Kritzerland’s final release of 2013 is sure to be one of its most talked-about. Today, the label announced an expanded and remastered CD presentation of Elmer Bernstein’s score to The Buccaneer. The 1958 Paramount Picture starred the King of Siam himself, Yul Brynner, opposite Claire Bloom, Charles Boyer and Charlton Heston in a rip-roaring adventure tale loosely based on real life and set during the War of 1812. Director Anthony Quinn’s film was a remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1938 movie of
Ace Celebrates Soulful Girls with "The Artistry of Brenda Holloway" and "Where the Girls Are"
If you want to know Where the Girls Are, look no further than two of Ace Records’ latest releases. The eighth installment of the label’s Where the Girls Are series is a grab-bag of the best girl-group pop you’ve never heard, while The Artistry of Brenda Holloway gives a much-deserved spotlight to the underrated Motown vocalist who so often found herself in the shadows of Diana Ross or Martha Reeves. Where the Girls Are Volume 8, compiled and annotated by Malcolm Baumgart and Mick Patrick,
Motown Rarities Uncovered on Vinyl Box, Digital Outtakes Set
Motown aficionados have a lot of fun stuff to dig through on a number of formats, with the recent release of a box set collecting 14 rare cuts on vinyl and a new, copyright law-busting compilation of 52 previously unavailable outtakes from some of the label's biggest names. Recently issued in the U.K., The Motown 7s Box: Rare and Unreleased Vinyl seems to take more of a tack about "tracks unreleased to vinyl" than "never-before-released tracks on vinyl." Everything here has been made available
Of Mamas, Papas, Raiders and Soundtracks: Real Gone's February Slate Revealed
The announcement of Real Gone Music's release schedule for February 2014 would be cause for celebration any day of the week. But this particular day is special, as you're about to find out. In addition to an ironclad lineup that includes A Gathering of Flowers, the long out-of-print 1970 collection from The Mamas & The Papas; The Complete Recordings by Brotherhood, an unfairly obscure psych-rock band comprised of Phil Volk, Drake Levin and Mike "Smitty" Smith of Paul Revere & The
Holiday Tunes Watch: Sony CMG Celebrates The Season with Bing, Buck, B.J., JB, Elvis and More
Occasionally the aisles of your local grocery or big-box store turn up releases you won't find even in your local indie music store. Such is the case with a recent batch of holiday-themed titles from Sony Commercial Music Group. Just in time for Christmas '13, CMG has unveiled a number of holiday compilations - and a handful of straight album reissues - for fans of classic pop (Bing Crosby, Patti Page), country (B.J. Thomas, Buck Owens, Roy Clark), rock-and-roll (Elvis Presley) and R&B
Review: James Taylor, "The Essential James Taylor"
In the annals of American popular song, there’s a place reserved for James Taylor. For 45 years, the Boston-born troubadour’s distinctive and soothing baritone has been a reassuring voice bringing light to the darkness with his nakedly emotional, often autobiographical music. Sure, recording technology has changed a bit over the years, but Taylor’s style now is essentially the same as it was then – applying that warm voice and shimmering, precise guitar to those direct, melodic and deceptively
SECOND DISCMAS 2013: Holiday Giveaways Just for You!
WINNERS! WE HAVE WINNERS! CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WEEK TWO WINNERS! RAY SCHOO, Winner of a Belinda Carlisle Gift Set! RYAN BRUSH, Winner of a Status Quo Gift Set! HANK NIEMCZYK, Winner of a Saxon Gift Set! ANTHONY CUSUMANO and ROBERT LETT, Winners of Buck Owens Bundles! WILL ETKIN, DAVID CURVIN and ANGELA M. CAMPBELL, Winners of Knack Bundles! MARK ATHERLAY and DAMIEN McPHERSON, Winners of Rhino Box Set Bundles! DARRYL NORSEN and RON LAVERY, Winners of Townes Van Zandt
The Second Disc's HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE 2013
Don't have time to make that list and check it twice? Looking for that perfect present to place under the tree this holiday season? Look no further! 2013 has brought an amazing array of deluxe (and super deluxe!) special editions and box sets, so we have highlighted the cream of the crop right here to make your spirits bright, whatever your musical taste! The Animals, The Mickie Most Years and More (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Real Gone Music jumps into the box set market with this
Give 'Em a Spin: The Second Disc's Essential Back to Black Friday 2013 Release Guide
Another year...another Black Friday. Yes, it's that time of year again in which consumers start off the holiday shopping season on a mad, frenetic note. This year is another one in which numerous big-box retailers in the U.S. have made headlines by blackening Thursday, or Thanksgiving Day itself, by sales starting on the holiday. So many might give thanks that the folks behind Record Store Day are waiting until the traditional Friday to release their twice-yearly slate of exclusive releases. As
Happy New Year: Real Gone Ushers In 2014 With Blood, Sweat & Tears, Grateful Dead, More
Real Gone Music is hoping to make you so very happy with its first release slate of 2014! On January 7, the Real Goners compile for the very first time The Complete Columbia Singles of jazz-rock pioneers Blood Sweat & Tears, offer up The Complete Atlantic Recordings of the soul great Bettye Swann (“Make Me Yours”), unearth another vintage Grateful Dead show, and recover the lone long-player of R&B singer-songwriter Samuel Jonathan Johnson. Despite 1968’s strong debut Child is Father of
Review: Miles Davis, "The Original Mono Recordings"
“Mono featured less audio trickery and fewer audio distractions, so you can actually hear the musical conversation between Miles and the other musicians as it occurred in the studio.” That’s producer George Avakian as quoted in the liner notes for Columbia and Legacy’s new nine-album box set Miles Davis: The Original Mono Recordings. And that purity of sound - further described by the producer of Davis’ first two Columbia albums as “truer to the studio sound and the original intent” – is
Review: The Beatles, "On Air: Live at the BBC Volume Two"
Meet the Beatles...again. The new Apple/Capitol/Universal release On Air: Live at the BBC Volume Two sets the Wayback Machine at Destination: 1963 and 1964, when four Liverpool lads named John, Paul, George and Ringo ignited a British Invasion that continues to this very day. All 63 tracks (both spoken-word introductions and songs) on this new 2-CD time capsule date back to those two years, when the Fabs recorded unique performances for such BBC programs as Saturday Club and Pop Go the
Back To Muscle Shoals: Ace Revives Classic Southern Soul From Dan Penn, James Govan
Director Greg “Freddy” Camalier’s 2013 documentary Muscle Shoals brought some long-overdue attention to Rick Hall’s Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama – a hotbed of southern soul that attracted some of the most notable artists in rock and soul, from The Rolling Stones to Aretha Franklin. But the folks at Ace Records have never overlooked Muscle Shoals’ immeasurable contribution to the sound of American soul. Two recent compilations cast further light on the historic music that made the
Review, "Released! The Human Rights Concerts 1986-1989" On DVD and CD
Sex, drugs and rock and roll have been closely linked since, well, the dawn of rock and roll itself. But those who have been lucky enough to make a living in the rough-and-tumble world of rock have also frequently given themselves over to more noble pursuits. George Harrison’s 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh wasn’t the first time a rock superstar had performed for charity, but The Quiet Beatle’s star-studded event is rightfully considered the first benefit concert of such stature. Since then,
Review: Bob Dylan, "The Complete Album Collection Volume One"
Tucked away on Bob Dylan’s 23rd studio album Empire Burlesque, the troubadour sings simply but sternly, “Trust yourself/Trust yourself to do the things that only you know best/Trust yourself/Trust yourself to do what’s right and not be second-guessed...” Dylan had trusted himself since he first arrived on the scene in 1962, engaging in a series of transformations that enthralled, angered, transfixed and bewildered those that followed his career – from folk troubadour to electric rocker to
Review: Perry Como, "Just Out of Reach: Rarities from Nashville Produced by Chet Atkins"
“Hey, let’s do it again and again,” invited Perry Como on the bouncy opening track of 1975’s Just Out of Reach. The Tony Hatch/Jackie Trent song, previously recorded by singer-actor Jim Dale on This is Me, was perfectly suited to Como’s warm, soothing tones. Who wouldn’t take him up on the offer to do it again and again? As the musical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s drastically shifted, the one-time big band “boy singer” wasn’t quite as ubiquitous a presence as he once was. Still, the
Review: Belinda Carlisle Deluxe Remasters From Edsel (1987-1993)
As lead singer of California rock group The Go-Go's, Belinda Carlisle conclusively proved that she, indeed, had the beat. In her solo career, she applied her powerfully soaring pipes - one minute honeyed, the next smoky - to some of the most iconic pop songs of the era. Edsel has recently repackaged Carlisle's second through fifth albums as truly deluxe, hardbound 2-CD/1-DVD editions, and they're a nostalgic trip back to the days when power ballads ruled the radio and one singer stood at the
Classic CCR Box Set Choogles Back Into Print
A box set of Creedence Clearwater Revival's official studio and live discography, first released in 2001, is getting reissued again for the holiday box set season. Creedence Clearwater Revival was a six-disc set collecting all of the Southern (by way of California) rock band's studio albums - Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968), Bayou Country, Green River, Willy and the Poor Boys (all 1969), Cosmo's Factory, Pendulum (both 1970) and Mardi Gras (1972) - along with both of their posthumous live
Review: Pablo 40th Anniversary Series with Gillespie, Ellington, Tatum, Peterson, Grappelli and Sims
When impresario Norman Granz founded the Pablo label in 1973, fusion, funk and Latin sounds were at the forefront of jazz. Granz, founder of the Verve, Norgran and Clef labels, initially launched Pablo as a platform for his management clients Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass, but soon its roster was filled out with the equally starry likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. Granz’ new label was an instant success and a safe haven for traditional jazz in this period
RPM Rescues "The Sixties Sounds of Tim Andrews" On New Anthology
Will the real Chris Andrews please stand up? Well, that’s easier said than done. Singer/songwriter Chris Andrews is known for penning hits such as Sandie Shaw’s “Girl Don’t Come” and “Long Live Love,” but there’s another Chris Andrews who rose to prominence during the same era – and also did so in Swingin’ London. This man of the same name recorded with The Gremlins and The Fleur de Lys, and sang the lead on the 1967 hit U.K. single “Reflections of Charles Brown,” issued under the name of
Release Round-Up: Week of September 17
The Band, LIve at the Academy of Music: The Rock of Ages Concerts (Capitol/UMe) This five-disc box set (four CDs and a DVD) features selections from The Band's famed four-night run in New York in 1971. Though these shows would create the live Rock of Ages album, this box instead features highlights from the shows on two discs (including guest appearances by Bob Dylan), another two discs of the complete soundboard mix of the final concert on New Year's Eve 1971, and a DVD with 5.1 surround mixes
A Match Made In "Hell": Cherry Red Revisits Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley
Ain’t no doubt about it: Ellen Foley achieved classic rock immortality via her role on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” opposite Meat Loaf on his 1977 album Bat Out of Hell. Foley was the girl “glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife” in Jim Steinman’s rock opera in miniature, with Meat Loaf as the boy “praying for the end of time” and the end of their time together. All these years later, Foley and the former Marvin Lee Aday are together again - on CD shelves, at least, thanks to two
October Is The Most Wonderful Time of The Year With Real Gone Releases From Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Patti Page, More
It's not too early to start making that Christmas list! Just ask Real Gone Music. On October 29, the label will release five deluxe holiday-themed collections from some of the most beloved vocalists of all time, in addition to two other titles reflecting the label's usual eclectic tastes. For those who need a little Christmas right this very minute, now's the time to peruse Real Gone's upcoming offerings. The crown jewel comes from Andy Williams, already announced as the subject of a 2013
Special Review: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb Conjure Old Ghosts On Two New Releases
Since 1967, it’s been difficult to think of Glen Campbell without thinking of Jimmy Webb – and vice versa. When the ace session guitarist interpreted the young songwriter’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” on the album of the same name, the result wasn’t just a Grammy-winning hit single, but the beginning of a partnership that’s survived through six decades. Campbell scored successes with a string of Webb’s songs in the late 1960s (“Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” “Where’s the Playground, Susie”),
Out of the Shadow(s): Morton's Story Features Shangri-Las, Vanilla Fudge, New York Dolls
A scrappy street fighter with a knack for teenage melodrama, George “Shadow” Morton lived with a “self-invented mythology,” in the words of Jerry Leiber. But his work with The Shangri-Las, Janis Ian, The New York Dolls and many more solidified Morton’s place as a real-life “leader of the pack.” Ace’s new anthology Sophisticated Boom Boom: The Shadow Morton Story (CDTOP 1369) brings the songwriter and producer out of the shadow and into the (spot)light. In a 1968 Time Magazine blurb:, Morton
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