When Eric Carmen and Wally Bryson of Cyrus Eyrie teamed up with Jim Bonfanti and Dave Smalley of The Choir, the result was pop bliss. The Raspberries emerged from the ashes from the two bands, and over the course of four albums - three with the original line-up, and one with just Carmen and Bryson remaining - they came to define power pop. Yet today, some might wonder: Why is the Cleveland, Ohio band so fondly remembered despite only placing one Top 5 single in the U.S. and two more Top 20s?
See Those Girls: Ace Celebrates The Paris Sisters On New Anthology
The story of Albeth, Priscilla and Sherrell Paris - a.k.a. The Paris Sisters - has always been inextricably intertwined with that of Phil Spector. After all, the producer had one of his earliest hits in 1961 with "I Love How You Love Me," written by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber and sung in soft, demure fashion by Priscilla with her sisters on sweet backgrounds. But The Paris Sisters' career encompassed far more than just that Top 5 hit. Their story is filled with other names as illustrious as
Reviews: A Real Gone Trio From The Mamas and the Papas, King Curtis and Nat "King" Cole
Real Gone Music has had some of its most expansive collections released this winter. Today, Randy takes a look at three of them, from The Mamas and the Papas, King Curtis, and Nat "King" Cole! "You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do, with whoever you want to do it with..." From their very first single, 1966's "Go Where You Wanna Go," The Mamas and the Papas spread their singular brand of California sunshine. The group's songs espoused the
Review: Emitt Rhodes, "Rainbow Ends"
A new Emitt Rhodes album. That's right, say it again - a new Emitt Rhodes album. With the release of Rainbow Ends, Omnivore Recordings has delivered on what has long been thought an impossibility. The cult tunesmith and multi-instrumentalist earned his stripes as a member of The Palace Guard and then the harmony-soaked LA band The Merry-Go-Round ("You're a Very Lovely Woman," "Live") before recording four beautiful solo albums for A&M and ABC/Dunhill. His last full-length LP, Farewell
Review: J.D. Souther, "Black Rose" and "Home By Dawn" Expanded Editions
Omnivore Recordings continues to mine one of the great underrated catalogues in contemporary pop-rock with two more titles from singer-songwriter J.D. Souther. Black Rose (1976) has been joined on compact disc by Home by Dawn (1984) with both titles splendidly remastered and featuring previously unreleased bonus tracks. These definitive reissues aren't to be missed. The wide-ranging Black Rose, originally released on Asylum Records, remains Souther's most diverse and expansive musical
Review: The Monkees, "Classic Album Collection" and "The Cereal Box Singles"
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the first time Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork first hit TV screens and record sleeves as The Monkees, and indeed, it's shaping up to be an auspicious year. In advance of the restored Blu-ray premiere of The Monkees' television show, new album Good Times! and a tour featuring Dolenz and Tork, Rhino has released The Monkees 50: Classic Album Collection, a 10-disc box set collecting the original version of every one of the band's Colgems
Feelin' Groovy: Now Sounds Collects Harpers Bizarre's "Complete Singles"
Now Sounds is back with its first release of 2016, and with it, the label is spreading some California sunshine. Harpers Bizarre's The Complete Singles Collection 1965-1970 compiles all 26 sides issued on 45 RPM singles by Warner Bros. Records, including tracks from the group's early incarnation as The Tikis and numerous mono mixes never before available on CD. The resulting release, which follows Now Sounds' reissues of Harpers' Feelin' Groovy and Anything Goes albums, is a refreshing journey
Popsicles, Icicles and More: Ace Collects The Best of The Murmaids
Ace Records has recently made quite a splash with the first-ever comprehensive compendium from one-hit wonder girl group The Murmaids. But as the collection so accurately titled A Few of the Things We Love reveals, the girls had more to offer than just "Popsicles and Icicles." This collection is pure girl group manna! That nostalgic composition by the young David Gates, pre-"Make It with You" and "Baby I'm a-Want You" fame, of course kicks off this 21-track anthology comprising The
Review: Alan Price, "Savaloy Dip: Words and Music by Alan Price"
In a career spanning more than 50 years, Alan Price has just about done it all. The founding member of The Animals (and creator of the indelible organ parts on tracks like "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "House of the Rising Sun") followed his tenure in that band by refining his craft as a top-flight singer-songwriter and broadening his artistic horizons by scoring films and stage musicals. So perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that one of the prolific Price's projects fell through the
Review: J.D. Souther, "John David Souther (Expanded Edition)"
In 2007, a new song from the Eagles blazed onto the radio airwaves, climbing to a Top 10 AC/Top 25 Country berth on the Billboard charts. But the infectious, breezy "How Long," with its classic Eagles sound, wasn't new at all. The song was written by J.D. Souther and included on his 1972 Asylum Records debut John David Souther. When the Eagles included it on Long Road Out of Eden, the band's first studio album since 1979, it rekindled the creative relationship with Souther, an "honorary
Review: Roy Orbison, "The MGM Years 1965-1973"
The Big O is back with a big box set. The MGM Years 1965-1973, recently arrived from Roy's Boys, LLC and Universal Music Enterprises, chronicles over the course of 13 CDs (or 14 LPs) the least well-known period of the late vocal titan's career. Orbison joined MGM Records riding the crest of the "Oh, Pretty Woman" wave; the composition which he wrote with Bill Dees was a U.S. and U.K. chart-topper at the height of the British Invasion in 1964 for Fred Foster's Monument Records. Enticed by
Sister Golden Hair Surprise: America Opens Its "Archives" On New Release
The vaults are open! The legacy of the enduring band America has received a long-overdue celebration with the recent release on compact disc and digital download of Archives Vol. 1. Featuring the versatile, original trio of Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and the late Dan Peek (as well as the talented musicians and producers who contributed mightily to the band's earliest albums), Archives is a 15-track, non-chronological collection of previously unreleased alternate versions, early mixes, demos,
Review: "International Pop Overthrow: Volume 18"
We're welcoming back Ted Frank to The Second Disc for a look at the latest offering - Volume 18 - from the fine folks at International Pop Overthrow! Producer/curator David Bash, graphic designer Steve Stanley and their team have created another instant classic with their latest and greatest collection of the best, most diverse and most delicious pop music circa 2015! In the year that saw the Numero Group's superb Ork Records Collection, Omnivore Recordings' immediately indispensible Power
Along Comes "1966": Ace Anthology Features The Supremes, The Who, Velvet Underground, Bowie, More
Was 1966 the greatest year ever in popular music? The case could certainly be made for its significance - and Jon Savage has done just that in his new book 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. Savage's book looks at the events and culture of the year in twelve essays, each one built around one 45 RPM record. Naturally, such a book deserves a soundtrack, and Ace Records has seen to it that it receives one with the companion volume of the same name. Jon Savage's 1966: The Year the Decade
Real Gone Celebrates Christmas With The Soulful Strings, John Gary, Four Seasons
Real Gone Music is this year's source for classic Christmas reissues - including two from our own Second Disc Records imprint! Here, we're taking a look at three more titles from the label's Christmas feast! At first glance, The Soulful Strings might appear to be just another of those ubiquitous sixties instrumental studio outfits, delivering MOR versions of the day's popular hits. Yet, a closer look at Cadet Records' Soulful Strings - and most of its brethren, truth be told - reveals some
Review: "The Classic Christmas Album" Series 2015
Since 2011, Sony's Legacy Recordings has offered a crop of ideal stocking stuffers with the Classic Christmas Album series. This year's quartet of releases has a decidedly more modern bent, featuring artists associated with the '70s (Earth, Wind & Fire), '80s (a various artists compilation), '90s (Sarah McLachlan) and 2000s (Celtic Thunder). Three of these titles are actually expanded editions of previously released albums. Earth, Wind and Fire's Classic Christmas entry reprises last
Something Bad On Her Mind: Rare and Unreleased Timi Yuro Arrives From Cherry Red
There was only one Timi Yuro. The late, Chicago-born Italian-American vocalist was signed to Liberty Records as a teenager, bringing jazz and R&B influences into her emotional, heart-on-its-sleeve blue-eyed soul style. After having spent the first portion of her career at Liberty, Yuro departed the label in 1963. She was dubbed The Amazing Timi Yuro by Mercury Records for her Quincy Jones-produced LP debut there in 1964, but Mercury never followed it up with another long-player, opting
Review: Alanis Morissette, "Jagged Little Pill: Collector's Edition"
As time marches on, nostalgia of course goes along with it. So, with the passage of time, we've arrived at an era of nostalgia for the 1990s. Hard as it may be for some to believe, 20th and 25th anniversaries for major releases in the '90s keep occurring - and items are released in commemoration. Thus, Rhino has recently reissued Alanis Morissette's 1995 smash album Jagged Little Pill in a variety of iterations including a 2-CD version and a 4-CD Collector's Edition. When Morissette traveled
Review: Beatles, "Beatles 1+" (Various Editions)
Yeah, yeah, yeah! That's the only logical response to the release of Beatles 1+, the modestly-named collection available today in a host of audio, video and combined formats. By presenting a newly-remixed and remastered edition of the familiar Beatles 1 album with a collection of remarkably-restored short films and video clips for each song (numbering 27 for the standard editions and 50 for the deluxe editions), also in newly-mixed 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround sound, 1+ offers an
Review: Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Portrait of an American Singer"
With three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and inductions into the Country Music and Gospel Music Halls of Fame to his name, there were few heights that Ernest Jennings Ford - a.k.a. Tennessee Ernie Ford - didn't scale. A mainstay of radio and television, Ford's decades-long association with Capitol Records yielded a rich catalogue filled with country, proto rock-and-roll boogie-woogie, western swing, pop and folk ballads, gospel, novelty records, blues and
Review: Pugwash, "Play This Intimately (As If Among Friends)"
One of the happiest pop-rock discoveries of 2014 was undoubtedly Pugwash's A Rose in a Garden of Weeds, compiling the Irish band's best music from 1999-2011. Now, the four-piece consisting of Thomas Walsh, Tosh Flood, Shawn McGee and Joe Fitzgerald is back with an all-new set recorded at Konk Studios and released on Omnivore Recordings. Produced by Walsh and Flood, Play This Intimately (As If Among Friends) features the same bright, vibrant spirit and unabashedly melodic sensibility that
It's "Happy Lovin' Time": Ace Collects Rare Sunshine Pop and More
Ace Records has previously mined the eclectic catalogue of producer-impresario Gary S. Paxton, most notably on Hollywood Maverick: The Gary S. Paxton Story. That 2006 volume featured Paxton's work with artists including The Hollywood Argyles ("Alley Oop"), Paul Revere and the Raiders ("Midnight Ride") and Bobby "Boris" Pickett ("The Monster Mash"). Recently, Ace has returned to the archives of Paxton's Garpax production company with the delicious Happy Lovin' Time: Sunshine Pop from the Garpax
Review: Chicago, "The Studio Albums" and America, "The Warner Bros. Years"
In 1969, Chicago Transit Authority - a.k.a. Robert Lamm, Peter Cetera, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow and Walter Parazaider - released its first album on Columbia Records. 46 years and a total of 36 core albums later, the band simply known as Chicago is still intact with Lamm, Loughnane, Pankow and Parazaider. In the waning days of 1971, another band made its first appearance on records. America - the trio of Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek -
Review: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Complete Columbia Albums Collection" and "The Concert in Central Park"
When Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel took the stage on April 24, 2010 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, it's doubtful that many in the audience knew they were witnessing the end of one chapter in the story of Simon & Garfunkel. That concert marked the final time that the famous duo have performed together to date, but over five years later, the specter of Simon & Garfunkel still looms large over both men. It's no surprise; the question of a reunion cropped up almost
Review: Various Artists, "Here Today! The Songs of Brian Wilson"
The title of Ace Records' recent collection is Here Today! The Songs of Brian Wilson, after one of those famous Wilson songs off The Beach Boys' 1966 Pet Sounds. But the fact of the matter is - as this enjoyably diverse set proves over the course of its 25 tracks - Brian Wilson's music is not only here today, but will be here for many tomorrows. Unlike Ace's 2003 volume Pet Projects: The Brian Wilson Productions, this anthology concentrates on Brian as songwriter. But there are a couple of
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