Box set season is totally in full swing this week! Are you ready? Michael Jackson, Bad 25 (Epic/Legacy) The King of Pop's legendary 1987 album gets the deluxe treatment in a number of formats. The standard edition includes the remastered album and a 13-track bonus disc featuring rare and unreleased outtakes and new remixes. (That version is available with a T-shirt at Wal-Mart, and a bonus DVD with all nine original Bad-era short films - including the long performance edits of "Smooth
"Would You Believe" Carmen McRae's Funky Soul-Jazz Classic is Back from BBR?
1976’s Can’t Hide Love, recently reissued by Big Break Records, wasn’t jazz singer Carmen McRae’s first venture into contemporary territory. Like so many other interpretive vocalists who had begun their careers in a pre-Beatles world, McRae found herself adopting an “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” credo towards the increasingly prevalent rock genre, which had itself recently dropped the “and roll” to create a whole new sound. 1967’s Atlantic release For Once in My Life adventurously saw
Weekend Wround-Up: Barbra Streisand Joined by Bennett, Wonder, Krall on DVD and BD; Pixar Compiles More "Favorites"
On February 11, 2011, Barbra Streisand joined some illustrious company, including Bono, Brian Wilson, Aretha Franklin and her “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” duet partner, Neil Diamond. That was the evening Streisand was recognized as the MusiCares Person of the Year, following in the footsteps of those above-named artists. Streisand was a natural candidate for the honor, as the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences annually bestows it upon an artist with significant artistic
Because It's Christmas: Barry Manilow's "Classic Christmas Album" Coming in October
Believe it or not, Christmas is just around the corner…and Barry Manilow is teaming with Legacy Recordings for the festivities. The pop superstar has recorded three very different holiday albums between 1990 and 2007, and all three can be sampled on his Classic Christmas Album, due in stores on October 2, part of Legacy's all-new holiday series. Manilow made his first memorable contribution to the holiday songbook with his own composition “It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve,” co-written with
Review: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, "Emerson, Lake and Palmer" and "Tarkus" Expanded Editions
Ooh, what a lucky man I am! Chances are you will be, too, if you’ve been anticipating the just-launched series of deluxe reissues from Emerson, Lake & Palmer, available now from Razor and Tie in the U.S. and Sony Music internationally. It’s back to the very beginning for the progressive rock supergroup, with 1970’s eponymous debut and 1971’s Tarkus both having been revisited in 2-CD/1-DVD editions as you’ve never heard them before. Keith Emerson (organ/synthesizer/piano), Greg Lake
Review: The Knack, "Rock and Roll is Good for You: The Fieger/Averre Demos"
Before there was The Knack, there was Doug Fieger and Berton Averre. The former was a Detroit native and a member of the band Sky, the latter a working musician from the San Francisco Bay Area. They began collaborating in 1973, beginning an odyssey that would reach its first milestone six years later when the sensibly-titled Get the Knack on Capitol Records reportedly became the fastest-selling debut album since Meet the Beatles. But before “My Sharona” took Fieger, Averre, Bruce Gary and
Ace Offers Front Row Seat to a "Musical Revolution" with Vanguard Box; Unreleased Dylan Track Included
A vanguard is, by definition, a position at the forefront of new ideas or developments. And in the fertile musical stomping ground of the early 1960s, some of the newest, most avant-garde ideas were being espoused on the Vanguard Records label. Yet these so-called radical, even “dangerous” thoughts were being espoused in forms so traditional, they might have seemed as old as time. Vanguard dived headfirst into the flourishing folk music scene in 1956 with The Weavers at Carnegie Hall, bravely
Release Round-Up: Week of September 11
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Emerson, Lake & Palmer / Tarkus: Deluxe Editions (Razor & Tie) Full review coming soon, but you should know that these are 2-CD/1-DVD sets featuring unreleased alternate takes and 5.1 surround mixes for these two classic prog-rock LPs. Dio, Singles Box Set (UMC) A U.K.-made collectible box replicating all of Dio's Vertigo 12" singles, plus the Intermission live EP and a DVD of music videos. The English Beat, Live at The US Festival '82 & '83 (Shout!
Lullaby of Broadway: Classic Columbia, RCA Victor Cast Albums Collected in "Broadway in a Box"
Curtain up! Tomorrow, Sony's Masterworks Broadway division will release Broadway in a Box: The Essential Broadway Musicals Collection, a 25-disc collection formatted similarly to the “Complete Albums” box sets arriving from sister label Legacy Recordings. This impressive collection brings together the original cast recordings for 25 musicals recorded for Columbia Records, Arista Records and RCA Victor between 1949 (South Pacific) and 1987 (Into the Woods and a revival of Anything
Monday at the Movies: Mancini, Williams, Newman and Jones Revisited, Plus Disney Expands "Cinderella" in "Lost Chords" Series
It’s not quite time yet for the long goodbye to new announcements for 2012, but for Quartet Records, it is time for The Long Goodbye. John Williams’ score to Robert Altman’s 1973 film leads off another group of essential new buys for soundtrack fans and collectors. Quartet is pairing The Long Goodbye with a late-period Henry Mancini classic, the score to Blake Edwards’ 1988 comedy-western Sunset. But that’s not all. Kritzerland has a true "wow" release with a gloriously restored stereo
Soundtrack Corner: Intrada Offers More "Galactica," La-La Land's "Friday the 13th" Available on Its Own
This week and next see a trio of great film and television scores coming to CD from Intrada and La-La Land Records. First up, it's the long-anticipated third volume of Stu Phillips' music to Battlestar Galactica from Intrada. While the previous two volumes were devoted to only three episodes of the series in total, subsequent installments of BSG largely eschewed new scores for previously-recorded cues tracked into the soundtrack. But Phillips was on hand to compose music for seven
New Morello Label Launches with Country Classics from Jones, Robbins, Dalton
Though George Jones has introduced many of the standards of the country-and-western repertoire, his turbulent offstage life has had more ups and downs than even the most dramatic honky-tonk tune. A Kennedy Center Honoree with fourteen Number One country hits in the U.S., the son of Saratoga, Texas has been recording since 1957 and is still going strong despite battling the bottle and engaging in many stormy relationships with women. Though he’s been known as “No-Show Jones” for the number of
A Second Disc Interview: Talking Matt Monro, Mastering and Mixing with RICHARD MOORE
A remarkable treasure trove of Matt Monro rarities has just been released by EMI Gold, a timely reminder of the artist’s life and career. He was sometimes known as the “Cockney Como” or the “English Sinatra,” but both descriptions fail to adequately capture the essence of the beloved singer’s unique and enduring style. Fortunately, Matt Uncovered: The Rarer Monro offers that singular sound in abundance as it traces the arc of his entire career, via almost entirely unheard material. We welcomed
Review: "A&M 50: The Anniversary Collection"
On its surface, it seems kind of crazy to make a compilation of tunes from A&M Records. There are plenty of labels with clearer narrative arcs: Columbia was a hotbed for melodic singer-songwriters in the '60s and '70s, from Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel to Springsteen and Billy Joel. Burgeoning soul fans started with Motown and graduated to Stax or Atlantic, depending on their region. ZTT was the place for avant-garde dance-pop/rock in the '80s, much like Elektra was the source for dreamy
Reissue Theory: Queen, "The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on notable albums and the reissues they could someday see. On an iconic rock star's birthday, we hope for a concert celebrating his life and work to make it onto CD someday. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuqx11UOOP4] On this day, 66 years ago, Farrokh Bulsara was born in Zanzibar. The world would, of course, know him by another name: Freddie Mercury, the iconoclastic frontman for the British hard rock band Queen.
A Second Disc Interview: Talking "Matt Uncovered: The Rarer Monro" with MICHELE MONRO
A remarkable treasure trove of Matt Monro rarities has just been released by EMI Gold, a timely reminder of the artist’s life and career. He was sometimes known as the “Cockney Como” or the “English Sinatra,” but both descriptions fail to adequately capture the essence of the beloved singer’s unique and enduring style. Fortunately, Matt Uncovered: The Rarer Monro offers that singular sound in abundance as it traces the arc of his entire career, via almost entirely unheard material. Click here if
Ten Kind Favors: Massive B.B. King Box in Development at Universal (UPDATED WITH TRACK LIST)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Np5Nmxr-1Y] With over half a century in the business of playing the blues, Riley B. King - "B.B." to millions - is the total embodiment of a living legend. As we dive headfirst into box set season, it looks like King's getting a box set from Hip-O/UMe worthy of that legend - and fans can be a part of it. Ladies and Gentlemen...Mr. B.B. King, crafted in honor of the 50th anniversary of King's contract with ABC-Paramount, has all the hallmarks of a
The Heart of a Man: Matt Monro Anthologized On Deluxe 2-CD Set "Matt Uncovered: The Rarer Monro"
A remarkable treasure trove of Matt Monro rarities has just been released by EMI Gold, a timely reminder of the artist's life and career. He was sometimes known as the "Cockney Como" or the "English Sinatra," but both descriptions fail to adequately capture the essence of the beloved singer's unique and enduring style. Fortunately, Matt Uncovered: The Rarer Monro offers that singular sound in abundance as it traces the arc of his entire career, via almost entirely unheard material. We're
Release Round-Up: Week of September 4
Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé, Barcelona: Deluxe Edition (Island U.K.) The Queen frontman's final solo effort - an ambitious collaboration with a Spanish opera legend - has been given new life on CD, with its original synth instrumentation fully fleshed out by an orchestra. A super deluxe box includes scores of audiovisual extras, and the newly-orchestrated album is also available on vinyl. Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance: Special 30th Anniversary Edition (Columbia/Legacy) A
Music Club Deluxe Go Back to the '80s with 2CD Sets from Yazoo, Duran Duran
Our coverage of Music Club Deluxe's eclectic double-disc budget sets in England takes us to two such titles by favorite synth-oriented pop/rockers of the 1980s: Duran Duran and Yazoo. Birmingham's "Fab Five," the MTV-conquering quintet-turned-trio of the decade, and the short-lived but much-loved duo of big-voiced Alison Moyet and synth whiz Vince Clarke, will each get their own entries on the Music Club Deluxe label, focusing on an unusual, non-chronological mix of hit singles, choice album
Lean On Him: Bill Withers' "Complete Sussex and Columbia Masters" Box Coming in October
Bill Withers announced himself to the world in 1971 in typically understated fashion. He stood beside a plain brick wall, holding a lunch pail on the front cover photograph of Just as I Am. It offered no indication as to the fiery music contained within its grooves, from the plain-spoken, gut-wrenching "Ain't No Sunshine" to the tender and moving "Grandma's Hands." Withers was clearly a singer/songwriter with whom to be reckoned. But did stardom suit Bill Withers? His follow-up album was
Soundtrack Round-Up: FSM "Heat"s Up, Intrada Uncovers More Disney, La-La Land is Super, Kritzerland Is Forever Young
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
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