The late Arthur Laurents wrote many of the most beloved musicals and films in entertainment history including West Side Story, Gypsy, The Way We Were and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. He passed away on May 5, but today’s special Back Tracks celebrates this great writer’s legacy in music. “If you have a good strong finish, they’ll forgive anything!” So implores stage mother Madame Rose to her daughter Louise, the future Gypsy Rose Lee, in the 1959 musical Gypsy. Rose’s bon mot was one of many
Another Chance to Visit Dave Grusin's "Mulholland Falls"
One year before Curtis Hanson made film noir hip again with LA Confidential, director Lee Tamahori and screenwriter Pete Dexter proved that there was still a lot of life in the old form. They assembled an all-star cast led by Nick Nolte, Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Connelly and John Malkovich for Mulholland Falls. The production was top-notch, with the legendary Haskell Wexler (In the Heat of the Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Thomas Crown Affair) signed as cinematographer, and
UPDATE: REO Speedwagon Will Keep on Loving You
Way back in July 2010, we reported on some rumblings of an expanded reissue of REO Speedwagon's 1980 Hi Infidelity. Better late than never! Thanks to the good people at MusicTAP for passing along the long-awaited news! The 30th Anniversary Edition of the nine-times-platinum album which spawned "Keep On Loving You" and "Take It on the Run" is finally set for release! Frontman Kevin Cronin has kept to his word, as he told Billboard last year that the band recently found old
Review: Loudon Wainwright III, "40 Odd Years"
Lucky for us, Loudon Wainwright III is only "so damn happy" on an infrequent basis. The singer-songwriter-humorist-satirist-actor (is that enough of a multi-hyphenate for you?) posited the question "Is it necessary to feel like shit in order to be creative?" He arrived at the final answer "yes!" but prefaced it with "unless you're J.S. Bach." Over the course of 91 songs on four CDs and another 38-plus on DVD, Shout! Factory's new box set 40 Odd Years (82663-12189, 2011) - dig the double
Six John Barry Scores Boxed Digitally By Silva Screen
John Barry may have passed away in January, but the film score titan has hardly been forgotten. Kritzerland just scored a quick sell-out on its new edition of Barry's score to Until September, while Quartet Records has reissued The Knack...and How to Get It on CD. The Classic Brit Awards has announced that Barry will be the first-ever posthumous recipient of an award, while a June 20 concert at London's Royal Albert Hall will celebrate his legacy with performances and remembrances from Sir
More McCartney: "The Family Way" Soundtrack Coming From Varese
"The directors, the Boulting Brothers, actually approached me, one of them, Roy, and he was interested in some of the music we've been writing. He said, 'Would you be interested in actually writing something for film?' I said, 'Wow, great honour.' And they're very good directors, quite famous English directors, so I knew they'd be good and the film would be good, and a very good cast with John Mills and Hayley Mills and Hywell Bennett. So I said, 'Yeah, okay!'" So told Paul McCartney to
Reissue Theory: Bell Biv DeVoe, "Poison"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on notable albums and the reissues they may someday see. One of the biggest R&B hits of 1990 is still an earworm today - but is there more lurking underneath the surface? The debut of Bell Biv DeVoe is reassessed. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbMW2-Goog] Girl. I. Must. Warn youuuu...that if you listen to "Poison" by Bell Biv DeVoe one too many times, those herky-jerky New Jack beats will affix themselves to your
"Get Back" To The Beatles With Ace's "Black America Sings Lennon and McCartney"
“Yesterday” is considered the most-covered popular song of all time, but might The Beatles also be the most-covered band of the rock era? I’ll leave that one to the Guinness folks, but needless to say, there are thousands of cover versions of songs introduced by The Fab Four, most of which were written under the “Lennon and McCartney” umbrella. On June 7, Ace will release a follow-up to its acclaimed 2010 collection How Many Roads: Black America Sings Bob Dylan, turning the spotlight onto the
It's Motown Monday: Kent Releases The Definitive Monitors In June
It's Motown Monday here at The Second Disc as we're pleased to spread the news of the latest title in Ace Records' series of lost Motown treasures! Previous releases have been devoted to The Satintones, The Contours and Marv Johnson, and this June will see the first-ever CD anthology dedicated to the recordings of The Monitors. Led by future Temptation Richard Street, The Monitors released five singles on Berry Gordy's V.I.P. and Soul labels and one LP on Soul. Say You!: The Motown Anthology
Review: Don Sebesky, "Giant Box"
Why can’t jazz be populist and pure, both at the same time? One imagines Creed Taylor asked that question when he launched CTI (Creed Taylor Incorporated) as a solo label back in 1970. Three years earlier he had decamped from Verve and christened the CTI name as an imprint of Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ A&M Records. At A&M, Taylor produced nearly 30 albums by such jazz greats as Wes Montgomery, Montgomery's heir apparent George Benson, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Herbie Mann. Taylor’s
Stage and Screen Classics, Reissued: "Until September" and "Camelot"
If there’s a link between Kritzerland’s two new releases, it would have to be melody. I’m speaking of sheer, unadulterated, romantic melody, courtesy of two of music’s finest purveyors of such themes: John Barry and Frederick Loewe. This morning, the stage and screen specialists announced two limited edition titles of 1,000, and both are notable, indeed. From Mr. Barry comes the 1984 score to Until September, while Mr. Loewe is represented by the first-ever CD release of the 1964 Original
Friday Feature: "Night Shift"
Fate works in mysterious ways. Dionne Warwick was home one evening, half-asleep while the 1982 film Night Shift played on her television set. “I didn’t really pay attention to the names that were going up on the credits,” Warwick recounted, “but I knew that was Burt Bacharach’s melody. There was no way in the world it could be anybody else’s.” She was speaking of “That’s What Friends Are For,” an all-but-forgotten song written for the 1982 film Night Shift, Ron Howard’s major big screen
LAST CHANCE REMINDER! Contest: Win Bob Dylan's "The Other Side of the Mirror" on Blu-Ray
Hey, friends! Our Bob Dylan contest ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. EST. Mike and I couldn't be more thrilled to give you the opportunity to win The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 on Blu-Ray! Don't delay; details are below. Enter now! We've got some very exciting stuff for fans of Bob Dylan: a contest to win a reissue of a Dylan documentary on Blu-Ray from Legacy Recordings! We're giving away a copy of The Other Side of the Mirror - Bob Dylan
Bob Seger Reissues His Live Albums with a Bullet
If you're in the mood for that old time rock & roll, you just might be in luck! Capitol and EMI have announced two remastered editions of classic live albums from Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. 1976's Live Bullet and 1981's Nine Tonight are both due in stores on May 17. Bob Seger catapulted to national stardom in 1976 with the LP Night Moves, after a string of regional hits in the Detroit area and throughout the Midwest. Just before that commercial breakthrough, Seger and his
Heavy Traffic: "The Jim Capaldi Story" Told On Upcoming Box Set
It's time to clear a space on your shelf next to Steve Winwood's 1995 box set The Finer Things or its 2010 counterpart Revolutions. The life and career of Winwood's longtime collaborator Jim Capaldi (1944-2005) is being celebrated by the fine folks at Universal U.K. with a lavish new box set, Dear Mr. Fantasy: The Jim Capaldi Story. Set for release on June 27, Dear Mr. Fantasy is named after one of Traffic's most beloved songs. It encompasses Capaldi's work with that group as well as early
Shirley Bassey Goes Beyond "Goldfinger" On BGO Reissue
Dame Shirley Bassey first blazed into the American consciousness in 1964 singing the immortal theme to Goldfinger. Bassey's full-throttle take on the John Barry/Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse song became her first and only American Top 10 single, and helped the film’s soundtrack recording climb all the way to the top spot. Bassey returned to both John Barry and James Bond with the themes to Diamonds are Forever (1971) and Moonraker (1979), but she never again scaled the heights of commercial
Poison Double Dip with "Double Dose"
There comes a time in every music collector's life where we utter, "Another (name of artist) compilation?!" The time has come to put Poison in those parentheses; their latest collection is due in stores on May 3. Double Dose: Ultimate Hits does have a lot of worthy material for new fans. In addition to collating all the band's notable singles, it includes a fair amount of album cuts and at least one or two non-LP tracks that were scooped up on reissues or prior compilations. But for hardcore
"What's New?" Ronstadt and Riddle Classic Revisited on Gold CD
While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has inexplicably remained immune to her charms, few artists have had the career of Linda Ronstadt. She's racked up 38 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including ten that went Top Ten. On the album chart, she's placed 36 entries, including ten that reached the Top Ten there too (her magic number!) and three that hit pole position. And consider this: after playing a vital role in the country-rock scene with the Stone Poneys and their hit recording of Mike
"Would You Believe" The Complete Hollies 1963-1968 Is Coming From EMI?
Fans of the Hollies have lately had plenty of items on their wish lists, thanks to recent releases from the Sundazed and BGO labels. Yes, it’s been quite a year in catalogue terms for the lads from Manchester! EMI’s U.K. arm continues the celebration with the May 9 release of one whopper of a box set. The Clarke, Hicks & Nash Years (what about Bobby Elliott? Just askin’!) is subtitled The Complete Hollies: April 1963 – October 1968, and if this is somewhat of a fallacy, it’s more or less the
Review: Howard Jones, "The 12" Album/Action Replay: Remastered Editions"
Less is more, they tell you. If a song like "Yesterday" was done with a full band, would it have retained its emotional impact than its original, heartrending arrangement? Now, that argument often rings true, but sometimes a little more is pretty fun, too. Anyone who enjoys the music of the 1980s can attest to this. Some of the best hits of that decade were flush with production techniques and overdubs that would have been shunned in decades past. The synthesizer and the drum machine became the
Crossing the Pond: "London American Label 1963" Spotlights Spector and More
It’s 1963. Imagine a label that counted Roy Orbison, Darlene Love, James Brown, The Drifters and Jerry Lee Lewis all among its artists. While such an array of talent never convened under one roof in America, it was a very different story in the United Kingdom. The U.K.’s Decca Record Company indeed brought all of those artists, and more, under the umbrella of its London American label. London American delivered the best in American pop, R&B and rock and roll to British audiences. Ace is
In Case You Missed Them: Soundtrack Smashes from La-La Land, FSM
Our apologies for not getting these titles to you earlier, but there's been a lot of action on the indie soundtrack label front, with two titles announced by Film Score Monthly late last week and three from La-La Land that went on sale yesterday and are selling briskly. Over at FSM, the label released Friday a short but powerful score to the film Testament, a 1983 drama featuring Jane Alexander as a mother coping with the fallout from a nuclear blast outside their California suburb. The
That's Amore: Capitol Releases More from Dean Martin in June
Dean Martin once implored in song, "Please don't talk about me when I'm gone." Dino has been gone since 1995, but I doubt he'd mind that fans and collectors alike haven't stopped talking about him since. Part of this is due to the seemingly endless stream of repackaged "greatest hits" collections - and guess what? Not one, not two, but three such sets are on the way this June, just in time for Father's Day. Now ain't that a kick in the head! Back in February, we reported on Hip-o's two-CD,
Rhino Knows What Time It Is: Chicago "Live in '75" Coming from Handmade (UPDATED 4/11)
UPDATE 4/11: The link just before the jump takes you directly to the order page for this set. Original post: Billboard has certified them as the second-most successful American rock band in music history, only following The Beach Boys. The RIAA places them handily in the Top Ten of all-time album sales from an American group. So it's fair to say that Chicago is still perhaps the most successful American rock band to have been wholly ignored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band has
Rhino Resurrects "L.A. Woman" This Fall
It was hard not to worry about Rhino for awhile. Since the new year kicked off, things have been eerily quiet from the venerable label and catalogue arm of Warner Music Group (currently prepping for a major reorganization). Outside of the largesse of the Europe '72 box set from The Grateful Dead and a few soundtrack selections, all was quiet. Now, one of Warner's most enduring catalogue artists looks to be getting another reissue: hot off the presses, Rhino's announced a 40th anniversary
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