This month, we'll be periodically looking at titles from the final months of 2019 which we haven't yet covered. Today's spotlight is on The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver's The Albums box set. Hailing from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, brothers Gavin and Iain Sutherland carved out one of the most consistent runs in '70s pop-rock, releasing eight melodic, memorable albums between 1972 and 1979 on the Island and CBS/Columbia labels. The brothers were born into a musical family, and when they moved
The Importance of Your Love: Vince Hill Reflects on His “Legacy” with 1965-1974 Anthology
One of our favorite releases of 2017 was Cherry Red/Strike Force Entertainment's two-fer of Edelweiss (1967) and Look Around (1971) from the big-voiced British pop crooner. While the set didn't inaugurate the hoped-for series of reissues on CD (to date, at least), Hill followed it up with Legacy: My Hits and Rarities (1965-1974). We've caught up with this CD which is available exclusively through the singer's webstore. It's both a fine introduction to Hill's oeuvre and a welcome reminder of why
The Year in Review: The 2019 Gold Bonus Disc Awards, From A to Z
Happy 2020 and welcome to The Second Disc's 10th Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! It's time once again to recognize this year's cream of the crop - those exemplary reissues and box sets big and small that proved to be truly outstanding products for music lovers worldwide. There was no shortage of great reissue titles in 2019; in fact, by our count, we covered over 700 releases in all! And after much deliberation, we're excited to unveil our favorites. This isn't your run-of-the-mill Top 10,
Holiday Gift Guide Reviews: A Rhino Round-Up with Bad Company, Rush, Van Halen, Hootie, STP and The Notorious B.I.G.
Many of this year's finest box sets came courtesy of the Rhino label. Here, Joe and Randy take a look at a few more of our favorites! First up are Randy's three picks... First up is Rhino's 25th anniversary 3-CD/1-LP Super Deluxe Edition of Stone Temple Pilots' Purple. Initially hitting shelves on June 7, 1994, the band's sophomore album would debut atop the Billboard 200 and stay there for three weeks, eventually becoming the group's second best-selling album after their debut effort,
Let It Snow: Omnivore Breaks Away with Murry Wilson and Snow EP
With its latest release, Omnivore Recordings might as well as be singing "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" The intrepid label has unearthed a true rarity for a new digital EP: four previously unreleased songs produced in 1969 by Murry Wilson for an all-but-unknown harmony-pop outfit named Snow. Freshly unearthed from The Beach Boys' vault, Murry Wilson & Snow: The Break Away EP features Snow's lush and fully-produced and orchestrated renditions of two songs from Brian Wilson's
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Mariah Carey, “Merry Christmas: Deluxe Anniversary Edition”
Sitting atop the Billboard Hot 100 this week is a song which took a quarter-century to reach that peak: Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You." The song achieved a couple of milestones with that ranking: it now holds the record for the longest time between a song's debut and its reaching the top of the charts, and it's the first Christmas song to reach the peak in 60 years since The Chipmunks did it in 1959. Before this new milestone for Carey's tune, the song and the album of its
Holiday Gift Guide Reviews: Cherry Red’s Esoteric and Grapefruit Imprints Offer Diverse Box Sets
Cherry Red's ongoing series of small clamshell box sets filled with big content make for the perfect stocking stuffer! Here's a look at three more titles you might have missed... Climax Blues Band's The Albums 1973-1976 is the second such box set released this year by Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint, following The Albums 1969-1972. This 4-CD set contains the following albums, culminating in the biggest commercial triumph for the band that began its life as The Climax Chicago Blues
Holiday Gift Guide Review: David Bowie, “Conversation Piece”
The new David Bowie box set is entitled Conversation Piece - and it's an apt one, as this set is certain to inspire conversations punctuated with cheers. Quite simply, this slipcased, hardcover-book style collection featuring five CDs of material recorded by the late superstar in 1968-1969 is one of the year's best boxes: an exquisite, museum-quality release that exceeds all expectations. Necessity may indeed be the mother of invention, as the set ostensibly exists because of the desire to
Holiday Gift Guide Review: “A Voice of the Warm: The Life of Rod McKuen” by Barry Alfonso
"Come with me/What wonders we'll find," sings Rod McKuen to open his lilting waltz "Kaleidoscope" in his recognizable sandpaper voice. But the more revealing lyrics come later, when the poet-singer-songwriter asserts, "You'll look in my eyes and see you." Over a career spanning seven decades - but particularly during a purple patch in the late 1960s and early 1970s - McKuen's loyal legion of fans saw themselves in his deceptively simple art. His empathetic words conveyed the beauty of everyday
Review: Jeffrey Foskett, “Voices”
It's only appropriate that Jeffrey Foskett's new release on the BMG label is entitled Voices. For it's the beauty of the human voice that's the key ingredient here - specifically the artist's rich, supple, and multi-faceted vocal instrument which has lent support over the past four decades to The Beach Boys in their various incarnations. While Foskett has recorded numerous solo albums for the Japanese market, his own works are somewhat less known here in the United States. Happily, Voices
Review: Harry Nilsson, “Losst and Founnd”
Welcome back, old friend. Omnivore Recordings has delivered one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year with the first posthumous release from the late Harry Nilsson (1941-1994). Losst and Founnd premieres 43 minutes of "new" Nilsson music, and as the man himself sings on the title track, "what a miracle" it is. While longtime fans and collectors will be familiar with a handful of these recordings from their inclusion on a posthumous publishing promo and ubiquitous bootlegs of the
The Milk of the Tree: Cherry Red, Grapefruit Unearth Lost Album from Polly Niles
Listeners who picked up Ember Records' 1970 LP Future Star Explosion - New Faces of the '70s might have been beguiled by the third track on the second side. The lightly psychedelic "Sunshine in My Rainy Day Mind" introduced the captivatingly ethereal voice of singer Polly Niles. Yet those looking for more of Niles, a New York-born, conservatory-trained performer, would have been disappointed. "Sunshine" remained her only released track for decades, until labels in the CD era began mining the
Shadows and Reflexions: High Moon Records Collects Rarities from Curt Boettcher and Friends
High Moon Records' new collection from Curt Boettcher and Friends, Looking for the Sun, takes its title from a 1968 Boettcher production for singer-songwriter Gordon Alexander. Given Boettcher's participation, one might expect the song to be a dreamy SoCal pop fantasia with richly layered harmonies. But instead it's a rather sparse, dark rumination with an acid coffeehouse feel. Alexander, in the song at least, doesn't find the sun, and arguably, neither did Curt Boettcher in his lifetime. But
Keep the Customer Satisfied: Ace Celebrates Paul Simon, Teddy Randazzo, Van McCoy On New Collections
Today, we're taking a look at three recent, stellar additions to Ace Records' long-running Songwriter Series! Teddy Randazzo (1935-2003) might have not attained the same "household name" status as some of his peers, but the prodigiously gifted composer-arranger-producer-artist nonetheless left behind a remarkable body of work in a career spanning over five decades. Ace's Yesterday Has Gone: The Songs of Teddy Randazzo is the first-ever anthology of his output, concentrating on the mid-1960s -
Review: Bob Dylan featuring Johnny Cash, “Travelin’ Thru: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 (1967-1969)”
There's a delicious moment on the fifteenth volume of Bob Dylan's long-running Bootleg Series. The troubadour is in Columbia Records' Nashville Studio A, rehearsing a duet medley with Johnny Cash of his "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and Cash's "Understand Your Man." Once they stop playing, The Man in Black happily observes that "the phrasing comes out just right, 'cause we both stole it from the same song!" Indeed, Dylan and Cash shared substantial musical roots, with less than a decade
Surprise Surprise: Cilla Black’s “Especially for You” Comes to CD with “Classics and Collectibles”
Tomorrow, November 1, Cherry Red's Strike Force Entertainment imprint will release the next title in its series of definitive reissues from Cilla Black's considerable catalogue. The 2-CD set Especially for You Revisited/Classics and Collectibles brings together a newly remixed version of Cilla's 1980 album Especially for You with a second disc of rare and previously unreleased tracks. Especially for You marked a turning point in Black's career as it was her first recording project after
Review: Cher, “3614 Jackson Highway” [Run Out Groove Edition]
Cher's album 3614 Jackson Highway arrived midway through 1969 as the singer and her partner Sonny Bono worked furiously to re-establish themselves in a changing musical landscape and escape from mounting debt. Their first child had been born in March, a Sonny and Cher single arrived in May and was quickly followed by a Cher solo 45, and her film Chastity hit theatres in June. Sonny and Cher hadn't had a major hit single since 1967's "The Beat Goes On" and the solo Cher hadn't had a chart entry
Review: Lee Hazlewood, “400 Miles from L.A.: 1955-56”
400 Miles from L.A.: Phoenix, Arizona was the birthplace of Lee Hazlewood's professional career. The future writer of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" was well-acquainted with the Greyhound bus between Phoenix and Los Angeles, making frequent trips in the hopes of selling his songs. Though he was a successful DJ in Phoenix, Hazlewood wanted more, and songwriting seemed to be his means of attaining it. Lee wrote his first songs, it's believed, in 1953; the following year, his first songs
Review: James Taylor, “The Warner Bros. Albums 1970-1976”
Over six years at Warner Bros. Records, James Taylor laid the groundwork for a career that is now in its sixth decade. The Massachusetts native's records were key exponents of the early Laurel Canyon sound, not to mention the entire confessional "singer-songwriter" movement that today is synonymous with the 1970s. The six albums he released at Warner Bros. were collected over the summer in one essential CD or vinyl LP box set, The Warner Bros. Albums 1970-1976, that's perfect for the impending
Heaven Is: Belinda Carlisle’s “Runaway Horses” Turns 30, Gets Deluxe Edition; “Gold” Anthology Also Released
Thirty years ago, Belinda Carlisle released her third LP. Runaway Horses came on the heels of two successful albums: her 1986 IRS Records debut, Belinda (featuring the hit "Mad About You"), and 1987's Heaven on Earth (boasting the smash "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" as well as "I Get Weak" and "Circle in the Sand"). Runaway Horses completed the hat trick for the Go-Go-gone-solo when it reached the top five in the United Kingdom. Now, the U.K.'s Demon Music Group has revisited the album in a
Earwig Music Unearths Trove of Chicago Blues and Soul on “Cadillac Baby’s Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection”
Chicago in the '50s was overflowing with skilled bluesmen, vocal groups, gospel singers, not to mention the mom-and-pop labels eager to make a hit off the artists. There are the now-famous labels - Chess, Delmark, and Vee-Jay among them. But the Windy City was so teeming with talent (and entrepreneurial hucksters trying to launch their own careers) that small, independent labels were plentiful. Earwig Music Company celebrates one such label in its ambitious new box set, Cadillac Baby's Bea
Review: The Beatles, “Abbey Road: Anniversary Edition”
I. Once There Was a Way to Get Back Home By the opening days of 1969, it was clear that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were four very different people, temperamentally and artistically. Their lives were taking them in different directions and threatening to pull them apart from the group that made them internationally famous. The Beatles, a.k.a. The White Album, had made high art out of those very differences and - surprising no one - was another triumph for the
America’s Gerry Beckley Returns with New Solo Album “Five Mile Road”
Gerry Beckley has earned the right to call the opening track of his new solo album "Life Lessons." The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and America co-founder is understandably in a reflective mood on Five Mile Road, out now from Blue Elan Records. The artist may be celebrating 50 years with America, but he still has plenty to say. For his first solo album since 2016's Carousel, Beckley has reunited with many of the same collaborators. Jeff Larson not only co-produced with Beckley but
Wake Up Everybody: Cherry Red, SoulMusic Collect Classic Philadelphia International Albums from Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes
If you don't know Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes by now, Cherry Red and SoulMusic Records have just the right collection for you. Be for Real: The PIR Recordings (1972-1975) brings together the four albums recorded by the group for Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records on two CDs, plus a six-song bonus disc. Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes came to Gamble and Huff's newly-formed label in 1972 after having bounced from label to label including Landa, Arctic, and
Review: Chris Stamey and The ModRec Orchestra, “New Songs for the 20th Century”
Chris Stamey has taken many unpredictable paths in a long career, whether as a member of the dB's, a solo artist, a producer, or a sideman. But his latest project might be his most unpredictable yet. New Songs for the 20th Century, credited to Stamey and the ModRec Orchestra and newly released by Omnivore Recordings, is a sprawling double-album love letter to traditional (read: pre-rock and roll) vocal pop with a heavy jazz emphasis. Written, arranged, mixed, and produced by Stamey, these
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