Frank Zappa, Official Reissues #1-13 (Zappa/UMe) The iconoclastic musician's catalogue is back in print thanks to a new agreement with Universal, and his first 13 albums (most of them newly remastered from the original analog masters) are available today. Joe gave us a great breakdown of what's what on these new masters, which also has convenient links to both these new titles and the forthcoming second wave of remasters next month. Blur, Blur 21 (Virgin/EMI) 21 refers not only to the
Henry Mancini's "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation" Reissued with Premiere of George Duning's "Dear Brigitte"
The legendary American actor James “Jimmy” Stewart (1908-1997) could boast of career highlights in virtually every genre of cinema, from comedies to dramas, westerns to thrillers. Two of Stewart’s brightest comic moments are being recalled on a new two-for-one soundtrack release from the fine folks at Kritzerland. Henry Mancini’s score to 20th Century Fox’s Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, from 1962, has been paired with George Duning’s score to the same studio’s Dear Brigitte (1965) for the
Happy Together: "Sunset Strip to Haight-Ashbury" Features Jefferson Airplane, Mamas and the Papas, Turtles, Love and More
John and Michy were gettin' kind of itchy/Just to leave the folk music behind/Zal and Denny workin' for a penny /Tryin' to get a fish on the line.. Those lyrics from The Mamas and the Papas’ 1967 “Creeque Alley” begin to tell the story of the famous band, and it’s one of eighteen tracks on a new compilation aiming to tell a bigger story: that of “The California Scene in the 1960s.” Yes, this story has been told more comprehensively elsewhere; see two of our favorite box sets dedicated to San
Live Killer, No Filler on Hip-o Select's Latest
This week's Release Round-Up gave some illumination on Hip-o Select's latest, a triple-disc anthology of live material from the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis. But we wouldn't be doing our jobs right if we didn't elaborate on that one for you! The Killer Live! 1964-1970 collates, for the first time on CD, four underrated live records from the irascible rocker's lengthy career - beginning at a time when the world had passed The Killer by. Five years before signing to Smash Records after his Sun
Tomorrow Never Knows: The Beatles Offer Rock-Themed Digital LP
Although albums like Rock ‘n’ Roll Music (1976), Love Songs (1977) and Reel Music (1982) have all yet to be released in any CD or digital format, Apple and EMI are reviving the spirit of those LP compilations with a new release available exclusively as an “iTunes LP.” Tomorrow Never Knows, subtitled File Under “Rock,” collects fourteen of The Beatles’ heaviest tracks including the psychedelic title track from 1966’s Revolver. Somewhat surprisingly, some harder-edged hits have been eschewed;
Reviews: Three From Real Gone - The Electric Prunes, Timi Yuro, The New Christy Minstrels
It might be tough to find three artists as different as Timi Yuro, The Electric Prunes and The New Christy Minstrels, but all three have been treated with similar care on recent projects from Real Gone Music! The Electric Prunes, The Complete Reprise Singles (Real Gone Music OPCD-8574, 2012) In the annals of the One-Hit Wonder, one might stumble upon the name of The Electric Prunes. The group achieved notoriety (and a No. 11 pop hit!) with the original Nugget “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last
A&M Records Celebrates Half-Century Mark with Three-Disc Compilation
Ask the most voracious of music trivia buffs what "A&M Records" stood for and they'll tell you simply: Herb Alpert, noted jazz trumpeter and bandleader; and music promoter Jerry Moss, a duo who crafted the label from Alpert's garage in 1962. 50 years later, with the upcoming release of the three-disc A&M 50: The Anniversary Collection, it's clear that A&M stood for something else, too: one of the most intriguingly eclectic rosters in pop history, encompassing everything from jazz
I Don't Know Where, But It Sends Me There: "Good Vibrations: The Beach Boys Songbook" Arrives
2012 has been a big year for The Beach Boys, and the fun, fun, fun shows little sign of abating any time soon. While we still wait for more details on the possible U.S. arrival of a series of reissued original albums, Sony Music Japan is celebrating with a unique tribute to America's band. Good Vibrations: The Beach Boys Songbook is a 25-track compilation drawn mostly, but not exclusively, from the Sony family of labels including Columbia, RCA Victor, Arista, Buddah and Bang, and offers a number
One Vision: Queen Repackage Video Compilations for New Release
If news of the super deluxe edition of Freddie Mercury's Barcelona album didn't have enough Queen in it for you, you're in some luck now: a new compilation of the band's videos is headed to DVD at the end of the month. The band's Greatest Video Hits is a new repackaging of two earlier compilations on disc - Greatest Video Hits 1 (2002) and Greatest Video Hits 2 (2003). Together, they chronicle just about all of the band's promo videos from the 1970s and 1980s. All clips were remastered and
Review: Sam Phillips, "Martinis & Bikinis"
To call the career of Sam Phillips a varied one is a colossal understatement. The singer and songwriter born Leslie Ann Phillips has played a mute terrorist opposite Bruce Willis, placed several singles in the contemporary Christian Top 10, and today can be found scoring the exploits of a headstrong dancer and her imperious mother-in-law on ABC Family’s drama Bunheads. Though Phillips has hardly slowed down in the intervening years, fans still hold close the creative period she shared with
Get Up! KISS' "Destroyer: Resurrected" Brings Classic Album to Life with New Remix
Buildings reduced to rubble. The jeering ring of electric guitars. Lots of black and white makeup. Yep, another KISS Katalogue title is koming...er, coming. Universal has set an August 21 date for Destroyer: Resurrected, a new version of what might be the band's best-known studio effort. A project for Destroyer's 35th annversary last year has been in the cards for some time, and while the final effort - a sort of teaser for the band's upcoming Monster album this fall - is certainly far shorter
Back to "Barcelona": Queen Frontman's Final Solo Disc Gets Super Deluxe Treatment
"I'm moving into opera now. Forget rock and roll." With those words, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury moved in on what may be the most grandiose phase in a long career full of theatrics. In 1987, with Queen not yet knowing they would have played their final live show one year before, the band's whimsical frontman ventured into uncharted waters with Barcelona, an operatic rock album featuring a talented soprano whose voice he idolized, and put one of the final great flourishes on a career (and a
Wonderful! Wonderful! Johnny Mathis' Long-Lost Mercury Catalogue Comes to CD from Real Gone Music
Johnny Mathis’ association with Columbia Records began in 1956, which makes it one of the longest relationships between artist and label in popular music. But it’s often overlooked that Mathis departed Columbia for a brief period at rival Mercury Records, right as some young upstarts from across the pond were changing the face of music forever. (Keep in mind that Mathis himself wasn’t even 30 when he made the shift!) During a prolific three years (1963-1966) at Mercury, Mathis recorded eleven
Some Kind of a Summer: Real Gone Offers David Cassidy, Gary Lewis, Grateful Dead, Johnny Mathis In August
Real Gone Music is looking ahead to August, and it's going to be one hot summer! The label has just announced new titles from all around the pop/rock spectrum: Gary Lewis and the Playboys, David Cassidy, The Grateful Dead and Johnny Mathis! Gary Lewis and the Playboys' Complete Liberty Singles first arrived in 2009 from the late Collectors' Choice Music label, with 45 tracks on 2 CDs. This anthology definitely proved that there was much more to the group than just "This Diamond Ring,"
From "Sassy" to "The Matriarch of the Blues" and Beyond: PopMarket Offers New Complete Box Sets in August
Though it may be summer vacation for many of us, the folks at Sony's PopMarket have been too busy to take much of a rest! They'll be releasing three more Complete Albums boxes from a triumvirate of artists who blurred the lines between jazz, R&B, pop and rock. Box sets for The Brecker Brothers, Etta James and Sarah Vaughan will arrive at general retail as well as at PopMarket.com on August 28. Though most genres have been benefitted from the comprehensive Complete Albums series, jazz fans
Hey, Mr. Producer: A Second Disc Interview! Talking Remastered, Remixed Edition of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" with Bruce Kimmel
Hats off, here it comes: the Kritzerland label is unveiling a new edition of the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies, but the Broadway babies and girls upstairs will likely have never sounded better. Following similar releases for Promises, Promises and Sugar, Kritzerland has completely remixed and remastered Capitol Records’ 1971 Follies, affording listeners the opportunity to hear a Sondheim masterwork anew. The label began accepting pre-orders
When Worlds Collide! John Barry and Matt Monro Spy Thriller Joins George Pal Sci-Fi Flicks
His name is Barry...John Barry. And the famed film composer's score to the 1966 spy thriller The Quiller Memorandum is one of the two latest soundtrack reissues from Intrada. The film score specialists have also just released a 2-CD set of four scores drawn from the legendary films of George Pal. War of the Worlds/When Worlds Collide includes, as bonuses, The Naked Jungle and Conquest of Space. These four soundtracks are the work of Leith Stevens (War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide),
Shadow of the Bat: Dark Knight Joins Myriad of Superheroes for La-La Land's Comic-Con Soundtrack Lineup
This evening, Preview Night kicks off 2012's Comic-Con International: San Diego, or as most of us know it, just Comic-Con! As the years have passed since the very first event in 1970, Comic-Con has broadened its scope from the world of comic books to every possible corner of pop culture, including music. A number of our friends have set up shop in San Diego, including La-La Land Records at Booth 429 and Shout! Factory at Booth 3849! Mike's checking in with a report on some of the special
Review: The Beat, "I Just Can't Stop It," "Wha'ppen?" and "Special Beat Service" Expanded Editions
When the members of The Beat had the opportunity to create their own record label, the six-piece unit (“Ranking” Roger Charlery on vocals and toasting, Dave Wakeling on vocals and guitar, Andy Cox on guitar, Everett Morton on drums, David Steele on bass and Lionel Augustus Martin a.k.a. Saxa on – what else? – saxophone!) chose “Go Feet Records” as its moniker. Now, roughly 32 years after the band’s first album was released, it will still have your feet going in wild and unexpected directions.
Release Round-Up: Week of July 10
Bananarama, 30 Years of Bananarama (Rhino U.K.) The U.K. division of Rhino compiles the best of the “Venus” hitmakers in this CD/DVD package out today in the U.K. and next week stateside! Read more here. The Beat, I Just Can’t Stop It/Wha’ppen?/Special Beat Service (Demon/Edsel) The complete studio output of The Beat (or The English Beat, if you prefer) gets the deluxe reissue treatment in the U.K. from Edsel as 2-CD/1-DVD sets chock-filled with extra material! Don’t miss our review of
Review: Carly Simon, "Spoiled Girl: Expanded Edition"
The title of Spoiled Girl had a knowingly ironic resonance for Carly Simon. A scion of the Simon and Schuster publishing firm (her father was founder Richard L. Simon), Carly was considered by some to be a "spoiled girl." In fact, that couldn't have been further from the truth, despite a somewhat privileged upbringing. Yet here she was, mockingly singing of a woman who "thinks of nothing but herself," the kind of gal who sends her chauffeur to supply more bubbles for her bath! 1985's Spoiled
Friday Feature: "JAWS"
It wouldn't be summer without cold beers, meat on your barbecue, kids splashing in swimming pools...or a 25-foot-long, three-ton great white shark intent on devouring your local bustling summer community. Okay, that last one's a stretch in literal practice, but the 1975 blockbuster film JAWS, based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel, is a summertime staple, in fact kicking off the notion of huge crowd-pleasing flicks grabbing for audience members as the temperature heats up. The movie was
I Feel Good (All Over): Dance All Weekend Long with Kent's "Cleethorpes Northern Soul Weekender"
Though we've come to expect delightful and deeply soulful compilations from Ace's Kent label, one of Kent's latest is a particular trip: a trip, in fact, to the Cleethorpes Northern Soul Weekender. The 6Ts Rhythm and Soul Society has been throwing these bashes on a yearly basis since 1993, offering up plenty of dancing and some of the best names in soul music, among them Doris Troy, Barbara Lewis, Tommy Hunt, Bettye LaVette and Maxine Brown. Kent's The Cleethorpes Northern Soul Weekender,
A Heart in New York: Art Garfunkel Anthology "The Singer" Due In August with Two Unreleased Tracks
When the singer’s gone, let the song go on… Jimmy Webb wrote those words for the unlikely rock star by the name of Arthur Garfunkel, a former architecture student endowed with a purity of tone and the ability to pierce the heart. And thankfully, both the singer and the song remain very much alive today. Garfunkel, of course, was the yin to Paul Simon’s yang, the Tom to his Jerry. It’s most appropriate, then, that he will bookend his old friend with a new anthology coming on August 28 from
Let There Be Drums, Again: Sandy Nelson Invites You To A "Big Sixties Frat Party!!!"
One could certainly make a case that the 1960s was the prime time for the rock instrumental, with The Ventures, The Marketts, Booker T. & The MGs and The Fireballs just some of the groups behind the decade’s hit melodies. Of the music-making individuals who were, well, instrumental in sending wordless tunes up the charts, few are as beloved as Sandy Nelson. Ace Records has previously anthologized the drummer’s explosive work on Rock ‘n’ Roll Drum Beat (Ace CDCHD 586) and Sandy Nelson’s
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