Play With Fire: The Rolling Stones Prep “Steel Wheels Live: Atlantic City, NJ” Featuring Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker, and Axl Rose
Over thirty years ago, The Rolling Stones staged a show that would become one of the band’s most renowned. The Atlantic City ’89 concert, which took place on December 19, 1989 at the city’s Convention Hall, was special for a number of reasons, but the main draw of the show was the special guests involved, who seemed to represent the past, present, and future. For this special show, The Stones called on their idol, John Lee Hooker for “Boogie Chillen,” brought up their contemporary Eric Clapton for another blues standard “Little Red…
Spread The Word Around: Long-Awaited Thin Lizzy Box Collects Trove Of Rarities
It took literal years, but the boys are back in town. Irish rockers Thin Lizzy will launch a new archival series with the October 9 release of Rock Legends, a career-spanning 6CD/1DVD box set that offers a new overview of their work through an almost entirely unreleased selection of tracks. The series celebrates their 50th anniversary as a band, and yesterday’s announcement coincided with what would have been the 71st birthday of late frontman/bassist Phil Lynott as well as the forthcoming Songs For While I’m Away, a new documentary on Lynott’s life…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 21
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Norma Tanega, Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog [Sky Blue Vinyl] (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Norma Tanega’s 1966 folk-pop classic returns to vinyl in a re-pressing from Real Gone Music. This new presentation replicates the original, utilizing the stereo mix and boasting the original artwork (which was replaced on prior CD issues). It’s pressed on sky blue vinyl. Grab it fast, though: Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog is a limited pressing. Charles Bukowski, Reads His Poetry [Vomit Vinyl] (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon…
A Higher Place: Tom Petty’s ‘Wildflowers & All The Rest’ Arrives In Multiple Formats This Fall
Let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint: the late, great Tom Petty’s solo masterpiece Wildflowers will be revisited in a series of reissues out October 16. Wildflowers & All The Rest rounds up the original 1994 album alongside several bonus discs of outtakes and rarities. A standard 2CD/3LP edition adds 10 unheard tracks – intended for a much longer edition of the album at the time – while a 4CD/7LP deluxe box adds two volumes of solo home recordings and live cuts. A super deluxe edition adds an additional CD…
Waiting for the Sun: The Doors’ “Morrison Hotel” Goes Deluxe in October
The Doors went back to basics when they checked into Morrison Hotel for their 1970 studio album. The band’s fifth LP, it’s now being reissued by Rhino on October 9 as a 2-CD/1-LP 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. This release follows the label’s similar reissues for The Doors’ first four albums including The Soft Parade which expanded their sound to include orchestration. Morrison Hotel got them back to blues-rock in striking fashion. The box set features original engineer Bruce Botnick’s remastered version of the 1970 album produced by Paul Rothschild on both CD…
Review: Joel McNeely, ‘Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire’
For the 42 years Star Wars has been a pop cultural force, musical oddities have followed in the wake of its starship engines. Sure, legendary composer John Williams put an interstellar jazz number in the middle of his almost operatic score to the original 1977 film, but that didn’t predict a chart-topping disco song, or Christmas albums, or quirky EDM, or various other ephemera in the ensuing decades. When Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire was released in 1996, amid a major comeback for that galaxy far, far away (eventually culminating in…
True to Themselves: Omnivore Announces New Album from Badfinger’s Joey Molland and Wax Cylinder (!) from Dom Flemons
As the only living member of the original Badfinger quartet, it’s fallen to Joey Molland to keep the torch burning brightly for his old band. But in addition to touring as Joey Molland’s Badfinger, the Liverpool-born singer-songwriter-guitarist/rock and roll survivor has recorded a number of solo albums since 1984. Last year, he appeared in the well-received tour of It Was Fifty Years Ago Today: A Tribute to The Beatles’ White Album alongside such talents as Todd Rundgren, Micky Dolenz, Christopher Cross, and Chicago’s Jason Scheff. Omnivore Recordings has announced that his latest…
Tears For Fears Sow ‘The Seeds Of Love’ With New Surround Remix, Deluxe Box
Time to eat all your words, swallow your pride, open your eyes: Tears For Fears are finally giving their third album the deluxe treatment. The Seeds Of Love, the British duo’s 1989 release, will be made available October 9 from UMC in a number of formats. The crown jewel is a 4CD/Blu-ray box featuring a new remaster of the album by Andrew Walter at Abbey Road, rare B-sides and remixes, 23 previously unreleased demos, mixes, outtakes and rehearsal audio, plus a long-awaited 5.1 surround remix by Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, following up…
Yardbird Suite: Universal Celebrates Charlie Parker’s Centennial With “Bird 100” Campaign
August 29 will mark what would have been the 100th birthday of Charlie Parker. The alto saxophonist is a pillar of jazz as we know it, transforming the genre as a leader of the bebop sound. To celebrate, Universal Music Group’s UMe arm is continuing its Bird 100 campaign to include vinyl reissues of his Clef Records material, a new collection of Los Angeles sessions in the ’40s and ’50s, a new book of complete music scores, a graphic novel by Z2 Comics (publisher of Grateful Dead: Origins), a CD collection of…
It’s Magic: Crimson Collects “Gold” from Doris Day, Neil Sedaka, Tammy Wynette, The Foundations
Today, we’re rounding up a quartet of recent additions to Crimson Productions’ ever-growing library of 3-CD Gold collections! The Foundations occupy a place in history as the first multi-racial band to score a U.K. No. 1 single in the 1960s. While the pop-soul group’s run of hits was relatively short-lived, their classics “Build Me Up, Buttercup” and “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” still remain in the rotation on oldies stations everywhere. Crimson’s Gold volume proves that The Foundations’ legacy extends beyond just those two songs with 46 catchy selections on three…
All Rise: New Box Set Anthologizes Herb Alpert’s Discography
There are truly few in the music business like Herb Alpert. A trumpet player, songwriter, label co-founder, sculptor and philanthropist – Alpert is all these things and more, and they’re all due to be on display in a forthcoming documentary, appropriately titled Herb Alpert Is…, slated to premiere October 1. Just one day later, a new overview of his storied musical career is due. The box set Herb Alpert Is…, to be released through his own Herb Alpert Presents label, will compile 63 tracks from his storied studio output – those legendary…
We Were Half A Million Strong: Massive Woodstock Collection Arrives in High-Resolution Digital Formats
Fifty-one years ago this past weekend, a crowd of half a million converged at Max Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, New York for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. The four-day event became a cultural touchstone and mythical ideal, strengthened even more by the Woodstock film and soundtracks that proliferated the marketplace during the early ’70s and beyond. While performers, fans, and countless supposed attendees participated in even more myth-building, a small group of historians and researchers worked to piece together what really happened. Last year, a decade-long dive into Woodstock tape vaults…
Cruisin’ for Love: Cherry Red, RPM Collect The Complete Kursaal Flyers on “Little Does She Know”
The Kursaal Flyers – founded in Southend-on-Sea, some 40 miles or 64 kilometers east of central London and so named for the town’s famous building which once housed part of a famous amusement park – made their biggest splash with the 1976 single “Little Does She Know,” produced by Mike Batt in thunderous Phil Spector style. Cherry Red’s RPM Records has recently chronicled the full Kursaal Flyers story as one of the imprint’s final projects. Little Does She Know: The Complete Recordings has five albums plus copious bonus tracks on four CDs,…
Sinister Footwear II: Frank Zappa’s “Halloween 81” Box Set Arrives In October
It wouldn’t be Halloween without a little Frank Zappa…and this year, Zappa Records and UMe are delivering once again with a frightfully entertaining new box set. October 2 will see the release of Halloween 81, following up the previous releases of Halloween 73 and 77. The 6-CD box set boasts 78 previously unreleased live tracks from three concerts for more than seven hours of listening. The bandleader’s New York Halloween shows were among his most anticipated as he blended his signature musical virtuosity with a heavily tongue-in-cheek dose of seasonal revelry. The…
Any Man Of Hers: Shania Twain Expands ‘The Woman In Me’
Country superstar Shania Twain is celebrating the 25th anniversary of her breakthrough album The Woman In Me with a multiformat reissue in October. The Woman In Me: Diamond Edition will be available as a 2CD edition or 3CD box set, each packed with rare and unreleased tracks. Both versions feature a disc of rare single-only remixes and live tracks, both from earlier in her career (a pair of live B-sides from a 1998 concert in Dallas recorded for a DirecTV special) and from just a few months ago (five unreleased versions of…
Deluxe Edition of Linkin Park’s Debut ‘Hybrid Theory’ About To Break
One of the bestselling albums released in 2000 is getting revisited in a big way this year: Linkin Park’s debut album Hybrid Theory. The first album from the California rap/rock combo will be reissued October 9 in three rarity-packed editions for its 20th anniversary. A 2CD version pairs the original album with a bonus disc featuring a dozen B-sides, demos, live tracks and remixes from various European-only CD singles. A bigger 4LP box set features those albums alongside a 2LP reissue of Reanimation, the group’s 2002 album of remixes from Hybrid Theory….
That Summer Feeling: Jonathan Richman’s “I, Jonathan” Receives First-Ever Vinyl Issue
Boston-hailing ex-Modern Lover Jonathan Richman’s I, Jonathan was his fourth solo album, hailed as a masterpiece of lo-fi and a master class in songwriting. Originally released in 1992 on Rounder Records, I, Jonathan now receives its first-ever vinyl reissue as part of a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the label. The new pressing arrived today on Craft Recordings. Upon its release, the album brought the somewhat underground, offbeat artist to a new group of fans, joining a group of cult-like admirers of his quirky, ever-shifting music styles. And one listen to I,…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 14
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmo’s Factory [Half-Speed Master] (Craft Recordings) LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP/merch bundle: Craft Recordings Online Shop Craft Recordings reissues Creedence Clearwater Revival’s hit-filled fifth album – featuring “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” “Run Through the Jungle,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Travelin’ Band,” and “Up Around the Bend” – on 180-gram half-speed mastered vinyl (from high-resolution transfers of the original analog tapes). Mastering is by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Read more here! Dolores Gray, Heat Wave: The Decca Singles 1953-1955 (Stage Door Records)…
See a Little Light: Bob Mould Plans ‘Distortion’ Box Set, Vinyl Reissue Series
Looking for a way to celebrate Bob Mould ahead of his next album, Blue Hearts, due next month? British label Edsel is joining forces with the punk icon to collect nearly everything he’s ever released into a new CD box set. Distortion 1989-2019, available October 2, offers 24 discs of Mould’s work after the dissolution of seminal hardcore outfit Hüsker Dü. It features all his studio albums credited to himself, ’90s power trio Sugar and even dance-oriented side projects LoudBomb and Blowoff, plus four live sets and two discs of stray tracks…
Love You So: Rare David Bowie Live Show Arriving August 14, “Young Americans” Vinyl Reissue To Follow
As keepers of the David Bowie catalogue, Parlophone has been presenting a wealth of CD box sets, vinyl reissues, and digital rarities in recent years. Now, another batch is on the way. Back in May, LiveandWell.com received its first wide commercial release on digital platforms. Prior to that, the label announced the RSD release of ChangesNowBowie on both CD and vinyl, and most recently, Parlophone delivered Ouvrez Le Chien (Live Dallas 95) to digital services. This Friday, another ’90s live recording will hit digital download and streaming services. Meanwhile, vinyl aficionados will…
Sultans Of Swing: Dire Straits Albums Collected In New Box
That’s the way you do it: Dire Straits’ studio discography will be released as a box set this fall. The aptly-named The Studio Albums 1978-1991 will be released by Virgin/UMC in Europe and Warner/Rhino in the U.S. on October 9. It contains the band’s six original albums: Dire Straits (1978), Communiqué (1979), Making Movies (1980), Love Over Gold (1982), Brothers In Arms (1985) and On Every Street (1991). All of these releases reached the Top 5 of the U.K. charts (with the latter three going to No. 1) and were certified gold,…
Countdown: Rhino Celebrates 60 Years of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”
John Coltrane’s 1960 Atlantic debut was entitled Giant Steps, and indeed, that’s what the saxophonist took on this groundbreaking album. Intense, dark, probing: the color of his saxophone was all his own. On September 18, Rhino will celebrate 60 years of Giant Steps with a multi-format anniversary edition encompassing 2-LP and 2-CD sets as well as a digital Super Deluxe Edition for streaming or download. An early innovator in bebop and hard bop and later a groundbreaker in modal and free jazz, Coltrane eventually became known for his deeply spiritual, moody, avant-garde explorations…
This Is The Life: Weird Al’s Drummer, Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, On His New Book Of Photos
Ever wonder what it’s like to be behind one of the most famous comedy musicians of all time? Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz literally knows – and, for the first time, he’s getting to tell his side of the story. The versatile drummer, who’s played on every one of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s records and tours for the past four decades, is releasing Black & White & Weird All Over: The Lost Photographs Of “Weird Al” Yankovic ’83-’86 through 1984 Publishing on October 27, four days after Al’s 61st birthday. True to its name, this…
Greater American Saturday Night: Bobby Bare and Shel Silverstein Celebrated On Bear Family Box
What do you get when you combine one of country’s most underrated outlaws and one of the 20th century’s most beloved poets? A new box set from Bear Family will answer that question across eight incredible discs. Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein Plus collects more than 100 tunes the unlikely duo collaborated on during Bare’s tenure on the RCA and Columbia labels between 1973 and 1983. The set represents a dozen of Bare’s albums, including six presented in full herein. An impressive 25 tracks are being released for the first time, either…
Roxy Special: Real Gone Music Unearths Jazz Titles From Kellee Patterson, Raymond Scott Big Band
Jazz fans will no doubt be setting their sights on September 25, as Real Gone Music releases two lost gems of jazz: Kellee Patterson’s Maiden Voyage , another slice of the seventies from the Black Jazz Records catalog, and Hemidemisemiquaver: Buried Treasures of the Raymond Scott Big Band, which celebrates an often overlooked period in the career of the Warner Bros. cartoon composer and electronic music trailblazer. First up, the exciting reissue of Kellee Patterson’s first album for the label, Maiden Voyage. The exceedingly rare album is full of tasteful vocal jazz,…