Few bluesmen had as indelible a mark on American music as John Lee Hooker. Born in Mississippi in 1917, Hooker would eventually be dubbed "King of the Boogie" and renowned worldwide for his guitar prowess, impressive baritone, and eclectic mix of Delta blues, country, gospel, and even field hollers. Now, The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker, his acoustic Riverside Records debut that helped put him on the map, is being revisited to the tune of a deluxe vinyl reissue this summer. With its
Trouble No More: Allman Brothers Band Classics Reissued in Color Vinyl Variants
In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the pioneering band's founding, five of The Allman Brothers Band's most beloved albums will be reissued on vinyl in special color variants. The albums will be released on July 19 through UMC/Mercury. The first album receiving the color vinyl treatment is The Allman Brothers Band, the group's debut that was originally released in November 1969. With such fan favorites as "Dreams" and "Whipping Post," the album introduced audiences to their unique
So Many Roads: Cherry Red, Esoteric Collect Climax Blues Band’s Early Albums on New Box Set
The Climax Chicago Blues Band didn't begin life in America's Windy City, but rather in Stafford, England. Colin Cooper, Peter Haycock, Arthur Wood, Derek Holt, Richard Jones, and George Newsome bonded over their love of Chicago-style blues, and in 1969, the group released its first album on the Parlophone label. The self-titled LP featured classic blues from Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, and Big Joe Turner but also made room for Lee Hazlewood country-folk (The Shacklefords' "A
Hot ‘Lanta: Unreleased Allman Brothers Concerts Collected on “Fillmore West ’71”
Few bands shaped the sound of what came to be known as southern rock quite like The Allman Brothers Band. As part of the celebrations surrounding their 50th anniversary, Allman Brothers Recording Company and The Orchard have announced a new four-CD collection of unreleased live material called Fillmore West '71, due for release on September 6. Recorded just two months before their legendary New York City live album At Fillmore East, the Fillmore West '71 set collects all the recordings from
Review: Morphine, “Yes” (Run Out Groove Vinyl Reissue)
In recent years, Run Out Groove has garnered a stellar reputation for its vinyl reissues of rarities from the Warner Music Archive. The label has pressed up everything from lost soul music and jazz, to experimental rock, pop, and folk. Most of their reissues boast previously unreleased rarities or hard-to-find tracks. In the last few months, the label has delivered expanded versions of more recent albums that have long been out of print on vinyl. Morphine's Yes is one of those lost vinyl titles
Trying To Make A Living: Classics From Chicago’s Independent Blues Scene Collected on “Cadillac Baby’s Bea and Baby Records”
Blues fanatics rejoice! Earwig Music Company invites listeners to take a spin with a new 101-track, 4-CD collection of classic Chicago blues, R&B, and gospel recordings. Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection, due to arrive on July 19, chronicles one of Chicago's finest indie blues labels. Bea & Baby Records was founded by entrepreneur and music fanatic Narvel "Cadillac Baby" Eatmon. From 1959-1989, the label and its subsidiaries (among them Key, Keyhole,
Keep On Rock’n Me: Steve Miller Band Unleashes Unreleased Goodies on “Welcome To The Vault” Box Set
The story of The Steve Miller Band presents a group that was always willing to move forward - from their blues roots in the late-'60s, to their slew of smash rock hits in the '70s, to their explorations into pop and other forms in the decades since. Now, more than 50 years since the band's inception, The Steve Miller Band have announced an expansive 3-CD/DVD box set of rarities due October 11 entitled Welcome To The Vault. Welcome To The Vault is the first-ever Steve Miller Band rarities
Release Round-Up: Week of June 7
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up - a packed one, for sure! Bob Dylan, The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Just in advance of the June 12 debut of director Martin Scorsese's documentary Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, Columbia and Legacy unveil a new 14-CD box set that promises to be the ultimate chronicle of the initial leg of Dylan's legendary Rolling Thunder Revue from
Off The Handle: Rory Gallagher Rarities Collection “Blues” Arrives From UMC
Eric Clapton once described Rory Gallagher as "the man who got me back into the blues." Though he never reached the same "household name" fame as Clapton or other contemporaries, Irish guitar legend Gallagher led a movement back to blues roots that began with his band Taste and continued on throughout his solo career from 1971 to 1994. To commemorate 50 years since Gallagher began his recording, UMC has released a new collection that mines the vaults of the celebrated singer and instrumentalist
Release Round-Up: Week of May 31
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Hootie & The Blowfish, Cracked Rear View: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Atlantic/Rhino) 3-CD/DVD Deluxe: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-CD Expanded: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1LP Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Hootie and the Blowfish are revisiting their 21x platinum smash Cracked Rear View with a new 3-CD/DVD Deluxe Edition and 2-CD Expanded Edition. The Deluxe Edition includes a new
UPDATED WITH ORDER LINKS: Let The Sunshine In: Rhino Celebrates Woodstock Era With “Summer of ’69” Vinyl Reissue Series, New Woodstock Compilations
On the heels of their announcement of the expansive Woodstock 50 campaign, Rhino has announced a new series celebrating The Summer of '69: Peace, Love, and Music. Beginning on July 9, the campaign will feature a three-week-long roll-out of limited-edition vinyl releases of classic recordings from the Woodstock era by the likes of Van Morrison; The Monkees; Grateful Dead; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and many more. These LPs will be available in participating brick-and-mortar stores only. Online
Release Round-Up: Week of May 10
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Cilla Black, Cilla/In My Life (SFE/Cherry Red) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Cherry Red's Strike Force Entertainment imprint has two more reissues in the ongoing series of definitively remastered and expanded Cilla Black albums. First up is the late vocalist's debut album Cilla (1965) with In My Life (1974), the latter of which is making its premiere on CD in full. This 2-CD set adds 26 bonus tracks, three of which are new to
I’ve Got A Sure Thing: Craft Presents “Soul Explosion” Vinyl Reissue, Plus A Month of Stax Digital Rarities
Craft Recordings has announced the next phase of its campaign to honor one of the great labels of soul - Stax Records. Entitled "Soul Explosion," the campaign began with their Record Store Day releases of Boy Meets Girl: Classic Stax Duets, Stax Does The Beatles and the first-ever mono reissue of Albert King's Born Under A Bad Sign. The next phase begins on May 31 and will see new vinyl and digital reissues of classics from 1969, which proved to be a watershed year for the label, and
Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers: New ZZ Top Set Celebrates Half Century of Blues and Beards
Rhino is celebrating a half century of ZZ Top with a new, multi-format compilation due this summer. Goin' 50 collects 18 of the Texas trio's biggest and baddest hits, from their breakthrough in the '70s to their most recent studio release, 2012's La Futura. That disc will be available to buy, stream or download on June 14 - and on August 16, as the group embarks on a 50th anniversary tour, a Lone Star State-sized 3CD or 5LP edition of Goin' 50 will be released. That set offers tracks from
Release Round-Up: Week of April 19
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Rolling Stones, HONK [Various Formats] (Interscope) 1-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3-CD deluxe: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP standard: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP Target-exclusive blue vinyl: Target.com 4-LP deluxe color vinyl: The Rolling Stones' Online Shop Various music/apparel bundles: The Rolling Stones' Online Shop Honk is a new compilation album from The Rolling Stones that
Mardi Gras In New Orleans: Macca-Sponsored Professor Longhair Concert “Live On The Queen Mary” Available on CD and LP
In March of 1975, Professor Longhair, the New Orleans blues singer and piano player extraordinaire, gave a concert aboard the Queen Mary ocean liner at a special Venus and Mars album release party organized by Paul McCartney and Wings in Long Beach, CA. Three years later, a recording of the concert was released on Harvest Records. On Friday, April 5, Live On The Queen Mary arrived back on shelves, reissued by Harvest and MPL in a number of configurations: CD, 2-LP, and a special "Long Live
Release Round-Up: Week of March 29
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up. Here's what's due for March 29! John Coltrane, Coltrane '58: The Prestige Recordings [5 CD] (Craft Recordings) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The year 1958 was a breakout one for saxophone legend John Coltrane. It marked the year when Coltrane--already well-established as a talented sideman--began to make a name for himself as a solo musician and developed his signature "sheets of sound" style while exploring many other routes. To
You Get What You Need: Restored “Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus” Arriving to Theaters in 4K/Dolby Atmos in April
It's been more than 50 years since The Rolling Stones and a host of friends converged at Intertel TV Studio in Wembley to film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, the concert film that featured the band alongside friends like The Who, Jethro Tull, The Dirty Mac (a supergroup featuring John Lennon, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell). The once-lost documentary has been newly restored and will be screened in select theaters throughout the United States in early
Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle: Dana Gillespie’s MainMan Recordings Collected on “What Memories We Make”
Dana Gillespie first made a splash on the U.K. charts with a run of singles for Pye and a couple albums on Decca and London in the mid-'60s. In 1971, the actress-singer-musician signed to RCA under the aegis of MainMan, the management company headed by Tony Defries that famously included David Bowie on its roster. Gillespie had first befriended the future superstar as a teenager in Swinging London before reconnecting with him in a major way in the early 1970s. It was Bowie who had
A SECOND DISC EXCLUSIVE! Out Of My Hands, Still In My Heart: The Story of Pamela Polland’s Lost Album
Pamela Polland may not have become a worldwide household name, but there was a point around the year 1973 where she was close to becoming one. In the prior decade, she had written songs performed by the illustrious likes of Vikki Carr, The Serendipity Singers, and Linda Ronstadt; performed in a blues duo with Ry Cooder; formed the psych-pop duo The Gentle Soul; appeared in the Leonard Bernstein-hosted Inside Pop documentary; and launched a solo career. In the years that followed, she hit the
Babe, It Ain’t No Lie: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Celebrates Iconic Women in Folk With New Vinyl Reissues
The archivists and musical archaeologists at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings have been mining their mammoth catalogue of folk, world music, blues, jazz, frog sounds, educational recordings, early electronica, historical documentary, and so on to create new vinyl reissues of some of their shining gems. This week, in celebration of the start of Women's History Month, the label has put the spotlight on three releases by Folkways icons. There's legendary guitar picker Elizabeth Cotten, whose
Light My Fire: Legacy Brings Unheard José Feliciano Concert to Digital and Streaming with “Live 1967”
Over the last several months, Legacy Recordings has been quietly releasing gems from the vault and reissuing overlooked titles from the Columbia, RCA Victor, Arista, Bang, Monument, Ode, and Epic vaults as part of a digital music series. While our primary focus at The Second Disc remains with physical media, periodically we will shed some light on the best of these digital compilations and reissues, such as this previously unreleased live recording from one of the best guitarists and
Release Round-Up: Week of February 8
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Prince, Musicology [Various Formats] (Legacy) 1-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP black vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP purple vinyl: Prince Official Store Today, three of Prince's essential 2000s albums arrive on CD and, for the first time ever, LP. Musicology marked Prince's return to a major label and to the upper heights of the charts. It reached the Top Five on the Billboard Album Chart in
Got My Mojo Working: Cherry Red, Grapefruit Collects Alexis Korner and Baroque Pop On Two Box Sets
Periodically this month, we'll be looking at titles released in the latter part of 2018 that we either didn't cover, or only covered briefly, the first time around! We hope you enjoy this look at "some nice things we've missed"... Cherry Red's Grapefruit imprint has recently released a pair of 3-CD box sets touching on two very different aspects of the sixties British music scene. One of the fathers of the British blues boom, Alexis Korner (1928-1984) has been celebrated on Every Day I
Locked Away: Keith Richards Premieres Unreleased Material on “Talk Is Cheap” 30th Anniversary
Keith Richards is set to have a busy year. He and The Rolling Stones recently announced a headlining slot at the 50th New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as part of the band's U.S. No Filter Festival. Now, Keith and BMG have teamed up for a special look at his debut solo album, Talk Is Cheap, due out March 29. Originally released in 1988, Talk Is Cheap found Richards leading an impressive roster of musicians, including Ivan Neville, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, The Memphis Horns, and even
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