You know it's a big week for soundtracks when multiple specialty labels announce projects in the same week; currently, we have six such titles on the horizon from four labels! First off, Film Score Monthly has prepped their third-to-last soundtrack set, and it's an oft-requested killer: an expanded edition of John Barry's score to Body Heat (1981). A neo-noir classic, Body Heat - the directorial debut of legendary screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost
Review: Art Garfunkel, "The Singer"
The first-ever 2-CD anthology of the collected works of Arthur Ira Garfunkel is titled The Singer (Columbia/Legacy 88725 45816 2, 2012). In a life and career that’s also seen Garfunkel as an actor, poet, author, athlete and student, “singer” seems the most apt appellation. Indeed, he is not just a singer, but The Singer, in longtime service to the art of the song. Garfunkel was an anomaly in the young world of 1960s rock, leaving the songwriting to his partner Paul Simon while still lending
Review: Taj Mahal, "The Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal: 1969-1973"
Perhaps Henry Saint Clair Fredericks Jr. just didn’t have the right ring to it? Whatever the reason, the former Fredericks took the name of Taj Mahal after the palatial Indian mausoleum, and never looked back. The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and all-around renaissance bluesman had his first solo tenure with Columbia Records, from 1968 to 1976, and most of that period is addressed on the new 2-CD anthology The Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal 1969-1973 (Columbia/Legacy 82876 82294 2,
Déjà Vu: Expanded Reissue of Dionne Warwick's 1979 "Dionne," Produced by Barry Manilow, Arrives on CD
Dionne Warwick recently announced a new album, produced by Phil Ramone. Entitled Now, the projected October release will reflect on a storied career that’s lasted 50 years. But Warwick was in a very different place then, meaning in 1979. The sophisticated soul singer was at a crossroads. Her unprecedented string of pop and R&B hits written and produced by Burt Bacharach and Hal David at Scepter Records were far in the rearview mirror. Bacharach and David had bitterly split after just
If It's Meant to Be: Barbra Streisand Announces "Release Me" Collection of Long-Lost Songs
Everybody knows "The Way We Were." But how about "The Way We Might-Have-Been?" The what-ifs are many in Barbra Streisand's career. The legendary vocalist, about to celebrate her fiftieth year with Columbia Records in 2013, has amassed a vault filled with unreleased outtakes from her decades of recording. These date as far back as 1962 when the young singer recorded an as-yet-unissued rendition of Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg's "Right as the Rain" for possible release on 45. (In fact,
Take the "A" Train to Complete Boxes From Ellington, Armstrong, Christian and Smith
The roaring twenties are back! Okay – or should that be OKeh? – in fairness, so are the thirties, forties, and fifties, thanks to four upcoming box sets spotlighting legendary jazz and blues stars. Legacy Recordings adds to its growing Complete Albums Collection library on October 30 with these new volumes: Louis Armstrong, The Complete OKeh, Columbia and RCA Victor Recordings 1925-1933 (OKeh/Columbia/RCA/Legacy) (10 CDs); Charlie Christian, The Genius of the Electric Guitar (Columbia/
Saturday Night Special: Lynyrd Skynyrd "Ultimate Collection" Offers New 5.1 Surround DVD-Audio
Lynyrd Skynyrd's thirteenth studio album, Last of a Dyin' Breed, arrived in stores just yesterday, but another recent release may have fans of the Southern rock legends even more excited. Southern Surroundings: The Ultimate Skynyrd Collection is a Wal-Mart-exclusive 1-CD/2-DVD set, selling at the retail giant's locations for just $11.88. (That is, if you can find it; your author visited four locations before procuring a copy!) Of its three discs, the third is the most unique, and it's also
Reviews: Real, Real Gone with Sanford and Townsend, Jimmy Griffin and Jackie Gleason
Long before Barry White, a rather different music maker was providing the soundtrack for a romantic rendezvous in the moonlight, but his name might be surprising to some: Jackie Gleason. Even if one can’t readily picture Ralph Kramden seducing Alice with its lush accompaniment, the American record buying public had no such reservations. The Great One’s 1952 Music for Lovers Only sold over half a million copies, and spent a still-unbeaten record of 153 (!) weeks in the U.S. Top 10 album chart.
Blame It On The Bossa Nova: Él Compiles Brazilian Classics, Plus: "Pop! Goes the West"
The gentle guitars of a bossa nova band and the blazing guns of the American West don’t seem to have much in common on the surface. Yet the sun-drenched music of Brazil and the dramatic landscape of the American West both have their own distinct mythologies. And as the 1960s dawned, both bossa nova and western music swept the pop charts. Cherry Red’s Él label is celebrating these two very different styles with a pair of new anthologies. Festival of Bossa Nova is a primer on the early days of
Vinyl Renaissance: Omnivore Recordings Offers Art Pepper, Josh Haden's Spain on Vinyl, Plus "Music City" Rarities
The term "record store" (two rather hallowed words in these parts!) has long been used to describe those stores that sell music, even well into the age of the CD, and now, the digital download. But lately, record store walls have been lined with more and more actual vinyl records. In 2011, more records were purchased than in any other year in the past two decades, with sales up 36 percent over 2010, to a not-too-shabby 3.9 million. Sales for 2012 are likely to best that number. Since its
Golden Age Noir: Miklos Rózsa Score to "Strange Love" Premieres On CD
Had Miklós Rózsa only composed the Academy Award-winning score to 1959’s epic Ben-Hur, his place in the cinema pantheon would likely have been assured. But Ben-Hur was just one of three Rózsa scores to win Oscars in a career that spanned from 1937’s Knight Without Armour through 1982’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Rózsa, who also maintained a career as a composer of concert works, often employed a rich, sweeping orchestral style, and though he famously crafted “big” scores, he was also an
These Are the Voyages: Complete Box Set of "Star Trek" Television Music Planned
Until about a year before The Second Disc started, it seemed likelier to invent a warp drive than to get a decent reissue series of music from the Star Trek universe. All that changed in 2009, when Film Score Monthly released an remastered and expanded edition of James Horner's iconic soundtrack to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Over the next three years, the floodgates opened. All six of Paramount's films featuring the original television cast (for those keeping track, that's Jerry
Smoke on the Water, Redux : Deep Purple's "Machine Head" Goes Super Deluxe in October for 40th Anniversary
So...the super deluxe box sets just keep on coming! The latest addition to the growing array of titles is a 40th anniversary of Deep Purple’s 1972 Machine Head album. EMI promises to explore every nook and cranny of this stone-cold hard rock classic, considered by many as a benchmark in the development of the metal genre. It remains the British band’s most successful album, having topped the charts in the U.K. and reached a Top 10 placing in the U.S., and introduced the hit single “Smoke on
Details Revealed for Gabriel's Big Time "So" Box (UPDATED WITH TRACK LIST)
The 1986 release of Peter Gabriel's So was, arguably, the apex of an iconic frontman's idiosyncratic career. Here was an artist taking everything he had offered the audience to date - introspective slice-of-life balladeering, cutting-edge dance-rock, polyrhythmic world music influences - and spinning it into a slickly produced tour de force that caught on with MTV-addled youths as well as an older, more mature generation familiar with his work, either solo or as the original frontman for
Reissue Theory, In Memoriam: Various Artists, "The Essential Marvin Hamlisch"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on notable albums and the reissues they may someday see. Today's installment looks back at the mighty career of the late Marvin Hamlisch and how his best songs might be compiled into a truly "Essential" release. On Tuesday morning, August 7, news broke that composer Marvin Hamlisch had unexpectedly died the day before, at the age of 68. The worlds of music, theatre and film were all shocked, as Hamlisch's latest musical, The
In Memoriam: Marvin Hamlisch (1944-2012)
I only met Marvin Hamlisch once. It was late in September 2010, on the campus of Los Angeles' UCLA, where the esteemed composer had been working on a revised production of his 1979 musical They're Playing Our Song. He and I were both on our cell phones in the lobby a few minutes before the show was about to start. As if by serendipity, we hung up at the same time. As we both were headed back into the auditorium, I couldn't resist the opportunity to extend my hand to one of the men whose
Heaven On Their Minds: Remastered "Jesus Christ Superstar" Coming From Verve, with Deep Purple's Ian Gillan, Yvonne Elliman
"Nothing could convince me that any show that has sold two and one-half million copies of its album before the opening night is anything like all bad," wrote The New York Times' Clive Barnes on October 13, 1971 upon the Broadway debut of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar. Indeed, the original Jesus Christ Superstar was a bit of a revelation, a true hybrid of rock and theater, introduced as a record but destined for the world's stages. And it's returning in a new,
Finest Worksongs: R.E.M. to Expand "Document" with Unreleased Concert
Not long before
Review: Booker T. & The M.G.s, "Green Onions: 50th Anniversary Edition"
Stax Records and Concord Music Group have brought the cool to this hot summer. Music simply doesn't come much cooler than the hip Green Onions, from Booker T. & the M.G.s. The landmark album is being celebrated for its fiftieth anniversary in an expanded edition (STX-33960-02, 2012) as part of the ongoing Stax Remasters series that last delivered a new edition of Albert King's I'll Play the Blues for You. The main attraction is doubtless the title song, a favorite of the Blues Brothers
Light in the Attic Gets Funky in the Country with Bobby Darin, Mac Davis, Link Wray, Bobbie Gentry and More
What the hell is "Country Funk," you ask? That's the question being posed by Light in the Attic on its new compilation, titled (what else?) Country Funk: 1969-1975. The label goes on to answer, in part, of the "inherently defiant genre": "the style encompasses the elation of gospel with the sexual thrust of the blues, country hoedown harmony with inner city grit. It is alternately playful and melancholic, slow jammin' and booty shakin'. It is both studio slick and barroom raw." Well,
Review: "Follies: Original 1971 Broadway Cast Recording" (Remixed and Remastered Edition)
Though the former showgirls and stage-door Johnnies of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies reunited in the 1971 musical for “one last look at where it all began,” it’s been rather difficult for those under the musical’s spell to take one last look (or listen, as it were) at the original production of Follies. Those who saw it routinely recall it as the grandest of all musicals; those who didn’t have had to make do with still photographs, grainy YouTube footage, talk show appearances,
United Together: Aretha Franklin, Cheryl Lynn Among Latest From BBR
Without a doubt, Cherry Red’s Big Break Records label has been one of the most hospitable to the legendary divas of soul, and two recent releases just further underline that fact. Having previously reissued deluxe editions of Aretha Franklin’s 1982’s Jump to It and 1983’s Get It Right, both produced by Luther Vandross, the label has turned the clock backward to 1980 for the Queen’s Arista Records debut, simply titled Aretha. It’s recently been joined by Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 Columbia LP Instant
Another Bite of the Apple: Lon and Derrek Van Eaton's "Brother" with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, Reissued and Reviewed
RPM Records is taking a bite out of the Apple. Apple Records, that is. All has been quiet on the Apple front since EMI's 2010 reissue campaign offered remastered and expanded albums from Badfinger, Mary Hopkin, James Taylor and others. But the Come and Get It compilation, released in conjunction with the album reissue program, brought to CD a number of tantalizing tracks from lesser-known lights on the Apple roster. Among those artists were Lon and Derrek Van Eaton, New Jersey natives whose
An Elvis Odyssey: "Prince From Another Planet" Boxes Presley's Classic MSG Concerts
Elvis Presley has never been lacking in live recordings. Five such albums (not counting partially-live albums like the ’68 comeback album Elvis and the documentary soundtrack That’s the Way It Is) arrived in Presley’s lifetime, and countless more after his tragic death on August 16, 1977. All were certified gold or platinum, and all were from the period between 1969 and 1974 when the superstar reinvented himself on the concert stages of Las Vegas. If any album captured the bond between
Mike Oldfield Celebrated in August with New Deluxe Reissues, Compilation
Mike Oldfield was always more than "Tubular Bells." The 59-year-old multi-instrumentalist has continued to put out diverse, challenging music long after his signature tune was released nearly 40 years ago. In recent years, Universal Music Enterprises has done a great job of anthologizing Oldfield's work with expanded editions of his early works for Virgin Records; on August 14, not only will two new deluxe editions be released, but a brand-new career spanning compilation will hit stores as
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