again selected some essential picks of the roughly 200 titles being released tomorrow at independent record stores
Yesterday's Papers: The Rolling Stones Revisit Mono Box Set in New Edition
The Rolling Stones are going back to mono. On January 20, 2023, ABKCO will revisit 2016's The Rolling Stones in Mono box set - originally released on 15 CDs or 16 black vinyl LPs - in a limited, new color vinyl version featuring 16 LPs, pressed on 180-gram vinyl in 14 different colors to match the original cover artwork of the albums contained within. Like the original box, the new Rolling Stones in Mono presents the original mono albums released on both sides of the Atlantic between 1964
Close To It All: Cherry Red, Grapefruit Collect Power Pop, Folk, "Bubblerock," and More on New Anthologies
Cherry Red's Grapefruit imprint, dedicated to the psychedelic and garage eras, has concentrated in recent months on various-artists anthologies exploring different aspects of the pop-rock scene of the mid-to-late 1960s through the mid-1970s. Today's Grapefruit Round-Up looks at a quartet of those recent releases. The 3-CD anthology High in the Morning: The British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1973 is focused on the twelve-month period in which the look and sound of glam rock made ripples
Coming Around Again: Carly Simon's "Live at Grand Central" Comes to CD, LP, Blu-ray
Earlier this month, Carly Simon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a long-overdue recognition for the singer-songwriter whose thirteen U.S. top 40 hits include such radio staples as "Anticipation," "The Right Thing to Do," "Nobody Does It Better," "Coming Around Again," and the chart-topping "You're So Vain." Any fan of Simon knows that any live appearance is a true rarity-and the same was true back on April 2, 1995, when she performed her first full-length concert in 14
Not Dark Yet: Bob Dylan's Next Bootleg Volume Celebrates "Time Out of Mind"
The last volume of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series, 2021's Springtime in New York, chronicled the singer-songwriter at the outset of the 1980s. On January 27, 2023, the seventeenth volume of the long-running series will arrive, this time exploring the creation of Dylan's thirtieth studio album. Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) takes a deep dive into the three-time Grammy Award-winning album which was perceived by many as a comeback after a string of lackluster or uninspired LPs.
Give Me the News: Edsel Preps New Box Set of Robert Palmer Classics
For as long as CD reissues have been a thing, Robert Palmer's catalogue has been crying out for some real respect. The late blue-eyed soul singer, only 54 when a heart attack ended his life in 2003, has been in real need of rediscovery - and efforts to rebuild his discography for the modern age are few and far between. Next year, U.K. label Edsel will throw their hat in the ring (again) with a deluxe box set of his most famous work. The Island Records Years is an in-depth look at the first
Dream Starts: Grapefruit Collects Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera on New Anthology
The Five Proud Walkers weren't the only British blues 'n soul band to go psychedelic, but they were certainly one of the finest. As Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and then just plain Velvet Opera, the group recorded two well-received albums in the late 1960s before splintering. Cherry Red's Grapefruit imprint has recently collected and expanded those LPs on 3 CDs as Long Nights of Summer: The Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera Anthology. Lead singer Dave Terry - who took the name of Elmer Gantry, the
Snap Shot: Iconoclassic Expands Slave's Funk Classic "Show Time," Steve Arrington's "Dancin' in the Key of Life"
Dayton, Ohio-based funk band Slave achieved success right out of the gate when their self-titled 1977 album shot to No. 6 R&B and No. 22 Pop, earning a Gold certification from the RIAA. Slave was off and running, producing eight consecutive chart albums for Atlantic Records' Cotillion imprint through 1983. (A ninth, in 1984, would do less well and precipitate a change of labels.) Slave weathered changes in the musical landscape, spinning off more than a dozen hit singles in that period.
Sending You Forget-Me-Nots: Patrice Rushen's Elektra Discography Gets Its Own Box Set
Jazz-turned R&B singer Patrice Rushen met with commercial and artistic success when she signed with Elektra Records. Now, Strut Records has revisited all five of her albums for the label plus an array of bonus tracks on the new 5-CD box set Feels So Real: The Complete Elektra Recordings 1978-1984. After a trio of acclaimed (but modest-selling) fusion-influenced albums for Prestige Records in the mid-1970s, Rushen, an accomplished pianist/vocalist, joined the Elektra roster in 1978.
Women, Wives and Everything in Between: Paul McCartney Announces Massive 7" Singles Box
At 80 years old - hell, at many ages younger than that - Paul McCartney has little to prove. Fans may blanch at his catalogue choices of late (whither the Archive Collection? why box up all the self-titled albums? we've heard and seen it all), but it's hard to claim all of his reissue products as uninteresting. Take The 7" Singles Box - a rather massive trove of vinyl featuring 80 single releases personally curated by the former Beatle. With 163 tracks across its sides, The 7" Singles Box
Seven Bridges Road: Real Gone's November Slate Features Pat Martino, Herb Ellis, Remo Palmier, Less Than Jake, and Steve Young
We've already told you about Real Gone Music's pair of Christmas albums coming out this Friday, November 11: a vinyl version of Lea Michele's Christmas in the City and an expanded CD reissue of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme's That Holiday Feeling! featuring liner notes by our very own Joe Marchese. (Unfortunately, the expanded CD reissue of B.J. Thomas' Christmas Is Coming Home has been canceled for this year due to an unforeseen issue relating to the bonus material. Hopefully it will be
It's Only a Paper Moon: Cherry Red's El Imprint Celebrates Director Peter Bogdanovich on New Anthology
Writer-director Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022) rose to fame as part of the "New Hollywood" movement of cinematic auteurs. While these maverick filmmakers shattered conventions and reshaped film to modern sensibilities, many had a deep and abiding love of the medium - and perhaps none more so than Bogdanovich. The onetime film critic and Museum of Modern Art programmer wrote extensively about Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks; shot The Last Picture Show in black-and-white; and
Rubellan Puts Flesh N' Blood Into Next Wave of Oingo Boingo Reissues on CD, Vinyl (UPDATED PRE-ORDER LINKS)
All of Rubellan Remasters' titles are a labor of love, but special care was taken when the label expanded a section of the Oingo Boingo catalogue in 2021. The seminal California alt-punk band, which first catapulted film composer Danny Elfman to the national stage, never got their due in peak reissue eras - but Rubellan corrected that record with expanded CDs (and colored vinyl reissues) of the band's first four albums, issued on the I.R.S. and MCA labels. With the Day of the Dead just
This Girl's in Love: Mercury Studios Premieres Ella Fitzgerald's "Montreux 1969" on CD and LP
Following in the footsteps of such titles as Ella at the Hollywood Bowl: The Irving Berlin Songbook (2022), The Lost Berlin Tapes (2020), Ella at the Shrine (2018), and Ella at Zardi's (2017), the team at Mercury Studios has unveiled another previously unreleased concert from the late Ms. Fitzgerald. On January 20, 2023, the label will release Live at Montreux 1969. While the performance from the early years of the Montreux Jazz Festival (founded in 1967) was seen on DVD in 2005, the upcoming
Just For You: Peter Green's "In the Skies" Returns in Expanded Edition from Iconoclassic Records
As a co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green (1946-2020) expanded the boundaries of blues-rock and forged a powerful sound on such remarkable compositions as "Black Magic Woman," "Man of the World," "Albatross," and "Oh Well." Despite well-publicized challenges throughout his life and career, Green persevered and made music until the new millennium. Two years ago, Cherry Red's Esoteric Records returned his 1970 Reprise Records solo debut The End of the Game to CD. That album wasn't the end