Gather 'round, fellows, I'll tell you some tales... "If I had known what you were doing in the studio, I would have stopped it," Bobby Bare recalled RCA Victor's Jerry Bradley telling him upon hearing the singer's 1973 double album Sings Lullabys, Legends, and Lies. Happily, Bradley had to live with the album that marked Bare's return to RCA after a brief sojourn to rival Mercury Records. RCA's Nashville chief Chet Atkins wanted Bare back on the label, and gave him the freedom to create the
Still Disturbing the Peace: New Liberation Hall Label Reissues Bay Area New Wave, Punk, Ska from 415 Records
The vaults of San Francisco indie label 415 Records have opened! 415 was founded in 1978 by rock promoter Howie Klein and record store owner Chris Knab. Together with friend and collector Butch Bridges, they built a powerhouse indie label focusing on young new wave bands such as SVT, The Uptones, and Pop-O-Pies. 415 was championed by Bay Area luminaries such as manager/Fillmore impresario Bill Graham and producer/studio owner David Rubinson. Columbia Records took notice of 415's activities,
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Posthumous Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings Covers Set Features Unreleased Tracks
The story of Sharon Jones proves that it's never too late to follow your dreams. The late Georgia-born, New York City-raised singer spent many years as a corrections officer and an armored car guard before rising to fame in her forties when she was "discovered" by producers Gabriel Roth and Phillippe Lehman. She recorded for their Pure Records and Desco Records labels, and her work for the latter caught the attention of soul collectors; the undated singles released by Desco led the
Release Round-Up: Week of October 16
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Tom Petty, Wildflowers & All the Rest (Warner Records) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4CD Deluxe Edition (above plus Home Recordings & Wildflowers Live): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 7LP Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 5CD Super Deluxe Edition (above plus Finding Wildflowers): TomPetty.com 9LP Super Deluxe Edition: TomPetty.com 9LP
Review: Frank Zappa, "Halloween 81"
"The finest night of the year..." Frank Zappa knew how to throw one hell of a Halloween party. The iconoclastic composer-bandleader counted Halloween as his favorite holiday, and his annual celebratory shows were among his most anticipated. The 1981 stand at the late, lamented Palladium - a once-plush 1927 movie palace sadly demolished in 1998 to make room for dormitories at New York University - was particularly special to Zappa's fans as he had curtailed the 1980 shows earlier than
Icky Thump: Third Man, Columbia Release The White Stripes' "Greatest Hits" in December
The White Stripes, a.k.a. Jack and Meg White, were among the leading proponents of the garage rock revival of the late 1990s and early 2000s with their lo-fi brand of riff-rock. They shot three LPs into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and more than ten singles into the upper regions of the Alternative Rock chart in addition to picking up multiple Grammy Awards. On December 4, the duo will team with Columbia Records and Jack White's Third Man Records to release the first U.S. commercial
Release Round-Up: Week of October 9
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! John Lennon, Gimme Some Truth: The Ultimate Mixes [Various Formats] (Capitol/UMe) 2CD/Blu-ray Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Today would have been John Lennon's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, Capitol and UMe have released
Wild Mountain Honey: Ace's "76 in the Shade" Features Steve Miller Band, Jefferson Starship, Smokey Robinson, Gilbert O'Sullivan, More
Producer-compiler Bob Stanley's last couple of compilations for Ace have placed him squarely within the 1970s. Earlier this year, Saint Etienne Present Songs for the Fountain Coffee Room (compiled by Stanley, Sarah Cracknell, and Pete Wiggs) conjured "the soundtrack for a bar in mid-'70s Los Angeles," or a St. Etienne-style spin on "yacht rock" with Stephen Bishop, Ned Doheny, Boz Scaggs, and Seals and Crofts among those featured. Stanley has followed Fountain Coffee Room up with a trip to a
The Best of Bond...James Bond
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscoverMusic (gold) The Best of Bond...James Bond offers a stellar 25-track overview of the pop themes that scored nearly all of the films based on Ian Fleming's famed British secret agent. There are 14 U.K. Top 10 hits and two Academy Award winners herein - altogether, a formidable, half-century-plus musical portrait of one of cinema's most popular characters. First released under this title by
Release Round-Up: Week of October 2
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Herb Alpert, Herb Alpert Is... (Herb Alpert Presents) 3CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 5LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Herb Alpert Is...a trumpeter, songwriter, producer, artist, entrepreneur, philanthropist. The list goes on. To tie in with director John Scheinfeld's documentary of that name premiering this fall, Alpert's own Herb Alpert Presents label is releasing a 3-CD or 5-LP deluxe box set tracing his
Short Takes: Grateful Dead Offer "American Beauty: The Angel's Share," Paul McCartney Celebrates Rupert Bear's 100th with Single Reissue
Back in July, the Grateful Dead released a collection of never-before-heard outtakes and session material from the band's 1970 classic Workingman's Dead. The digital release was entitled The Angel's Share, after a whiskey distillation term, and offered the most comprehensive glimpse yet into the Dead's creative process. Today, Rhino announced that there's more of The Angel's Share - this time, a digital release with over two hours of never-before-heard outtakes, demos, and alternate takes from
Your Sweet Voice: Matthew Sweet's Power-Pop Classic 'Girlfriend' Arriving on SACD, Signed Edition Also Available
If you've been reading The Second Disc for any amount of time, you probably know we're big fans of Intervention Records. Back in 2018, we profiled the label's ongoing Matthew Sweet artist-approved reissue series and reviewed the excellent vinyl edition of 100% Fun. Now we can share the exciting news that Sweet's breakthrough 1992 album Girlfriend is set to arrive on SACD through Intervention Records. The disc hits shops on October 16. What sets this one apart from the vinyl counterpart
The Walrus and Me: "Looking Through a Glass Onion" Collects Pop-Psych Beatles Covers
Let me take you down... The Beatles' songs were so sturdy and well-crafted that artists such as Matt Monro and Ella Fitzgerald became early adopters. But from the start, John, Paul, George, and Ringo's contemporaries had been just as likely as the older generation to mine their songbook. As the sixties continued and the Beatles ushered in the shift from pop to rock (minus the "and roll"), similarly youthful artists brought their own increasingly adventurous spins to the lads' material.
Nobody Does It Better: 'The Best of Bond...James Bond' Gets Update and Vinyl Release
With a new James Bond film set to shake (not stir) audiences in November, a longtime compilation of the super-spy's famed film themes is getting a new iteration on November 20. The Best of Bond...James Bond offers a stellar 25-track overview of the pop themes that scored nearly all of the films based on Ian Fleming's famed British secret agent. There are 14 U.K. Top 10 hits and two Academy Award winners herein - altogether, a formidable, half-century-plus musical portrait of one of cinema's
The Second Disc's Guide To Record Store Day Drop 2, September 26!
2020 has been a bit of a rollercoaster and Record Store Day 2020 is no exception: once scheduled in April, it moved forward a few months, and is now spread out across three Saturdays in the summer and fall. The Record Store Day Drop in August proved a success and round two, set for tomorrow, September 26, is sure to please fans of all genres and eras. It's a diverse list full of exciting releases that you can only find through your local brick-and-mortar record store (or through their online
Short Takes, Christmas Edition: Collections Coming from Peggy Lee and Buck Owens
This Friday, Capitol Records and UMe will release Peggy Lee's Ultimate Christmas on CD and vinyl as part of the Peggy Lee 100 celebration. This yuletide follow-up to Ultimate Peggy Lee brings together 22 holiday favorites from the late artist including selections from her Capitol albums Christmas Carousel (1960) and Happy Holiday (1965) - the latter an anthology of old and new material - as well as Decca and Capitol single releases and more. Ultimate Christmas includes a number of songs
Love on a Real Train: Tangerine Dream Collect Early '80s Works in 'Pilots of Purple Twilight'
Tangerine Dream will collect their early '80s works into a box set next month - including two unreleased soundtracks. Pilots of Purple Twilight: The Virgin Recordings 1980-1983, due in stores October 30, offers 10 CDs of work from the German electronic rock band as they began a new era of live performance and work in film and television. During this era, group founder Edgar Froesse and longtime member Christopher Franke were augmented with a third keyboardist, Johannes Schmoelling, to
Here Comes My Baby: Cherry Red Collects The Tremeloes' "Complete CBS Recordings"
When they signed to CBS Records in 1966, The Tremeloes were seeking a second act. Founded as a beat group in 1958, the Dagenham band fronted by Brian Poole scored numerous hits on the U.K. Singles Chart including covers of "Twist and Shout," "Candy Man," "I Want Candy," and "Do You Love Me," the latter of which reached No. 1. But when Poole left the group that bore his name in 1966, his bandmates found themselves at a crossroads. Yet they pressed onward, and a move from Decca to CBS yielded
A Hundred Million Miracles: Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Flower Drum Song" Reissued on Vinyl, Hi-Rez Digital
Flower Drum Song occupies a unique position in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon. The 1958 musical wasn't one of the duo's timeless hits (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music). Nor was it one of their three commercial misses (Allegro, Me and Juliet, Pipe Dream). Instead, when considering the R&H oeuvre, it resides somewhere in between. It played 600 performances, and yielded a successful London production, a couple of bona fide classic songs, a
UPDATE: Unreleased Thelonious Monk "Palo Alto" Concert Back On Track For September Release
UPDATED 9/4: "[It's] one of the best live recordings I've ever heard by Thelonious...I wasn't even aware of my dad playing a high school gig, but he and the band were on it." So says T.S. Monk, son of groundbreaking jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. "When I first heard the tape, from the first measure, I knew my father was feeling really good." The younger Monk is talking about Palo Alto, a newly unearthed concert recorded October 27, 1968 which will -- after much anticipation -- finally see
Barnes and Noble's Vinyl Weekend Begins TODAY with Exclusive LPs from The Doors, The Hollies, Bread, Linda Ronstadt, Otis Redding, Classic Broadway Musicals
Today, Vinyl Weekend kicks off at Barnes and Noble locations around the United States. This promotion sees the release a number of exclusive vinyl titles including classic albums, compilations, and cast recordings. These titles are typically available even at locations that (shudder) no longer have full music departments, and should also be available at BN.com. We're spotlighting the catalogue-related titles and more below. Click here to locate a B&N near you. Bread, Anthology of
Diamonds In The Rough: John Prine's First Seven Albums Collected In New Box
One of the more difficult side effects of this very strange year is bidding farewell to a number of musical luminaries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. John Prine's passing looms large among them, not only as one of the first cases but in light of the incredible few years he'd had: in 2018, his 18th album The Tree of Forgiveness became his first-ever Top 5 album, and in February 2020, only two months before he died, he earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. On October 23, fans new and old
Halloween 81
6CD Box: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1CD Highlights plus "Strictly Genteel": Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Frank Zappa's 1981 Halloween concerts at New York's late, lamented Palladium are collected on this new box set from Zappa Records/UMe. The 6-CD set is housed in a costume box with a Count Frankula mask as well as a red and black cape, natch. It's been produced by Ahmet Zappa and Vaultmeister Joe Travers, while the concerts have been newly remixed from the
This Is Soul: Ace Collects "The Soul of The Memphis Boys" with Elvis, Dusty, Box Tops, More
We've already filled you in on Ace's recent anthology collecting works by Philly soul maestro Thom Bell; now we're looking to the American South with another release! Way back in 2012, Ace Records collected the multifaceted sounds of Chips Moman and Don Crews' American Studios on Memphis Boys: The Story of American Studios. The 24-song tribute collection featured such visitors to Memphis as Dusty Springfield, Wilson Pickett, B.J. Thomas, and Solomon Burke as well as Elvis Presley, one of the
The Second Disc Guide to Record Store Day Drop 1 TOMORROW!
With the nation still fighting COVID-19, Record Store Day here in the U.S. looks a little - make that a lot - different this year. The usual offerings have been split among three dates with Drop 1 taking place tomorrow, August 29, at your local independent record retailer. Drop 2 is September 26, and Drop 3 is October 24. Every retailer is handling the Drop a bit differently thanks to the necessary accommodations for social distancing, smaller crowds, and better safety precautions. So please
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