I need a whole lot of sunshine to keep my sundial advancing... Who were The Beach Boys? Hawthorne, California's favorite sons might have been asking themselves that very question in 1972. Their creative leader was withdrawing further into himself and musical tastes were changing: where did that leave them? This period of adjustment was first chronicled on last year's superlative Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971 box set. The story begun on that collection
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
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, "The Asylum Albums (1972-1975)"
2022 has been Joni Mitchell's year. Following a triumphant surprise appearance in July at the Newport Folk Festival, the singer-songwriter announced a return 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. More recently, she attended her first-ever Broadway musical, Cameron Crowe and Tom Kitt's Almost Famous - and made her Broadway
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Michael Jackson, 'Thriller 40'
We are more than 35 years into the practice of record labels utilizing compact discs to sell a venerated artist's catalogue while also telling a story through the format's expanded capacity and clarion sound capabilities. The one-two punch of Bob Dylan's Biograph (1985) and Eric Clapton's Crossroads (1988) helped legitimize the idea of the CD box set and put both artists' bodies of work in sharper focus at a time when both of them were, should we say, not as relevant to the cultural
Review: The Beatles, "Revolver" (2022)
I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there... George Harrison's snarling takedown of the "Taxman" opened The Beatles' Revolver with a powerful sting. The so-called Quiet Beatle took on the first-person role with the relish of (and a musical nod to) a Batman villain. Though 1965's folk-rock-influenced Rubber Soul had seen the Fab Four's songwriting grow by leaps and bounds, Revolver matched the songwriting strides with revelatory studio processes including ADT (Artificial Double
Let There Be Love: SoulMusic Collects, Expands Shirley Murdock's Elektra Albums
As a member of the extended family of funk group Zapp, Shirley Murdock memorably added her vocals to the 1986 hit "Computer Love" (for which she also shares a co-writing credit). Concurrently, Murdock was launching her own solo career at Elektra Records, where she would release three solo LPs through 1991. Now, Cherry Red's SoulMusic Records imprint has revisited and expanded that trio of albums on As We Lay: The Elektra Recordings (1985-1991), a new 3-CD collection that's an essential
Review: The Beach Boys, "Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys"
We'll be havin' fun all summer long... For nearly sixty years, the sun-drenched harmonies of The Beach Boys have provided the soundtrack for summer - from those welcome first days and first rays through the season's bittersweet final moments as autumn's chill approaches. They're the rare band whose compilations, beginning with 1974's chart-topping Endless Summer, have become nearly as key to their legacy as the core studio albums. 2003's Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach
Everlasting: Edsel Collects Steve Ellis, Love Affair on "Finchley Boy" Box Set
The voice of Steve Ellis first burst out of radios on The Love Affair's 1967 recording of "Everlasting Love." A chart-topper in the U.K. and a hit throughout Europe, it failed to chart in the U.S. but set Ellis on a path of music-making that continues to this day. Edsel has taken a deep dive into his extensive career for an impressive new box set. Over 10 discs, Finchley Boy chronicles the Steve Ellis story both as a solo artist and with the groups Love Affair, Ellis, and Widowmaker. In
Release Round-Up: Week of May 6
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles out today including a very special pair from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music! Melissa Manchester, Live '77 (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Real Gone Music) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music proudly present the premiere release of Melissa Manchester's Live '77, recorded by Arista Records in October 1977 at Gainesville, Florida's Great Southern
UPDATE - Glory of Love: Cherry Pop's Expansive Peter Cetera Box Arrives
UPDATED 3/1/22: As one of the seven members of Chicago as featured on their 1969 debut album Chicago Transit Authority, bassist-singer Peter Cetera's soaring tenor became an integral component of the band's sound on such hits as "25 or 6 to 4," "Feelin' Stronger Every Day," "Just You 'n' Me," and "(I've Been) Searching So Long." When his own composition "If You Leave Me Now" became Chicago's first-ever No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 - not to mention in international territories such as Canada,
Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: Belinda Carlisle, "Live Your Life Be Free: 30th Anniversary Edition"
Following a well-received Go-Go's reunion in 1990, Belinda Carlisle returned to the studio to record her fourth studio album, Live Your Life Be Free. Likely the jaunt with her old bandmates inspired her, as the 1991 LP returned the singer to the sixties-inspired, girl-group milieu. Although Live Your Life failed to chart in the U.S., it hit the top ten in the U.K. and yielded four charting singles including the brisk and lusty "Do You Feel Like I Feel" which remains Carlisle's final U.S. hit
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Elvis Presley, "Back in Nashville"
When Elvis Presley entered RCA's famed Nashville Studio B in June 1970, expectations were high. His last major recording sessions - not counting those for the Universal film Change of Habit - had taken place at Memphis' American Sound Studio with producer Chips Moman, resulting in the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis LP. Could he follow up that career triumph? Many would argue that he did. Rather than strictly repeat the formula, he and producer Felton Jarvis crafted the concept album Elvis
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, "Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971)"
Last evening in Washington, DC, Joni Mitchell joined the 44th class of Kennedy Center Honorees alongside Bette Midler, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels, and Justino Diaz. The singer-songwriter who has blurred the lines of folk, pop, rock, and jazz was celebrated by friends and admirers including Brandi Carlile, Herbie Hancock, Ellie Goulding, Norah Jones, Brittany Howard, Dan Levy, and Cameron Crowe. President Joe Biden, also in attendance, had earlier summed up the thoughts of many when he
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Billy Joel, "The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1"
By his own account, Billy Joel stumbled into the singing part of the singer-songwriter equation. He explained of his 1971 debut Cold Spring Harbor, "I wrote this album not as a singer-songwriter, but as a songwriter. I was thinking of other people doing the material on this album. But the advice I got from people in the music business was, 'Well, if you want people to hear your songs, make an album. And then you go out on the road and you do shows and you promote your album. I thought,
The Magic Islands: Aloha Got Soul, Vinyl Me, Please Celebrate Exotica Pioneer Arthur Lyman's "Island Vibes"
Even today, the name of Arthur Lyman is synonymous with exotica. The late vibraphonist and marimba player (1932-2002), born in Oahu, recorded dozens of albums bringing his tropical style to everything from Broadway to folk, jazz, and pop hits. Now, Hawaii's own Aloha Got Soul label has reissued Lyman's final studio album, 1980's Island Vibes, including in a limited, foil-stamped and numbered edition from the Vinyl Me, Please record club pressed on translucent purple with pink vinyl. Arthur
Feel the Earth Move: Craft Recordings Reissues Carole King and James Taylor's "Live at the Troubadour"
Blossom, smile some sunshine down my way/Lately, I've been lonesome/Blossom, it's been much too long a day/Seems my dreams have frozen/Melt my cares away... - James Taylor, "Blossom" With the Summer of Love over, social and political tensions at a boil, and the specter of the Vietnam War still hovering, the tail end of the 1960s was filled with upheaval. Carole King recognized the national trauma and responded in the only way she knew how: by turning inward and sharing her emotions in
Review: The Beatles, "Let It Be" [Various Formats]
Everybody had a hard year/Everybody had a good time... The Beatles' twelfth and final studio LP may have been titled Let It Be, but that particular admonition has been all but ignored over the years. The album - recorded before, but released after, 1969's Abbey Road - was in some respects a step backward from the band's previous, experimental LPs as they sought a "back to basics" sound that didn't involve overdubs and studio wizardry. Ultimately, though, that approach was rejected. The
A Man For All Seasons: Cherry Red, Esoteric Reissue and Expand Al Stewart's "Time Passages"
1978's Time Passages concluded British singer-songwriter Al Stewart's trilogy of albums with producer-engineer Alan Parsons which began with 1975's Modern Times and continued with the following year's Year of the Cat. During this purple patch, Stewart earned his first hit singles in the United States, transitioning from folk troubadour at home to bona fide pop star abroad. And while Year of the Cat, the album, charted higher than Time Passages, the latter's title track was a bigger hit in the
The Beatles "Get Back" In New Hardcover Book Chronicling the "Let It Be" Sessions
A book about a film about an album? The new coffee table book from Callaway Arts and Entertainment and Apple Corps, The Beatles: Get Back, is essentially that: a hardcover, 240-page tome based on the film footage shot in the buildup to The Beatles' final album, 1970's Let It Be. Get Back was, of course, the name of the first version of Let It Be. It's also the name of director Peter Jackson's upcoming three-part, six-hour documentary (the first part of which premieres November 25 on the
Review: Bob Dylan, "Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985)"
Señor, señor/Can you tell me where we're headin'? Only Bob Dylan knew where he was headin'. In the fall of 1980, when Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985) opens, Dylan was two-thirds into his so-called "Christian trilogy" comprising Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980), and Shot of Love (1981). He had wrapped up a fiery tour on May 21, 1980 in which he only performed his gospel material. Audiences and critics alike were divided on Dylan's immersion into
A Million Stars: Vinyl Me, Please Teams with Aloha Got Soul for Hawaiian Classics from Mackey Feary Band, Eddie Suzuki and New Hawaii
"Grin, even when you're at your lowest, grin," implores Mackey Feary on the opening track of his 1978 solo album Mackey Feary Band. "You're Young" is all sun and breeze, making it near-impossible to suppress the requested grin. It's languid yet funky, with shimmering guitars, wending saxophone, and sweet female background voices adding to the luster. As a founding member of Kalapana, Feary had been at the vanguard of Hawaiian pop in the 1970s; alongside such artists as Cecilio and Kapono and
Love in the Key of C: Demon Reissues Belinda Carlisle's "A Woman and a Man" for 25th Anniversary
In December, The Go-Go's will launch a mini-tour of California and Nevada hot on the heels of their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Demon Music Group has recently been revisiting the catalogue of the band's breakout star Belinda Carlisle on vinyl. Following such releases as 2017's Heaven on Earth (reissued for its 30th anniversary), 2019's Runaway Horses (also a 30th anniversary), and Belinda earlier this year (marking its 35th), the label has delivered a Deluxe 25th Anniversary 3LP Box
Review: The Beach Boys, "Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971"
Like a Companion for Your Lonely Soul Those placing the needle on The Beach Boys' Sunflower upon its release in 1970 might have been taken aback by the sheer drive of its opening track. The lusty "Slip on Through" - co-written, produced, and primarily sung by Dennis Wilson - rocked harder than just about anything else in the band's discography to that point. The song announced that Sunflower was not just The Beach Boys' first album on a new label but the beginning of a new chapter
Review: Joni Mitchell, "The Reprise Albums (1968-1971)"
Joni Mitchell fiercely announced her independence with "I Had a King," the haunting soliloquy which opens her 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull. "I can't go back there anymore," she proclaimed. "You know my keys won't fit the door/You know my thoughts don't fit the man. They never can...they never can..." The song is bold, wise, and flecked with a graceful equanimity as the singer declares her freedom both from a husband who "lives in another time" and the societal constraints of the day.
This Is Niecy: Cherry Red, SoulMusic Box Deniece Williams' Complete Columbia Albums on "Free"
Let's hear it for Deniece Williams. Since making her first big splash 45 years ago with debut album This is Niecy, the daughter of Gary, Indiana has scored 27 Billboard R&B hits and 14 Pop successes including two crossover Number Ones, won four Grammy Awards (and amassed another nine nominations), and recorded over fifteen albums blurring the lines between soul, pop, and gospel. Between 1976 and 1988, Williams made Columbia Records her home, both with Maurice White's ARC imprint and with
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