Though they're located across the pond, the team at Ace Records literally has the entire map of the U.S. covered when it comes to celebrating classic soul sounds. Among the numerous titles recently issued by the Ace family are three geographically-attuned sets sure to pique your ears and interest. Ace's journey begins in the American northeast, and specifically in New York City, with a second volume of Manhattan Soul. Like the first volume in the series, it's drawn from the considerable
In The Shadow of The Shadows: Songwriter Jerry Lordan Remembered on "All My Own Work"
Just who the heck was Jerry Lordan anyway? The English singer, songwriter, actor and comedian (1934-1995) provided hit records for Dale Hawkins, Anthony Newley, The Shadows and Jet Harris, but Lordan has never gotten his due in the CD era. Because most of his work came in the pre-Beatles era of British pop, too many of Jerry Lordan's songs are all but forgotten. RPM Records, an imprint of Cherry Red, has come to right that wrong with the comprehensive All My Own Work, combining Lordan's
GNP Crescendo Boldly Goes Again with New "Trek" Reissue
If you thought the Star Trek reissue renaissance couldn't get any better this year, there's at least one more release to bring your ears into maximum warp: GNP Crescendo, longtime Trek soundtrack label, announced yesterday an expanded edition of the score to 1994's Star Trek: Generations. Generations came to theaters months after the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation, an excellent program which rekindled interest in Gene Roddenberry's space franchise. It was no surprise that Patrick
Compilation Watch: Best-Ofs Planned for Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson
Next month - the all-important Christmas shopping season - sees two compilations from two immensely popular singers from the RCA roster with unmistakable voices. The label will release new compilations in the same week for departed R&B legend Whitney Houston and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson - the latter of whom definitely owes more than a little of her style to the former. I Will Always Love You: The Best of Whitney Houston marks a few firsts in Whitney's catalogue: it's her
Review: The Beach Boys Remasters, Part Two: The Album-by-Album Guide
It’s about time now! Don’t you know now? It’s about time we get together to be out front and love one another… - Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, Bob Burchman and Al Jardine (1970) Isn’t it time we danced the night away? How about doing it just like yesterday? - Brian Wilson, Joe Thomas, Jim Peterik, Larry Millas and Mike Love (2012) No, Mike Love didn’t fire Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys. But that didn’t stop the Beach Boys’ leader, producer and chief songwriter from telling The Los
Review: Barbra Streisand, "Release Me"
On Saturday evening, October 13, Barbra Joan Streisand triumphantly concluded a two-night engagement at Brooklyn, New York’s brand-new Barclays Center. The two evenings marked her first public performances in the borough of her birth since she dropped the “a” from Barbara and followed the call of superstardom, first to Manhattan and then to Hollywood. Streisand recalled to the audience of 19,000 that her last time singing in Brooklyn was on a stoop! Still, she serenaded the community with
Omnivore's Black Friday Schedule: Capitol Rarities on Vinyl, Jellyfish Instrumentals on CD
We're close to that most wonderful time of the year, folks! No, not Christmas, but - well, yeah, I guess Christmas is closer than we'd all wish it would be. But ANYWAY, the wonderful time I was alluding to is Record Store Day's Black Friday event. The day after Thanksgiving, our beloved local independent record stores join forces with major and independent labels alike to release special exclusive treats as a way of thanking us for patronizing their businesses. While a full list of RSD
The Fruits of Another: Paul Carrack's Career Anthologized on Triple-Disc "Collected"
Like some sort of blue-eyed soul version of Zelig, Paul Carrack has been a fixture of British rock for decades. As frontman of pub-rock Ace, he took "How Long" to the U.K. Top 20 and to No. 3 on Billboard's U.S. chart. He joined Roxy Music for their reunion album Manifesto in 1979, then sang and played keyboards for Squeeze on their iconic East Side Story album in 1981, which yielded the unforgettable "Tempted." Even while eking out a solo career post-Squeeze (enjoying U.S. hits with "Don't
Do The (Salsoul) Hustle: Big Break Celebrates Salsoul Records Legacy with Four Reissues
By 1975, Philadelphia soul had become too big even for the City of Brotherly Love. In the first half of the decade, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff had, along with the third member of their Mighty Three, Thom Bell, reinvented the sound of soul music. The Pennsylvania city had become synonymous with sweeping strings, punchy horns and the hi-hat cymbal of drummer Earl Young, offering up music that could be dramatic, sweet and funky, sometimes all within the same three-minute song! Bell had long
Review: Old 97's, "Too Far to Care: Expanded Edition"
Was it rock and roll? Was it country and western? By 1997, Rhett Miller and his Old 97’s were, well, Too Far to Care. As Miller recalls in his liner notes to Omnivore Recordings’ new 2-CD expanded edition of the band’s seminal third album (OVCD-45, 2012), his “little band from Texas…had only recently gotten folks to stop referring to their particular brand of music as ‘rockabilly.’” The Old 97’s were subject to a major label bidding war in which Elektra Records proved victorious, giving the
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Wonderful Tonight: Clapton's "Slowhand" Goes Super Deluxe This Winter
Eric Clapton gained the nickname “Slowhand” from Giorgio Gomelsky in the 1960s, once recalling that the impresario and Yardbirds manager coined it “as a good pun. He kept saying I was a fast player, so he put together the ‘slow handclap’ phrase [when a restless audience claps slowly hoping the performer will arrive onstage] into ‘Slowhand’ as a play on words.” Clapton fully embraced the name in 1977 as the title of his fifth studio album as a solo artist, following stints in the Yardbirds, John
Review: The Beatles, "Magical Mystery Tour" on Blu-ray and DVD
“Paul said ‘Look I’ve got this idea’ and we said ‘great!’ and all he had was this circle and a little dot on the top – that’s where we started,” Ringo Starr recalls in one of the special features included on Apple’s new DVD and Blu-ray of The Beatles’ 1967 BBC television film Magical Mystery Tour. That McCartney-drawn circle, later transformed into a pie chart, is included in the accompanying booklet. It epitomizes the loose, freewheeling nature of this largely improvised musical journey
Review: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb, "In Session"
What drew together the son of a sharecropper from Delight, Arkansas and the minister’s boy from Eld City, Oklahoma? They were separated by a decade; one conservative, one liberal; one singer, one songwriter; one an establishment country star, the other a long-haired pop wunderkind – the paths of Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb first crossed when Campbell chose to record Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” in 1967. The Oklahoma kid had written the song as a young staff songwriter at Motown’s
Bikini Kill to Reissue Debut EP, Archival Campaign Planned
Here's something to add to the growing pile of '90s reissue nostalgia: riot-grrl rock act Bikini Kill, who announced earlier this year the acquisition of their own back catalogue, is prepping the first physical reissue from that discography: a 20th anniversary edition of their debut EP. From 1990 to 1997, Bikini Kill were at the forefront of a punk movement that saw empowered women expressing their views through good old-fashioned rock and roll. Singer/songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy
Take the Power Back: 20 Years of Rage Against the Machine Celebrated on "XX"
When current Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan earlier this year listed Rage Against the Machine among his favorite bands, more than a few eyebrows were raised, including those of the rap-rock-metal band’s guitarist, Tom Morello. In a withering op-ed piece for Rolling Stone, Morello cited Ryan as “the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades,” affirming that “his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is
GRRR! And The Stones Keep On Rolling with Career-Spanning Box Set, All-New Songs [NOW WITH TRACK LISTING]
When the Rolling Stones kick a celebration into high gear, they're not kidding. Hot on the heels of various and sundry documentaries, DVDs, Blu-rays and luxury vinyl box sets, the world's greatest rock and roll band has just announced its first-ever compilation-styled career-spanning box set. GRRR! is a joint project of ABKCO and Universal Music Group, and it's slated to arrive on November 13 in the U.S. and one day earlier in all other territories. The new set is more comprehensive than the
Rancid Think Big and Small for 20th Anniversary Vinyl Box Set
Raise your hand if you're excited about a box set featuring nearly the complete discography of punk revivalists Rancid. Now, keep your hand raised if you're excited that it's on vinyl. Still with us? Now, how about a 46-disc vinyl set? No, we didn't add wrong. Rancid Essentials, to be released later this year, includes all seven of the band's studio albums, their 1992 debut EP and the 2007 B Sides and C Sides compilation, newly remastered and pressed as 45 RPM 7" vinyl discs. That's four discs
Review: The Beach Boys Remasters, Part One: "50 Big Ones: Greatest Hits"
We’re continuing our series of in-depth features dedicated to America’s band, The Beach Boys, and the various projects that have kept the group occupied throughout 2012! Today, as the Boys launch a new series of album reissues and compilation titles, we explore Greatest Hits, 50 Big Ones and more! It was the headline heard the world (wide web) over: Mike Love Fires Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. Of course, it wasn’t true. No matter, though: suddenly, good, good, good vibrations were
Festival of Life: T. Rex's "The Slider" Gets Super-Deluxe Treatment from Edsel
T. Rex's iconic The Slider is getting the super deluxe treatment from Edsel for its 40th anniversary, The Quietus reports. The band's seventh album followed up the head-turning glam rock style of Electric Warrior, which featured the U.S. hits "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" and "Jeepster." Working again with producer Tony Visconti in Paris, The Slider is a tight, heavy-duty album - perhaps a bit denser than its predecessor, but no less rewarding. Singles "Telegram Sam" and the "festival of life" song
Release Round-Up: Week of October 9
The Beach Boys, 2012 Remasters / Greatest Hits / Greatest Hits: Fifty Big Ones (Capitol/EMI) The summer gets a little more endless with a new compilation (in two formats) and remasters of nearly all of the band's '60s albums. (A full breakdown of those albums is here, and a full review is coming up from Joe today!) The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour (Apple/EMI) The Fab Four's kooky film is making its Blu-Ray debut in standard and deluxe box formats. Deep Purple, Machine Head: 40th
Review: Steve Winwood, "Arc of a Diver: Deluxe Edition"
Steve Winwood turned 32 in 1980, a grand old man by rock and roll standards. He was already a veteran, having played with the Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith and perhaps most notably, Traffic, but a 1977 solo debut failed to yield significant commercial gains. “I suppose I’ve always been a band leader, rather than a virtuoso like [Blind Faith bandmate] Eric Clapton,” Winwood once mused. So it might have come as a shock to many when the inner virtuoso emerged on New Year’s Eve, 1980, with the
Donald Fagen Gives "Cheap XMas" Gift with Career-Spanning Digital Compilation
In preparation for Steely Dan singer Donald Fagen's fourth solo album, Sunken Condos, Reprise is releasing a compact digital compilation pairing the new album with the rest of Fagen's solo discography. Cheap XMas: Donald Fagen Complete is a digital box set featuring five discs worth of Fagen albums and non-LP material. The Nightfly (1982), Kamakiriad (1993) and Morph the Cat (2006), Fagen's jazzy "Nightfly Trilogy," will be included with the set, as well as the disc of non-LP material that
Falling In Love Again: Kritzerland Revisits "The Blue Angel," "Ranchipur" and "The Seven Cities of Gold"
Though Hugo Friedhofer’s name isn’t among the most recognizable in the pantheon of film composers, Kritzerland is determined to change all that! The 1947 Academy Award winner for The Best Years of Our Lives has been fêted by the label over the past couple of years with impressive restorations and reissues of his scores to One-Eyed Jacks, The Adventures of Casanova, The Barbarian and the Geisha and Violent Saturday, while Intrada has also gotten into the act with Two Flags West. The versatile
The One and Only: Salvo Expands Kirsty MacColl's Catalogue
This week, Salvo Records takes a big step in getting people to stop saying they don't know about the late, famed British singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl, by releasing new remastered and expanded editions of four of her albums. The reissue campaign, titled Kirsty MacColl: The One and Only, happens in honor of what would have been MacColl's 53rd birthday. Salvo has prepped double-disc expansions of her albums Kite (1989), Electric Landlady (1991) and Titanic Days (1993), as well as the
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