"In the real world, Sid 'n Susie are Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs - two navigators in the pop musical current, current tense vocally and as tunesmiths with prime craft of their own write. They've bagged the best of the '60s with uncanny insight. I know. I was there but can remember," asserted Van Dyke Parks in his introduction to 2006's Under the Covers Vol. 1. On that volume, Sid 'n Susie revisited some of their favorite songs of the 1960s, largely staying faithful to the original
Go Ahead, Have A Vision: Paul McCartney Prepares “Flaming Pie” Archive Edition Sets for July
Today, Paul McCartney fans everywhere have much to celebrate as the inimitable musician has announced the July 31st release of the latest volume in his ongoing Archives series - this one's a look back on Flaming Pie, an album that marked a sort of return to form upon its release in 1997. Inspired by the simpler, more immediate recording style that The Beatles used decades before, Paul McCartney returned to Abbey Road with some of his favorite collaborators, including Ringo Starr, George Martin,
Release Round-Up: Week of June 12
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Peter Gabriel, Rated PG (Real World) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Last year, Peter Gabriel issued Rated PG, a collection of one-off songs he'd performed for motion pictures across his solo career. This year, that album gets a wider release beyond its picture disc pressing for Record Store Day; it'll now be available on CD and vinyl on Friday, June 12. The 10-track compendium
Have You Heard: Omnivore Celebrates Doo-Wop Era with The Duprees, The Crests, The Rivieras, Adam Wade
Omnivore Recordings is celebrating the era of street-corner symphonies with five upcoming CD/digital collections from the golden age of doo-wop. The remastered titles arriving throughout July and August are drawn from the vaults of Coed Records and celebrate the sounds of The Rivieras (The Coed Singles), The Duprees (over two volumes, The Coed Singles and The Coed Albums: You Belong to Me/Have You Heard), The Crests (The Best of The Crests featuring Johnny Mastro: 16 Fabulous Hits), and Adam
A Second Disc Interview: Chatting with America’s Audio Archivist Jeff Larson as Band Preps “Half Century” Box
Chewing on a piece of grass/Walking down the road/Tell me, how long you gonna stay here, Joe? Happily, the music of America has stayed with us for 50 years. Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek met in London where their fathers were stationed with the United States Air Force; their coming together at the dawn of the 1970s has led to 16 studio albums and 47 singles including three U.S. chart-toppers and eleven Top 40 hits. That's in addition to a Grammy Award, a spot in the Vocal Group
Don’t Refuse To Believe It: Dave Mason, Yusuf Revisit Legendary Recordings 50 Years On
There was something special going on in the music scene in 1970, a certain alchemy that resulted in countless perfect albums that continue to stop listeners in their tracks. Two such albums - Cat Stevens' Tea For the Tillerman and Dave Mason's Alone Together - are among those that remain fresh all these years later. So imagine the surprise when Mason and the artist now known as Yusuf each announced they'd be revisiting their classics with Tea For the Tillerman 2 and Alone Together Again,
Down To Earth: Peter Gabriel’s Collection of Movie Songs Gets Wide Release In June
Last year, Peter Gabriel issued Rated PG, a collection of one-off songs he'd written and performed for motion pictures across his solo career. This year, that album gets a wider release beyond its picture disc pressing for Record Store Day; it'll now be available on CD and vinyl this Friday, June 12. A longtime film fan who once nearly enrolled at a London film school before his work in Genesis became noticed by the British music press, Gabriel has been no stranger to writing music for
It’s Cold Outside: Omnivore Releases Live Album from Cleveland’s The Choir
Back in 2018, Omnivore Recordings released a never-before-heard recording from The Choir. Artifact: The Lost Album was a delightful trip back in time with the Cleveland garage-rock outfit. The rock 'n' rollers made their first splash with a 1966 single ("It's Cold Outside"). The regional hit on the Canadian-American label earned them national attention when it was re-released on Roulette and charted on the Billboard Hot 100. The band released a couple more 45s on Roulette through early 1968; a
Never Want It Badly Enough: The Second Disc’s Top Tracks For Bandcamp Friday
Despite the challenges facing the music business amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there are some bright spots. On March 20, indie music service Bandcamp waived their share of revenue on all sales for 24 hours, allowing artists and labels to support themselves even more robustly. Thanks to impressive results ($4.3 million spent on music and merch, 15 times an average Friday's revenue), Bandcamp repeated the strategy not once, but thrice: the first Fridays of each month (May 1, which raised $7.1
Release Round-Up: Week of June 5
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Frank Sinatra, Nice 'n' Easy: 60th Anniversary Edition (Capitol/UMe) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP (Remixed Album Only): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Capitol Records, Frank Sinatra Enterprises, and UMe have a 60th anniversary edition of Frank Sinatra's classic 1960 album arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle. For the occasion, the album has been completely remixed and features three bonus tracks: the
Endless Flight: New Andrew Gold Box Set From Esoteric Offers Albums, Unreleased Live Material
He was born on a summer day, 1951 - and through the '70s, Andrew Gold issued a handful of killer pop singles around the world while serving as an in-demand session musician. This summer, U.K. label Esoteric Recordings will collect his complete discography for Asylum Records along with some choice studio and live bonus material - a portion of which is being released for the first time! Lonely Boy: The Asylum Years Anthology illustrates how Gold - the son of film composer Ernest and Hollywood
Cherry Red’s “A Slight Disturbance in My Mind” Collects The Psych-Pop Sounds of 1966
By any estimation, 1966 was a pivotal year in rock. On one side of the Atlantic: Pet Sounds, Blonde on Blonde, Sounds of Silence. On the other: Revolver, Fresh Cream, Aftermath. Those albums merely represent the tip of the iceberg, however. 1966 was a year in which psychedelia emerged from the fringes and onto the charts via such artists as The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, and yes, The Beatles with "Tomorrow Never Knows." The underground scene continued to grow and increasingly attract the
Mornin’ Glory: Bobbie Gentry’s “The Delta Sweete” Gets Remixed, Remastered, and Expanded Treatment
It was the third of June/Another sleepy, dusty Delta day... With a new announcement, this June 3 has gotten a lot less sleepy. Bobbie Gentry's 1967 debut album Ode to Billie Joe established the Mississippi native as a crossover country superstar. Boasting the Grammy-winning, chart-topping title track, the LP made it to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Pop and Country charts and even reached the top five of the R&B survey. One year later, Gentry delivered her second album on Capitol. While The
Let’s Twist Again: The Legendary Cameo-Parkway Catalogue Is Celebrated With New Digital Collections
You just can't sit down when one of those Cameo-Parkway classics comes on the stereo. Cameo Records - launched by Kal Mann and Bernie Lowe, the team that penned the Elvis hip-shaker "Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear" - and its sister label Parkway dominated the pop charts from 1958 to 1967 with dance crazes like "The Twist" and "The Wah-Watusi" as well as hits by the likes of Bobby Rydell, The Orlons, The Dovells, Dee Dee Sharp, Don Covay, Evie Sands, and of course, Twist king Chubby Checker. Now,
Gee, I Think You’re Swell: Manifesto Expands The Turtles’ Original Albums on Vinyl
Manifesto Records is getting shell-shocked with the vinyl debut later this month of The Turtles' expanded original studio albums. Over six LPs released on White Whale Records between 1965 and 1970, The Turtles' sound epitomized the joyful and bright sound of sixties pop while gently sending it up in subtly subversive fashion. On June 26, Manifesto returns all six of those albums to vinyl as 2-LP sets remastered from the original tapes: the first three in mono/stereo editions, and the last three
Release Round-Up: Week of May 29
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Ronnie Milsap, The Best of Ronnie Milsap (Craft Recordings) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The Best of Ronnie Milsap gathers up 12 of the artist's biggest hits from his first tenure at RCA, including "It Was Almost Like a Song," "Any Day Now," and "What a Difference You've Made in My Life." Craft's parent company, Concord Music, acquired the rights to 16 of Milsap's RCA albums from between 1977-2006 last year, and this is the first
She Satisfies: Cherry Red Laces Up Shoes’ Elektra Years on Box Set
For more than 40 years, Shoes has been celebrating the art of pop with its compact, melodic nuggets worthy of The Beatles, The Raspberries, or Big Star. Hailing from the town of Zion, Ill. on the banks of Lake Michigan, Shoes was formed by Gary Klebe and brothers John and Jeff Murphy, three kids united in their love of music. Between 1979 and 1982, Shoes - still going strong today, by the way - was signed to Elektra Records where they released three acclaimed albums. Cherry Red has recently
Release Round-Up: Week of May 22
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Joe Grushecky, Have a Good Time But Get Out Alive! 40th Anniversary Edition (Cleveland International) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers' bar-band classic is returning to print in a newly expanded edition adding a second disc with 16 previously unreleased tracks including demos and rarities. The 40th anniversary edition of Have a Good Time But Get
Outlaw Man: Cherry Red, Morello Collect Four Albums from Singer-Songwriter David Blue
David Blue might be best-known for two things: writing "Outlaw Blues" on Eagles' Desperado album, and being a friend and occasional sidekick of Bob Dylan's. Yet he recorded seven albums (plus a major contribution to an eighth, the 1965 Elektra anthology Singer Songwriter Project) between 1965 and 1976 in addition to making appearances on stage and film before his untimely death in 1982. Cherry Red's Morello imprint has recently celebrated the late folk troubadour with a four-albums-on-two-CDs
State of Independence: Donna Summer’s Live Comes to CD, DVD, LP in July
Following its career-spanning Encore box set celebrating late superstar Donna Summer, Demon Music Group's Driven by the Music imprint will be bringing one of the diva's classic concerts to multiple formats. A Hot Summer Night will be issued on July 10 in both CD/DVD and 2-LP colored vinyl formats. The concert was recorded on August 6, 1983 as part of Summer's Hard for the Money tour. The She Works Hard for the Money album had just been released a couple of months earlier, in June, but Summer
Baby He’s a Star: ‘Prince and The Revolution: Live’ Comes To Streaming and Download
The Prince Estate made quarantine a little more tolerable this week when they announced that Prince and The Revolution: Live, the 1985 concert film reissued as part of the Purple Rain deluxe package in 2017, was receiving a limited stream on YouTube, to raise money and awareness for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Though the concert will eventually disappear from the video service, the memory will live on thanks to a surprise digital-only premiere of the
Sing a Rainbow: Four More Cilla Black Albums Go Deluxe from Cherry Red, SFE
Cherry Red's Strike Force Entertainment (SFE) imprint has released another pair of two-for-one titles in its definitive reissue series dedicated to the late superstar Cilla Black. 1966's Cilla Sings a Rainbow, the best-selling album of her career, has been paired with 1973's Day by Day with Cilla, her final LP produced by Sir George Martin; the latter makes its first appearance on CD. It's been joined by 1970's Sweet Inspiration with 1971's Images. As with past volumes in this series, these
Sweeter Than Ever: Nick Kamen’s Discography Compiled By Cherry Pop
Cherry Pop will compile the works of U.K. model-turned-singer Nick Kamen this summer. Available July 24, the 6CD The Complete Collection offers remastered versions all four albums Kamen recorded for Warner Music between 1987 and 1992, plus dozens of bonus tracks and remixes, many of them previously unreleased or new to CD. (The label notes that 20 mixes are previously unreleased, though we suspect this number is higher.) Two never-before-heard tracks are also available: covers of The Everly
Book Review: “Along Comes The Association: Beyond Folk Rock and Three-Piece Suits” by Russ Giguere
"Well, I'm a comer and a goer in a six man band," went the lyrics to The Association's 1968 semi-autobiographical single "Six Man Band." Now, founding member Russ Giguere has reflected on his comings and goings in a new book that serves as both a personal memoir and a history of the band. Along Comes The Association: Beyond Folk Rock and Three-Piece Suits, written with Ashley Wren Collins, is a compelling look back at a colorful life in the group that gave the world such enduring hits as "Along
In Memoriam: Little Richard (1932-2020)
The stupid but true thing to start off with is there was nothing "little" about him. I was born in 1987, a year after Richard Penniman was officially canonized as one of rock and roll's true pioneers, inducted into the first class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. From that point through the early '90s, he got to enjoy some unlikely fruits of becoming an elder statesman that aren't typically afforded to many at this stage in their careers. In 1986, his song "Great Gosh A'Mighty," from the
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