Numero Group excavates a never-before-released 1969 album from singer-songwriter Elyse Weinberg. The label describes the album’s sound: “Weinberg’s finger-picked acoustic is layered over distant drumming, while her gravel-pit voice evokes life, love, and mortality.” Neil Young, J.D. Souther, Nils Lofgren and Kenny Edwards all guest on this lost California-rock gem produced by Young’s longtime associate David Briggs.
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 referred to as “acid folk,” or contemporary folk music inspired by the psychedelic…
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 Viscounts, Harlem Nocturne (Limited Mini LP Sleeve Edition) (Amazon U.S….
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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 Line was released as a 2-CD set in 1998 as part…
Retrospective
Donovan has hand-picked and written the liner notes for the 29 tracks on Salvo’s new 2-CD anthology. Alongside his familiar hits, the collection also premieres one new track, “One English Summer.”
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 Ramones, The New York Dolls, David Bowie, Elvis…
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 speaking, 1964 and 1975. Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash formed a mutual…
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 released between 1968 and 1982. It kicks off, appropriately enough, with “Mr. Bojangles” from Walker’s debut album of the…
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 Warner Bros. label. At Warner Bros., Dion recorded five albums in…
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 treatment with this new release featuring 66 tracks (spanning hits, B-sides, rarities…
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Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour
Leonard Cohen offers ten selections – including two songs never previously recorded and a pair of covers – from his recent world tour.
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 never-before-released songs alongside classics and choice covers from the Rock and Roll…
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, together with a bonus disc of the artist’s…
Box Set Watch: Hawkwind, Fotheringay, Spooky Tooth Get Deluxe Collected Treatment
Formed in 1969, “space rock” group Hawkwind recorded its debut album in 1970. Forty-five years later, an iteration of the band is still performing, but Parlophone’s U.K. division is turning the clock back with a new box set to celebrate Hawkwind’s earliest years. This Is Your Captain Speaking…Your Captain Is Dead: The Albums and Singles 1970-1974 arrives on March 23 in the U.K. and one week later in the U.S., and brings together the band’s entire United Artists catalogue on 11 CDs in replica sleeves. The set encompasses the following releases: Hawkwind, In…
The NOT Column: Anne McCue, “Blue Sky Thinkin'”
We’d like to kick off your weekend with some Frank on Friday, as we welcome back Ted to debut what he’s deemed The NOT Column…as in, “NOT a reissue, but NOTeworthy nonetheless!” Today, he looks at the latest release from Australian alt-country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Anne McCue, who has tapped into a rich vein of blues, jazz and folk to craft Blue Sky Thinkin’. We have no doubt that the music being created by McCue will one day be reissued and covered by future catalogue music-centric sites! – JM “These really are my blue sky…
Recorded Live at the Bitter End – August 1971
Omnivore Recordings in the U.S. and Ace Records in the U.K. delivers a stunning, intimate and never-before-released concert performance from Dion recorded at New York’s legendary Bitter End in August 1971.
Release Round-Up: Week of February 24
Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti various editions (Atlantic/Swan Song) 2-CD Original Album: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 3-CD Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2-LP Original Album: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 3-LP Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Super Deluxe Edition (3-CD/3-LP): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Digital Download: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Led Zeppelin’s classic album turns 40 and gets the remastered treatment with never-before-heard content available in a plethora of formats! Read the track listing and full details here. Lead Belly, The Smithsonian Folkways Collection (Folkways) (Amazon…
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From Belmont Ave. To Bleecker St.: Never-Before-Heard Dion Concert Arrives On CD In April
In a career spanning an astounding seven decades, Dion DiMucci has transitioned from doo wop to rock and roll to pop to folk to blues to contemporary Christian and back again, always bringing his stamp of originality and attitude to each endeavor. In August 1971, The King of the New York Streets took to one street in particular – Bleecker – to perform at the legendary Bitter End, today New York’s oldest rock club. Omnivore Recordings in the U.S. (and Ace Records in the U.K.) has captured Dion at the 230-seat Bitter…
Seems Like Only Yesterday–Live in Montreal 1976
The singer-songwriter’s 1976 Montreal radio concert comes to CD!
Donovan, Mick Softley, More Featured On “The Eve Folk Recordings”
In 1965, Geoff Stephens and Peter Eden entered into an agreement with EMI’s Columbia label to capitalize on the folk boom Britain was then experiencing. The deal between Stephens and Eden and EMI was to produce four LPs. Though the fourth never materialized, the three albums released under the banner of The Eve Folk Recordings have been collected, along with bonus tracks, on RPM’s 2014 two-CD set of the same name. Stephens and Eden’s early managerial client, Donovan, is featured, along with Mick Softley, Bob Davenport and The Rakes, and Vernon Haddock’s…
Nothing More: The Collected Fotheringay
This 3 CD/1 DVD box set promises to be “the most comprehensive compilation yet of the group’s recordings,” including original album tracks, demos, alternate takes, previously unreleased live recordings and, for the first time, the official release of the seven existing tracks which Fotheringay recorded in session for BBC radio. The final disc, a DVD, has the four songs recorded by the group for German TV show Beat Club, effectively doubling the existing footage of Sandy Denny in performance. Two of these songs, “Nothing More” and “John the Gun,” weren’t even broadcast originally. This…
Unicorn
Tyrannosaurus Rex’s third album Unicorn, from 1969, continued the duo’s association with producer Tony Visconti, and introduced such favorites as “Iscariot,” “Cat Black (The Wizard’s Hat)” and “The Misty Coast Of Albany.” This new 2-CD gatefold Deluxe Edition contains the mono 2014 remaster of the original album on CD 1, plus copious bonus material including non-album single A and B-sides; 5 songs recorded for John Peel’s Top Gear; and 3 songs previously only available on the 20th Century Superstar box set. CD 2 contains a further 26 alternate takes including 17 that were previously unreleased….
Midnight Special: Folkways Celebrates Lead Belly With New Box Set
Happy Birthday to Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. “Lead Belly,” born today in 1888! How many songwriters could say that their songs have been recorded by The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra and Nirvana? Had he lived longer, Huddie William Ledbetter (1888-1949) could have. Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, endured a difficult life – including various stays in jail – to introduce or adapt to the Great American Songbook tunes that are still well-known today such as “The Midnight Special,” “Goodnight, Irene,” “Black Betty” and “Cotton Fields.” On February 24, Smithsonian Folkways releases Lead Belly:…
Souvenirs: Raven Compiles Best of Foghat, Four Albums from John Prine
The Raven Records label closed out its 2014 with a pair of double-CD sets reliving the seventies – one, a retrospective of Foghat’s first decade, and another, a complete collection of John Prine’s first four albums. Foghat’s Drivin’ Wheels: Best of 1972-1982 brings together 32 tracks from the FM radio titans, spanning the period of 1972-1982 and culled from ten studio and live albums. The blues-rock band was founded in Manchester, England in 1971 by three Savoy Brown expatriates – vocalist/rhythm guitarist “Lonesome” Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens and drummer Roger Earl…
Prophets, Seers and Sages: The Angels Of The Ages
Joining the Deluxe Edition of Tyrannosaurus Rex’s debut My People Were Fair… is this similarly-expanded version of the duo’s sophomore effort. Alsoreleased in 1968 and produced by Tony Visconti, Prophets, Seers & Sages: The Angels Of The Ages established Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrin Took as a creative musical force with which to be reckoned. This Deluxe Edition contains the 2014 mono remaster of the original album plus bonus material including one non-album single, a whopping 31 (!) alternate takes (23 previously unreleased), eight songs recorded for John Peel’s Top Gear, and two songs recorded for…
