Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Bryan Ferry, Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1974 (BMG) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Bryan Ferry's Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1974 presents 14 selections recorded at the storied London venue in 1974 drawn from his first two solo albums. These range from classic standards ("These Foolish Things," "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes") to '60s pop ("Don't Worry Baby," "It's My Party"), rock
Release Round-Up: Week of January 31
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Rod McKuen, New Ballads (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Real Gone celebrates the late Rod McKuen with a slate of releases this week. For the 1970 album New Ballads, the singer-songwriter teamed with renowned arranger-conductor Don Costa for this remarkable collection of songs including "As I Love My Own," the dramatic Jacques Brel collaboration "I'm Not Afraid," "Thank You for Christmas," and a composition which
The Start of Something: Roberta Flack's "First Take" Gets Expanded Reissue With Unreleased Material
Roberta Flack's inimitable voice has stirred listeners for over 50 years. She's had hits in the pop, R&B, and traditional vocal fields; earned six gold records, and achieved a multi-platinum success with Killing Me Softly. In April, Flack will be honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her lasting creative contributions. To mark the occasion, SoulMusic.com and Run Out Groove will release a special version of Flack's debut on April 10. First Take: 50th Anniversary Deluxe
The Right Time: Vinyl Me Please To Release "Aretha Now" on Mono LP
Record club Vinyl Me Please has announced their latest Record of the Month: Aretha Franklin's 1968 landmark, Aretha Now. The album will be pressed on 180-gram black vinyl and uses the classic mono mix, remastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed at QRP. Prior to this VMP edition, the mono mix of Aretha Now was only available on highly sought-after U.S. promos, or on rare U.K. or Brazilian original pressings. Now, Aretha's classic - featuring "I Say A Little Prayer," "Think," and so
It's For Real: "Encore" Collects Donna Summer's Complete Studio Albums and More
On March 27, Demon Music Group's Crimson Productions label will release Encore, the ultimate Donna Summer box set. The Queen of Disco's reigned over the pop charts for decades with stints on Casablanca, Geffen, Mercury, and Atlantic. Over the years, she released 17 studio albums, two live albums, and a wealth of successful singles. Encore will bring together all those albums across 33 CDs, plus 8 discs of 7" and 12" mixes, rare edits, non-album cuts, and
Your Soul and Mine: Gil Scott-Heron's "I'm New Here" Receives 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition and New Remix Album
A decade ago, influential proto-hip-hop performer and writer Gil Scott-Heron released his final solo album, I'm New Here. XL Recordings will revisit the acclaimed album with an expanded edition that hits shops on February 7, exactly ten years after the original was unleashed to the public. The revisited 2-CD or 2-LP color vinyl set features the original album alongside two unreleased recordings - a newly unearthed original called "King Henry IV" and a take on Richie Havens' arrangement of
Release Round-Up: Week of January 24
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Elton John, Live from Moscow 1979 (Mercury/UMe) 2-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2019 marked the 40th anniversary of Elton John's landmark tour of Russia, where he stunned audiences as the first rocker to perform in the country. His concerts there were intimate events where he performed alongside percussionist Ray Cooper. Now, Elton brings his May 28, 1979 concert in Moscow to
Ace Round-Up, Part One: London American and Westbound Records Anthologies
Having previously chronicled 1956-1966 over eleven volumes, Ace has returned to its London American Label series for a last (?) hurrah. The London American Label Year by Year: 1967 is packed with 28 stellar selections to illuminate a year in which the label was in steadfast decline. London had long been the destination for great American records, but the major U.S. companies were launching their own U.K. arms and declining to license to London. This led London to release fewer 45s from
Wake Up Everybody: Vocalion Releases Quad SACDs from Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, O'Jays, Earth Wind and Fire, Helen Reddy
The U.K.'s Dutton Vocalion label has announced its first batch of hybrid SACD releases for 2020, all of which feature original quadraphonic and stereo mixes. (The stereo mixes are playable on all CD players.) This round follows an eclectic array of titles released in 2019 including albums by Paul Revere and The Raiders, The Guess Who, Argent, Blood Sweat & Tears, Carlos Santana, and numerous others. (Visit the Dutton Vocalion website for information on all of these titles and more!) The
Release Round-Up: Week of January 17
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Marshall Crenshaw, Miracle of Science [Revised Edition] (Shiny-Tone) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Singer-songwriter Marshall Crenshaw reissues his 1996 Razor & Tie release on his own Shiny-Tone label, tinkering with some tracks and adding two new recordings. It launches a new reissue campaign that will ultimately encompass three studio albums -- Miracle of Science, 1999's
RPM Records Wraps Up Almost 30 Year Run; Label's Final Release Due in May
For nearly three decades, the RPM Records arm of Cherry Red Records has exemplified the finest in archival reissues. Here at The Second Disc, we've covered dozens of RPM's often ambitious titles over the last ten years - most of which shed light on artists and albums that would likely otherwise have languished in the vaults. RPM's releases gave equal consideration to all artists, whether the famous (Gene Pitney, Chad and Jeremy, The Spencer Davis Group), the soon-to-be- famous (the pre-ABBA Hep
Thank You For The Music: On 10 Years of The Second Disc
Ten years ago, I was writing my first post for The Second Disc, a website about music reissues I thought was a pretty bright idea. A lot has changed since then. The first posts were written in the bedroom of a suburban New Jersey home - the house I grew up in and moved back into after post-college economic downturn made it the best possible choice to live. This post was written in an apartment in Queens that I share with a lovely fiancée who is very cool about the amount of box sets
Release Round-Up: Week of January 10
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Laura Nyro, More Than a New Discovery [Limited Violet Vinyl Mono Edition] (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Today's the day! We're so proud to reissue, for the first time ever on vinyl (and in homage to the artist's favorite color), Laura Nyro's 1967 debut More Than a New Discovery in a violet vinyl limited edition of 1,250 copies. This edition features the original, long out-of-print (and
He Sends Us: Sam Cooke's Keen Years Collected In New Box
Sam Cooke would have turned 90 on January 22, 2021, but that's not stopping the party from starting a little early! This month, The King of Soul will be celebrated with a new box set featuring five of his albums for the Keen label. The Complete Keen Years (1957-1960) showcases Cooke's early work as a pop craftsman at the end of the 1950s. At the beginning of the decade, Cooke was a teenage sensation as a member of gospel group The Soul Stirrers. But his interest in R&B and pop could not
The Year in Review: The 2019 Gold Bonus Disc Awards, From A to Z
Happy 2020 and welcome to The Second Disc's 10th Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! It's time once again to recognize this year's cream of the crop - those exemplary reissues and box sets big and small that proved to be truly outstanding products for music lovers worldwide. There was no shortage of great reissue titles in 2019; in fact, by our count, we covered over 700 releases in all! And after much deliberation, we're excited to unveil our favorites. This isn't your run-of-the-mill Top 10,
You Can Handle It: Real Gone Announces Vinyl Reissues of Soul Classics
Happy New Year, everybody! 2020 is shaping up to be a great year for Real Gone Music. There's the upcoming standalone version of Johnny Mathis' The Island, the return of Laura Nyro's More Than A New Discovery in mono...and that's just the Second Disc Records slate so far! In addition to titles from Rod McKuen and Barbara Eden, Real Gone has also announced remastered vinyl editions of Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band's enduring Express Yourself and It's Just A Matter of
In Memoriam: Jerry Herman (1931-2019) and Allee Willis (1947-2019)
This week, popular music lost two of its titans: Jerry Herman, 88, and Allee Willis, 72. Today, we pay tribute to them. "There is no tune like a showtune," went the lyric of Jerry Herman's sprightly song for the 1960 off-Broadway revue Parade starring Dody Goodman, Richard Tone, and the young Charles Nelson Reilly. And there is certainly no tune like a Jerry Herman showtune: bright, bouncy, heartfelt, optimistic, moving, exciting. While Herman's oeuvre was relatively small compared to many of
Release Round-Up: Weeks of December 20 and 27, and January 3
Welcome to our final Release Round-Up of 2019! This edition covers today's releases as well as those of the next two weeks, the quietest time of the year for new releases. The weekly Release Round-Up will be back on January 10. In the meantime, Happy Holidays to all! Frank Zappa, The Hot Rats Sessions (Zappa/UMe) 6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada This 6-CD box set explores Frank Zappa's 1969 primarily instrumental solo
Extravagant Gestures: Cherry Red, SoulMusic Box Up Dionne Warwick's Arista Albums on New 12-CD Set
Over 40 years ago, Dionne Warwick left Warner Bros. Records and signed to Clive Davis' Arista label to begin a new chapter in her remarkable career - a career which happens to be going as strong as ever today. Now, Cherry Red's SoulMusic imprint has announced a 12-CD box celebrating Warwick's Arista period. Due on February 28, 2020, Déjà Vu: The Arista Recordings (1979-1994) collects all of her acclaimed albums for the label and rounds up over two dozen previously released bonus
Unchained Melodies: Omnivore Premieres Bobby Hatfield's Lost Sessions with Richard Perry
Omnivore Recordings is getting righteous - make that Righteous - with an upcoming release. In 1971, Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers was on his own. He and partner Bill Medley had split in 1968, and while Medley quickly struck as a solo artist, Hatfield persevered as a Righteous Brother with the enlistment of The Knickerbockers' Jimmy Walker. But the new duo's Re-Birth album hadn't achieved much success, and Hatfield decided to go it alone (again; he had previously released a number of
Release Round-Up: Week of December 13
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Blinky, Heart Full of Soul: The Motown Anthology (Second Disc/Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music are proud to mark Motown's 60th anniversary with a collection that has truly been decades in the making. Heart Full of Soul: The Motown Anthology is the ultimate tribute to Sondra "Blinky" Williams, Motown's great lost superstar. Over two CDs and almost 50 songs, Blinky's Motown journey is
OUT TOMORROW! Blinky Is Free at Last on Second Disc Records, Real Gone Music's "Heart Full of Soul: The Motown Anthology"
The story of Sondra "Blinky" Williams has long been shrouded in mystery. The soulful singer came to Motown Records in 1967 following stints at Vee-Jay and Atlantic, bringing her passionate and powerful deep soul sound to Hitsville, USA. Despite recording dozens of tracks between 1968 and 1973, only a small handful saw release: a mere four 45s plus an album of duets with Edwin Starr, two live cuts, and a couple of one-off recordings, including a key moment on the best-selling soundtrack of Lady
Showing Out: Cherry Red Collects Mel and Kim's Singles on New Box Set
Between 1986 and 1988, British pop duo Mel and Kim charted four top 5 entries on the U.K. Singles Chart, including one chart-topper there and two songs which reached No. 1 on the U.S. Dance survey. Sisters Melanie and Kim Appleby's career was cut short when Mel tragically died of cancer at just 23 years of age in 1990. But they left behind a vibrant body of work which has recently been celebrated by Cherry Red's Cherry Pop imprint on a new box set. Mel and Kim's The Singles Box Set collects all
I've Been Loving You: Vinyl Me, Please Spotlights Stax Classics in New VMP Anthology Box
Vinyl Me Please is at it again! Following their celebrations of Blue Note, Motown, and Ghostly International, the subscription service is set to release a new volume of their acclaimed VMP Anthology Series. This time, they're shining a light on the history of Stax Records. As with previous volumes, The Story of Stax Records will be told in four chapters. The eight albums included in the box will be wrapped in "secrecy sleeves" that can be unveiled at specific points in the journey. Though
Holiday Gift Guide Review: MoFi Gives the Audiophile Treatment to Dylan's "Blood on The Tracks" and J. Geils' "The Morning After"
Over the years, Mobile Fidelity has cemented itself as one of the leaders in the audiophile re-issue realm. From deluxe 45rpm box set affairs to more bare-bones remasters, the label has been known to go the extra mile to make every album sound its best. Two of their recent reissues have arrived at Second Disc HQ: the extravagant 45rpm One-Step remaster of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and the slimmed-down remaster of J. Geils Band's The Morning After. Both titles are sure to please that
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