"Happy Halloween, everybody!" Greeting his audience at New York's late, lamented Palladium on October 31, 1978, Frank Zappa promised the enthusiastic crowd. "This is it...this is the big one!" He wasn't kidding. The composer-guitarist and his band - drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, bassists Arthur Barrow and Patrick O'Hearn, keyboardists Peter Wolf and Tommy Mars, singer-guitarist Denny Walley, and percussionist Ed Mann - delivered perhaps the most epic show of their annual New York holiday
Review: Elvis Presley, "Sunset Boulevard"
It was late March 1972 when Elvis Presley first entered RCA's Studio C at 6363 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood - The King's first time recording at the Hollywood venue. Most of RCA's marquee artists, from Jefferson Airplane to Henry Mancini, had already made their mark there, as the studio had opened in 1964. Presley had previously rehearsed for his Las Vegas engagements in the 32 x 22' space (the smallest of the building's three studios) and now, the March 27-30 sessions would be his first
Review: David Bowie, "I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016)"
C'mon, Let's Go Slip Away For in truth, it's the beginning of nothing/And nothing has changed/Everything has changed... After a period of nearly four years, David Bowie's series of "Eras" box sets has continued with its sixth and final volume. I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016), from ISO Records and Parlophone, concludes the career-spanning chronicle of the shape-shifting superstar on 13 CDs or 18 LPs. Picking up where 2021's Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) left off, it vividly
As Tears Go By: Marianne Faithfull's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" Collects Her Decca Recordings
Marianne Faithfull didn't have to open her mouth to receive a recording contract. As the story goes, so vividly recounted in the liner notes to the new box set Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The U.K. Decca Recordings, the young woman was so striking in beauty and presence that impresario Andrew Loog Oldham didn't hesitate to sign her on sight. (Even her name was made for stardom!) But it was just as clear that she was no ordinary pop starlet chasing dreams in Swingin' London. Faithfull was
Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine: Cherry Red Collects Jimmy Webb's 1970s Albums on "A Life in Words and Music"
"Freddy, those songs killed me." Jimmy Webb once confessed to longtime musical collaborator Fred Mollin that the songs on which he made his name - "Up, Up, and Away," Didn't We," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," among innumerable other classics - placed him at a personal crossroads. He yearned to be accepted as a singer-songwriter like his contemporaries, but the fact that he began his career writing songs for others (and massive hit songs, at that) made acceptance in that
Review: Nick Drake, "The Making of 'Five Leaves Left'"
Nick Drake's legacy is primarily built around just three albums, originally released between 1969 and 1972. Before 1974 was out, the British singer-songwriter was gone at the age of 26. Over the years, esteem for his small discography has only grown. Partly, this is because the mystique has remained; the Drake estate has only sporadically gone back to the well of unreleased material. Their cautious and curated approach has yielded a new reward with a box set dedicated to his 1969 debut. The
United: Ace Compiles Songs of Gamble and Huff on "Love Train" Collection
Ace Records is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary with special releases as well as concerts and a pop-up shop in London. Over the course of those decades, the label has established a number of long-running series including their Songwriters and Producers lines. A recent release in the Songwriters series celebrates two of the all-time greats in both categories: Philadelphia's Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. Love Train: The Gamble and Huff Songbook brings together 24 songs from the
Review: Frank Zappa, "Cheaper Than Cheep"
The latest archival release from the Frank Zappa camp may be called Cheaper Than Cheep, but rest assured, this concert program is actually an embarrassment of audiovisual riches. Available in a variety of formats including 2CD+Blu-ray, 3LP, and 2CD/3LP/1BD configurations, Cheaper Than Cheep preserves a long-lost concert recorded on June 21, 1974 at a rehearsal studio on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood in the wake of the Mothers of Inventions' tenth anniversary tour. Zappa was joined by a Mothers
Review: Eric Burdon and WAR, "The Complete CD Collection"
With the recent release of WAR's Why Can't We Be Friends? as an expanded edition for Record Store Day (with a CD edition to follow - links still aren't active), TSD has given a spin to Rhino's most recent WAR CD release: The Complete CD Collection from Eric Burdon & WAR. "Peace and love was happening, and we figured that nobody would forget the name of the band if we called them WAR. And we were right," Jerry Goldstein remembered in Dan Epstein's liner notes to the new box set Eric
Goody, Goody, Goody: Cherry Red Collects Mark Wirtz Rarities on "Dream, Dream, Dream"
The late Mark Wirtz (1943-2020) - a German-French songwriter-producer who found his biggest successes in England - is best-remembered for A Teenage Opera, an embryonic rock opera which inspired the likes of Pete Townshend and Paul McCartney and spawned Keith West's U.K. No. 2 single "Grocer Jack," a.k.a. "Excerpt from A Teenage Opera." Yet there was much more to Wirtz's discography than that lone hit and its parent project. Cherry Red's Strawberry imprint recently boxed up five discs of
Cuts The Deepest: Edsel Celebrates P.P. Arnold on "Soul Survivor" Box Set
One of P.P. Arnold's early sides for Immediate Records was titled "Am I Still Dreaming?" The song, which the artist born Patricia Ann Cole in Los Angeles wrote at the encouragement of none other than Mick Jagger, is one of the 57 songs on 3 CDs assembled by Edsel Records on the dream of a box set appropriately entitled Soul Survivor: A Life in Song. The collection, compiled by the singer and Michael Mulligan, traces the onetime Ikette's career from her signing to Andrew Loog Oldham's label
Review: Yes, "Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition"
The cover of Yes' Close to the Edge was a relatively simple one, with Roger Dean's freshly-minted "bubble type" logo atop a color gradient from black to green. But the contents within the jacket - Yes' fifth album overall, and final LP of the decade to feature drummer Bill Bruford - were anything but simple. Building on the sound and style of 1971's Fragile, Close to the Edge was an even more ambitious suite crafted by lead vocalist Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Bruford,
Review: WAR, "Live in Japan 1974"
"The Japanese were nice, but really afraid of us," remembers WAR's producer-manager Jerry Goldstein in the liner notes to the band's new Live in Japan 1974. "That's how we came up with the 'Hey, why can't we be friends?' concept. In the dressing room that night, Lonnie was playing the keyboards and we started doing the song. No verses, just the 'why can't we be friends' part. We wrote it there, went back to the U.S., and in January [1975], we recorded it." The catchy plea "Why Can't We Be
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, "Archives: Volume Four (1976-1980)" and "The Asylum Albums (1976-1980)"
Earlier this year, Joni Mitchell brought her now-famous Joni Jam shows to the Hollywood Bowl for two sold-out evenings. A little more than 45 years ago, Mitchell closed out her North American tour with a series of shows some fifteen minutes away from the Bowl at the Greek Theatre; a selection from that concert closes the fourth volume of the Joni Mitchell Archives series of box sets. The Bowl shows proved another triumph for the artist who's now widely recognized for the innovations that
Holiday Gift Guide Review: 'Dearly Beloved: A Prince Celebration'
The holidays are a time of good cheer and gratitude, where we all (in theory) come together to share in a common joy. There has not been a lot of common joy if you're a Prince fan; we don't need to re-litigate it more than we did this summer, but it's worth noting that the quest to make intriguing, posthumous Prince projects under the current estate organization has maybe gotten worse than when we published our editorial. But there have been celebrations of The Purple One that honor his
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Alice Cooper, "Muscle of Love: Deluxe Edition"
Rare is the album that's better remembered for its packaging than its contents. But that may well be the case with the band Alice Cooper's seventh (and final) album, 1973's Muscle of Love. As it followed the Platinum-certified international chart-topper Billion Dollar Babies, hopes were high for the LP. It was greeted by lukewarm critical assessments, though, and "merely" reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and No. 34 on the U.K. Albums Chart. As such, it was inevitably considered a
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Steve Martin, 'Steve in a Box'
At this point in time, CD box sets have been a going concern (especially around the holidays) for nearly 40 years. Thousands of them have been released, and with the unexpected shift toward listening on vinyl (who'd have thought?) and digital (particularly streaming, which has a near-total grasp on music consumption today), you've got to have a really strong angle to encourage fans to part with some extra money and add new titles to their shelves. What more can be done? you (and sometimes we at
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Bob Dylan and The Band, "The 1974 Live Recordings"
Big things often come in small packages. Such is the case with Legacy Recordings' recent excavation of Bob Dylan and The Band's 1974 tour. 40 concerts took place over 30 dates and 21 cities, with Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, and Rick Danko even playing two shows in one day in many markets. The 1974 Live Recordings takes the form of a tiny cube, packing in 27 discs and 431 tracks (417 of which are previously unreleased). The set contains every
Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Beatles, "1964 U.S. Albums in Mono"
Any Time at All Did The Beatles save rock and roll? If John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr didn't save the still-young form, they certainly gifted it with a reinvigorating, exhilarating jolt of musical euphoria the likes of which hadn't been seen before - and hasn't been duplicated since. The scene was early 1964. Buddy Holly was long gone, and the big hits had dried up - at the moment, at least - for Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. Elvis had served his
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Elvis Costello, "King of America and Other Realms"
It was a fine idea at the time/Now it's a brilliant mistake... Elvis Costello delivered a powerful surprise in 1986 when he shed his backing band, The Attractions, and teamed up with T Bone Burnett for King of America. Originally credited in the U.K. to The Costello Show (Featuring The Attractions and Confederates) and in the U.S. to The Costello Show (Featuring Elvis Costello), the album backtracked from the sleek '80s polish of its two immediate predecessors (Punch the Clock and Goodbye
Review: Frank Zappa, "apostrophe ('): 50th Anniversary Edition"
Strictly commercial? Not quite. Though Frank Zappa earned his first top ten record and first Gold record with apostrophe (') - the same LP that spun off his first single to make the Billboard Hot 100 - it would be difficult to argue that the singer-songwriter-bandleader had dramatically altered his art in an effort to hit the charts. Sure, the material was a bit more focused and the album rather tight at 32 minutes in length. Yeah, the cover artwork, with its instantly recognizable,
Quadio Spotlight: Bette Midler, "The Divine Miss M" and Bread, "Baby I'm a Want-You"
Way back in Ye Olden Days of 2011, The Second Disc advocated for the release of the original quadraphonic mix of Bette Midler's 1973 debut, The Divine Miss M. Well, lo these many years later, Rhino has granted our wish, and it's been released on Blu-ray as part of the label's still-growing Quadio series of four-channel reissues. In Craig Anderson's stellar remaster, it's happily as good as we remember it! The 4.0 mix by Atlantic Records veteran Tom Dowd, a legendary producer in his own right,
Review: Faces, "Faces at the BBC: Complete BBC Concert and Session Recordings 1970-1973"
Between the summer of 1969 and the fall of 1975, a joyful noise emerged whenever Faces took the stage. Ronnie Lane (bass), Kenney Jones (drums), and Ian McLagan (keyboards) had emerged from the ashes of pop's Small Faces, while Rod Stewart (vocals) and Ronnie Wood (guitar) were blues-rock veterans of the first iteration of The Jeff Beck Group in which Wood played bass. When they came together, they created a sound unlike either of those earlier groups: rough-and-tumble, raw, ramshackle,
Review: Rhino's Sounds of the Summer Series - Randy Newman, Chicago, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Al Stewart, Utopia
Over the past month, Rhino has been releasing numerous titles as part of its Sounds of the Summer initiative, for a total of over two dozen vinyl releases hitting brick-and-mortar stores. These titles encompass various reissues as well as new entries in the label's ongoing Now Playing series of compilations. As of now, these LPs are all exclusive to independent record stores and Barnes & Noble locations. We've given a spin to a few of these titles! How to distill the discography of one
Review: Joni Mitchell, "The Asylum Albums 1972-1975" in Quadio
The Joni Mitchell renaissance continues. Following a triumphant surprise appearance in July 2022 at the Newport Folk Festival, the singer-songwriter returned to the stage for a full-length Joni Jam in June 2023 at Washington's Gorge Amphitheatre; tickets were quickly snapped up by ardent fans who had waited roughly two decades to see Mitchell in concert once again. The evening was a transcendent one, a taste of which was supplied to the public when Mitchell and her band of friends performed
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