Christmas music was a vital part of the Carpenters canon from the very beginning. In 1970, Richard and Karen contributed their own standard to the yuletide canon with "Merry Christmas Darling," the first of three holiday singles released by the brother-and-sister duo. Richard set to music the lyric written by Frank Pooler, choir director at the Carpenters' alma mater of California State University - Long Beach (today the home of the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center), and in
In Memoriam: Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024)
On a Sunday mornin' sidewalk/I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned/'Cause there's somethin' in a Sunday/That makes a body feel alone... With songs such as "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," Kris Kristofferson expanded the vernacular of country music, bringing realism, gritty authenticity, and a literate sensibility - he was an Oxford-schooled Rhodes Scholar - to a genre already known for its unvarnished musical stories of pain and heartbreak. Kristofferson would find himself at the vanguard of
Good Lovin': Massive Rascals Collection Offers Group's Entire Atlantic Catalogue, Plus Unreleased Tracks
A new collection from Now Sounds offers a most comprehensive look at blue-eyed soul band The Rascals. It's Wonderful: The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings, released May 31, offers expanded editions of the group's seven studio albums issued between 1966 and 1971, including four albums in stereo and mono mixes and a selection of bonus tracks including single versions and 14 unreleased studio recordings. Produced and mastered by Alec Palao, the set includes a new essay on the group by Richie
Pride of Cucamonga: Grateful Dead's "From The Mars Hotel: The Angel's Share" Offers Outtakes, Alternates
Late last month, Rhino announced the upcoming 50th anniversary of Grateful Dead's From the Mars Hotel, arriving on June 21. Today, the label surprised with a new volume of The Angel's Share, the Dead's digital-only vault series comprising album session recordings. From the Mars Hotel: The Angel's Share is available now on all digital services, featuring 16 newly-discovered recordings from San Francisco's Coast Recorders from Spring 1974 as the Dead crafted Mars Hotel over a two-month period.
Take It 'To the Limit': New Eagles Triple Album Offers Hits, Live Cuts
Last fall, Eagles embarked on their Long Goodbye tour. While dates are currently expected to stretch into 2025 - hence the "long" part of the title - the band stated that "everything has its time, and the time has come for us to close the circle." The tour currently has gigs lined up through June in North America and Europe, including stops in Chicago, Toronto, and Manchester. Each show has amounted to a greatest-hits retrospective, and so it's no surprise that a companion audio release will
Best of All Possible Worlds: "Maestro on Record" Offers Leonard Bernstein Recordings, Photos in One Volume
Director-star Bradley Cooper's long-awaiting Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, featuring Cooper as the late composer-conductor (1918-1990) and Carey Mulligan as his wife Felicia Montealegre, opens next week in limited theatrical release before arriving December 20 on Netflix. Bernstein's final label home of Deutsche Grammophon (DG) has the official soundtrack album featuring the new recordings made for the film by Yannick Nezet-Seguin leading the London Symphony Orchestra as well as a 2-CD
Here Goes: Frank Sinatra's "Platinum" Offers Retrospective of His Capitol Recordings
70 years ago, in 1953, Frank Sinatra made the move from Columbia Records to the Capitol label. Having chafed under the direction of Columbia's pop guru Mitch Miller, the future Chairman of the Board sought - and received - creative freedom at the Tower on Hollywood and Vine. Co-founded by songwriter Johnny Mercer, Capitol provided an artist-friendly environment in which Sinatra could, and would, thrive. On October 27, the label will release Frank Sinatra: Platinum, a 2CD, 4LP, or digital
Is This the Way to Amarillo? "Essential Tony Christie" Offers Hits, Rarities, and Unreleased Tracks
In 1972, Yorkshire-born Tony Christie took Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield's jaunty "(Is This the Way To) Amarillo" to the top of the pops throughout the world: No. 1 in Belgium and Germany, the top ten in Switzerland, The Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, and the top twenty in his native United Kingdom. Thirty-three years later, in 2005, the same recording was re-released to raise funds for the Comic Relief charity. Propelled by a music video featuring comedian Peter
Lightning Frightening: New Bowie Box Offers 'Hunky Dory'-Era Rarities
Hot on the heels of the success of the documentary Moonage Daydream (and its recently released soundtrack, currently streaming and coming soon to physical media), Parlophone has announced a major audio excavation from the David Bowie vault. On November 25, 2022, the label will release Divine Symmetry (An Alternative Journey Through Hunky Dory), a 4CD/1BD box set chronicling the twelve months leading up to the December 1971 release of Bowie's fourth studio album. Highlighted by 48 previously
In His Room: Brian Wilson's "At My Piano" Offers Solo Piano Renditions of Beach Boys Favorites
Those lucky enough to have seen Brian Wilson in one of his solo concerts knows that it's always a special moment when the Beach Boys' leader plays the piano. While he's always seated in front of a keyboard, he leaves the heavy lifting to such long-serving bandmates as Darian Sahanaja, Gary Griffin, or Billy Hinsche. Yet his mastery of the instrument has never been in doubt; in one moving moment of the recent documentary Long Promised Road, he's seen in the studio showing exactly how a tune
Out of the Past: Vinyl Me Please Releases 50th 'Classics' Title with Abbey Lincoln's 'It's Magic,' Offers Chance to Win Past Titles
Earlier this year, Vinyl Me Please marked 100 releases in its Essentials track and reissued ten key titles from artists including Queen, Al Green, and Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Now, the record club is releasing the 50th title in its Classics series concentrating on Soul, Blues, and Jazz. (Hip-Hop and Country tracks are also available to monthly subscribers.) That 50th title is vocalist Abbey Lincoln's third studio album, 1958's It's Magic, in a new edition remastered by Ryan Smith in an
A Song for You: Recent Ace Collections Spotlight Songs of Leon Russell, Kris Kristofferson
Ace Records' two most recent entries in its Songwriter Series of collections both spotlight artists who bucked tradition to forge their own paths at the end of the 1960s and the dawn of the 1970s: Leon Russell and Kris Kristofferson. As we wrote upon his passing in 2016 at the age of 74, Leon Russell was an extraordinary talent unlike any other: A true renaissance man and an extraordinary talent as composer, musician, arranger, producer, and artist, The Master of Space and Time led many
Everybody's Talkin': Crimson Releases "Gold" Collections from Nilsson, Kris Kristofferson, Jim Reeves, Glenn Miller, Joe Brown
Crimson Productions' series of budget-priced Gold compilations has continued with a number of new titles spotlighting artists from the pop-rock, country, and big band genres. Today, we'll take a look at five of those recent releases. Nilsson: Gold features 45 tracks from singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson's RCA recordings. As Nilsson's oeuvre has been comprehensively addressed in the past - most notably on the 2013 box set The RCA Albums Collection - there's not much that's new here. Arranged
'60s ROCK, POP AND SOUL: New Treasury Collection DVD Set Offers Over 100 Favorites
Earlier this year, The Second Disc shared news of Rock, Pop and Doo Wop, a 7-DVD collection from Treasury Collection and executive producer-director TJ Lubinsky. Now, with the holidays upon us, a new set featuring dozens of classic hit-makers has just been released: '60s Rock, Pop and Soul. This 4-DVD package has been culled from two decades of Lubinsky's historic television concerts, with 130 hit songs from a "Who's Who" of legendary performers including Frankie Valli ("Can't Take My Eyes
Short Takes, Holiday Edition: "Beetlejuice" Offers Demos, Anne Murray Collects Christmas Favorites
Halloween might be over, but the party still continues: Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Legend has it that if you say his name three times, the demon - introduced on screen by Michael Keaton and then on Broadway by Alex Brightman - appears before you. While Beetlejuice: The Musical had its New York run curtailed by COVID-19 after 366 performances, you can't keep a good demon down. The Ghostlight Records cast recording starring Brightman, Sophia Anne Caruso, Rob McClure, Leslie Kritzer,
UPDATE: Universal Addresses Playback Issues with Richard and Linda Thompson's "Hard Luck Stories" Box Set, Offers Replacement Discs
UPDATE 9/24: Just days prior to the U.S. release date of Richard and Linda Thompson's box set Hard Luck Stories (1972-1982), it became known that some copies of the collection were plagued by playback issues and difficulty ripping the discs to one's personal computer. The Second Disc immediately reached out for comment, and today, Universal Music has addressed the situation with an official statement. We're sharing that statement (which is also available at uDiscovermusic.com, the label's
Watching The Wheels: Kenneth Womack's New Biography "John Lennon: 1980" Offers A Comprehensive Look At The Artist's Later Days
John Lennon has been in the news a lot lately, and with good reason. 2020 marks what would have been the musician's 80th birthday and, sadly, it's also the fortieth year since his death. But there's more to that final year of John's life than the tragic events of December 8, 1980. In his new biography, John Lennon: 1980 - The Last Days in the Life, Beatles expert Kenneth Womack tracks that period of creativity and reinvention, writing in a way that's simultaneously approachable yet
Paul McCartney Releases "Beautiful Night" EP, Offers Free Exclusive Download of Rare 1986 Version
Ahead of the exciting Flaming Pie Archive set that's due to arrive on July 31, Paul McCartney has released a trio of digital EPs starting with Young Boy, then The World Tonight. Today, he's released another digital EP, Beautiful Night. This one isn't too different from the last two in that it offers highlights from the box set. Among its four tracks are the remastered version of the song, a 1995 demo, a studio run-through, and the radio show mix "Oobu Joobu, Pt. 5." But, as a surprise to
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
UPDATE: Vinyl Me Please Offers Exclusive Vinyl Variant of Laura Nyro's "More Than a New Discovery" from Second Disc Records, Real Gone Music
UPDATE 1/2/20: Over two years ago, Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music released A Little Magic, A Little Kindness: The Complete Mono Albums Collection from the late Laura Nyro. The centerpiece of that two-disc anthology was the world premiere CD release of the original mono version of Nyro's Verve Folkways debut, More Than a New Discovery. Now, that rare and superior mix is making its way to limited edition vinyl as our first release of 2020. Seldom has the title of a debut album been
La-La Land's Annual Black Friday Blowout Offers 'Star Trek,' 'Karate Kid,' Disaster Scores and More
It wouldn't be Black Friday without an announcement of one last killer batch of archival soundtracks from La-La Land Records. The impressive slate of titles the label announced are on sale now, and we've got the scoop on all of them! First up, it's a second, long-promised collection of music from Star Trek Voyager, the third live-action spinoff based on Gene Roddenberry's iconic sci-fi series that aired between 1966 and 1969. Hot off the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
See The Bright Lights: Real Gone Offers Classic Live Concerts From Richard Thompson, Jefferson Airplane in August
Real Gone Music has announced the release of two classic live performances -- one a gig by the multi-faceted guitarist Richard Thompson, and the other the vinyl debut of Jefferson Airplane's Woodstock set. Richard Thompson is one of the great guitarists of his generation and an accomplished singer-songwriter who has remained vital for over fifty years, starting with his genre-bending work as part of Fairport Convention. Over the course of his solo career, Thompson released several
Get a Tiger By the Tail: Omnivore Offers Sealed, Original Buck Owens LPs from Buck's Own Collection
Tomorrow, May 31, Omnivore Recordings releases the third and final volume of country legend Buck Owens' Capitol Records singles - the most recent in a long-running series of releases on Omnivore from the late Bakersfield, California-based artist, songwriter, musician, and bandleader. Now, the label is teaming with Owens' estate for a special initiative also beginning Friday. Forty original, vintage, sealed Buck Owens LPs will be made available for sale exclusively through Omnivore's
Sweet Memories: Elvis' 'The Best Of The '68 Comeback Special' Offers Highlights From Iconic Show Plus New Tribute
The celebration for Elvis Presley's '68 "comeback special" is continuing into the new year. Legacy Recordings and RCA have announced a new single-CD collection to coincide with an upcoming NBC-TV tribute to the original December 1968 broadcast. The Best of the '68 Comeback Special, coming on February 15, features highlights from the recent '68 Comeback Special box set with performances culled from both of the "stand-up" and "sit-down" shows recorded in June, 1968 for the special.
Pedal Patter: Omnivore Offers Buck Owens Classics on Tom Brumley Compilation, "Steelin' The Show"
Buck Owens and His Buckaroos were among the hottest country acts of the 1960s, thanks in no small part to Tom Brumley's masterful pedal steel guitar work. Tomorrow, December 14, Omnivore Recordings will release a new compilation, Steelin' The Show, which collects some of "Tender" Tom Brumley's best work. The collection will be available on CD and through digital download and streaming services. As music historian Scott Bomar notes, Brumley was a true craftsman on pedal steel and dobro. "He
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