Individually, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris have created some of the most beautiful records of all time, blurring the lines between country, pop, folk, and rock-and-roll. Collectively, the threesome released two transcendent and heartfelt albums, Trio (1987) and Trio II (1999). The two landmark LPs garnered sales of over five million copies and three Grammy Awards and became beloved additions to all three artists' discographies. Today, Rhino Records announced the September 9
Rounder Bluegrass Initiative Features Béla Fleck, Doc Watson, John Hartford, Louvin Brothers, More
Rounder Records, the pioneering American roots music label, is in the midst of its 45th anniversary celebration. Over the past months, the Cambridge-founded, Nashville-based Rounder has been making titles from its deep catalogue available as digital downloads. Last month, the label threw a Mardi Gras party with digital reissues of R&B, blues, jazz and Cajun music of the Crescent City. This month, the 51-time Grammy-winning Rounder - since 2010 under the umbrella of the Concord Music Group
Special Shout-Out to This Year's Reissue Grammy Winners; Legacy Leads Catalogue Pack
The 58th Annual Grammy awards were held a little over a week ago and there were numerous winners. The Grammys have so many categories that the majority are not given out on the actual television broadcast. Even though we're a little late, we'd like to give acknowledgment to the winners from reissue and catalogue labels who picked up an award, some for categories that aren't always exclusively associated with reissues. The biggest winner of the night for reissue labels was Sony's Legacy
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man: Bob Dylan's "Bootleg - Live 1964" Coming In Surround Sound
The sixth volume of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series is coming to 5.0 multichannel hybrid SACD from Audio Fidelity in March. Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall was mixed into surround sound years ago by Sony, but the mix has sat on the shelf until now. It will arrive March 18 as newly remastered by Steve Hoffman (with a remastered stereo layer playable on all CD players). First released in 2004, Bootleg Series Vol. 6 premiered Dylan's Halloween night concert from 1964 at New York's
The Year In Review, Part 2 - More Of The Best Of 2015
The Second Disc is continuing its celebration of 2015's finest with today's column by Ted Frank! Stop, do not pass GO and do not collect 200 dollars if you haven't already read our Sixth Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards summation of the year's greatest releases. Here, Ted presents his very own, alternative year in review with titles new and old! I make records ... I really don't want to be about singles or anything. -Adele, The Tonight Show In recent years, the download/stream-heavy music
Cherry Red's él Label Offers Rod McKuen, Wally Stott, Bobby Scott Rarities
Cherry Red's él imprint has a trio of recent releases continuing its commitment to truly eclectic sounds of the pre-1964 era. Two of these are musical odes to the big city life of London and New York, from arrangers Wally Stott and Bobby Scott, respectively; the third reissues and expands a compilation from the late Rod McKuen. Singer-songwriter-poet-author-renaissance man McKuen, who died earlier this year, was recently the subject of Varese Vintage's Reflections: The Greatest Songs of Rod
Raven Has Folk and Funk With Melanie and Mother's Finest
Raven Records' most recent pair of CDs certainly showcase the label's eclectic leanings! From singer-songwriter Melanie Safka, the label has a three-for-one release of her much-loved albums Candles in the Rain, Leftover Wine and Gather Me. The Melanie release is joined by a four-for-one title from pioneering funk-rockers Mother's Finest collecting the band's self-titled LP plus Mother's Finest Live, Another Mother Further and Mother Factor. Raven's release from Melanie follows the Morello
The Year of Al Stewart: Esoteric Reissues Three Early Albums
Al Stewart attained soft rock immortality with his 1976 Top 10 Pop and AC hit "Year of the Cat." But the Glasgow-born, Bournemouth-raised artist and writer had been recording as a leading light of the British folk revival scene for a full decade by the time of his radio breakthrough. Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint has recently restored to print Stewart's third, fourth and fifth albums for the U.K.'s CBS Records label in newly remastered editions. CBS had been Stewart's home since
Release Round-Up: Week of December 11
This week's Release Round-Up is slimmer than most of late, but still filled with some ideal stocking stuffers... Joe Cocker, The Life of a Man: Ultimate Hits 1968-2013 (UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada) UMe celebrates the life and career of the late, great Joe Cocker with this new 3-CD, 36-track anthology with greatest hits and deeper cuts including a live version of "With a Little Help from My Friends" never before released in the United States. This set was previously released in
Brand New Melanie: Morello Label Reissues Four of Melanie's Rare Albums On CD
"Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates/You got a brand new key/I think that we should get together and try them out you see..." With her chart-topping 1971 hit "Brand New Key," Melanie Safka-Schekeryk built on the success of previous hits like the Woodstock-inspired anthem "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" and her cover of The Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday." But "Brand New Key" also unfairly tagged the singer-songwriter as a novelty artist, a notion she was quick to dispose with the
Release Round-Up: Week of October 30
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Packed with over 30 titles including highly-anticipated reissues, a slew of box sets, collections and more, it just may be the mightiest of the year! The Velvet Underground, Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) The Velvet Underground's 1970 album - and Lou Reed's swansong with the band - gets the deluxe expanded treatment from Rhino in this new box set featuring the original stereo and mono
Roger McGuinn and Pete Seeger, Tony Orlando, Doc Watson Join Bottom Line Archive Series
The Bottom Line Archive Series, preserving performances from the late, renowned New York club, will roll out a new trio of releases on October 30. Joining previous entries from artists including The Brecker Brothers, Harry Chapin and Janis Ian are new titles from Tony Orlando, Doc Watson, and the duo of Pete Seeger and Roger McGuinn. One 1994 evening at The Bottom Line, famed disk jockey Vin Scelsa joined folk legend Pete Seeger and The Byrds' Roger McGuinn for one-of-a-kind exchange of
Hear The Bang: Lost Country-Rock Classic By Late Singer-Songwriter Denny Lile Is Rediscovered
Singer-songwriter Denny Lile was only 21 years old when a newspaper headline proclaimed "Maybe THIS time it's Denny Lile's turn," but he was already a veteran of the music business and its vagaries. A couple of singles came and went with his band Elysian Field on Imperial Records; the same fate befell Soul, Inc. and its handful of singles on the Laurie label. At the time of that headline, Lile was striking out with his own group Otis for the single release of "Hear the Bang." A self-titled
Release Round-Up: Week of September 18
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up including a couple of spectacular new box sets, one acclaimed soundtrack, numerous reissues and anthologies, and the return of a few beloved artists! a-ha, Hunting High and Low: 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (Warner Bros./Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) The 1985 debut from a-ha gets super-sized with Rhino's upcoming 4-CD/1-DVD edition. Disc One has the original, remastered album, while Disc Two boasts 25 demos, Disc Three has 15
Release Round-Up: Week of September 11
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Second Disc Records is going back to the beach with Ricci Martin, but that's far from all this week! We're also taking off with ELO, singing street-corner symphonies with The Four Seasons, and much more! Plus: new titles from classic artists! Ricci Martin, Beached: Expanded Edition (Second Disc/Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) What if key members of The Beach Boys, Chicago, America, and Wings had teamed up to create one of the greatest
Fairport Convention, Vashti Bunyan, Bill Fay Featured On New Underground Folk Box "Dust on the Nettles"
In the spirit of past box sets such as Love, Poetry and Revolution which spotlighted the British underground psychedelic scene circa 1966-1972, Cherry Red's Grapefruit label has just released Dust on the Nettles, a new 3-CD compendium of British underground folk in roughly the same time period (1967-1972). This new mini-box set, subtitled A Journey Through the British Underground Folk Scene, boasts 63 tracks and a running time of nearly four hours. The emphasis is on the genre sometimes
Release Round-Up: Week of June 30
Welcome to our final Tuesday Release Round-Up - and it's a doozy! As many of you know, the record industry will next week adopt a universal Friday release day. No releases are scheduled for Tuesday, July 7; instead, Friday, July 10 is the date! DVDs and Blu-rays will, for the foreseeable future, remain released on Tuesdays. We'll resume with a new Release Round-Up on Friday, July 10! Ronny and the Daytonas, The Complete Recordings (2-CD Set) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) / The
Remember When The Music: Bottom Line Presents Unheard Harry Chapin, Reissues Janis Ian and More
The new Bottom Line Archive Series, which launched earlier this year with volumes from The Brecker Brothers, Willie Nile, and Kenny Rankin, continues on June 30 with a new wave of titles all recorded at the late, great New York venue once located on West 4th Street in Greenwich Village. Concerts from Harry Chapin and Janis Ian, plus two various-artists compilations, will be released on Bottom Line Records on that date. Legendary singer-songwriter Harry Chapin's January 1981 set at The Bottom
The Bad Seeds: "Nick Cave Heard Them Here First" Features Dylan, Cash, Pitney, More
Ace Records has an unusual name on its roster: that of Australian musical iconoclast Nick Cave. An artist who's lived up to his description as rock's "Prince of Darkness," Cave has nonetheless drawn on a wide array of influences in crafting his own intense, personal and powerful songbook. Ace has rounded up the original versions of 25 songs recorded over the years by the artist on the collection entitled Nick Cave Heard Them Here First. This anthology follows the label's similar sets for The
Going to the Country: "Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats" Chronicles Birth of Music City Country-Rock
Two legendary artists headline a new anthology arriving on June 16, 2015 from Legacy Recordings. Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City, a 2-CD, 36-track compilation, serves as an audio companion and soundtrack to the exhibit of the same name currently on display at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame through December 31, 2016. Like the exhibit, this new release explores the timeless sounds created at the intersection of country, folk and rock in Nashville between, roughly
Storytellers: Raven Anthologizes Jerry Jeff Walker, Bobby Bare
Two American country legends have recently been celebrated by Australia's Raven Records label with new 2-CD, multi-label anthologies - Jerry Jeff Walker ("Mr. Bojangles") and Bobby Bare ("Detroit City"). No Leavin' Texas 1968-82: The Classic Jerry Jeff follows Raven's recent reissue of three of the New York-born troubadour's albums in one package. This 2-CD anthology collects 39 tracks sourced from 15 albums on five different labels (Atco, Vanguard, Decca, MCA and Elektra) originally
Review: Dion, "Recorded Live at the Bitter End August 1971"
Armed with nothing but his guitar and his familiar, reassuring voice, Dion DiMucci took the stage at the Bitter End, in New York’s Greenwich Village, in August 1971. The rock and roll survivor had successfully made the transition from teenaged doo-wopper to folk-rock troubadour, moving from independent Laurie Records to New York major Columbia and back again to Laurie, briefly reuniting with his old group The Belmonts at ABC, too. Then, in 1969, Dion made the shift to the West Coast-based
Release Round-Up: Week of April 7
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Who, The Brunswick Singles 1965-1966 (UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) The Who box up replicas of seven early 7-inch singles plus an eighth with The High Numbers’ “Zoot Suit” b/w “I’m the Face” on this deluxe vinyl box set. Read more here. Herman's Hermits, The 50th Anniversary Anthology (Bear Family) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Bear Family gives the “I’m Into Something Good” and “There’s a Kind of Hush” pop stars the deluxe
Light As The Breeze: Leonard Cohen Returns With Live Rarities Set
Just a few months after the September 2014 release of Leonard Cohen’s new studio album Popular Problems and subsequent concert release Live in Dublin, the troubadour is back with a new offering drawn (like Live in Dublin) from his Old Ideas World Tour. Whereas Dublin presented an overview of Cohen’s extraordinary career, the upcoming Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour presents rarities performed during the international trek. The May 12 release from Legacy Recordings features a pair of
English Folk Heroine Bridget St. John's Dandelion Albums and More Collected On New Box Set
Venerated BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel once called Bridget St. John “the best lady singer-songwriter in the country.” So when Peel formed Dandelion Records in 1969, the label’s first signing was St. John; in fact, Peel once commented that “the main reason why we started the label [was] ‘cos nobody else was going to record her stuff.” Cherry Red Records has just reissued all three of St. John’s moody, evocative Dandelion albums (individually released in 2005 on CD) recorded between 1969 and 1972,