If you frequently peruse the magazine racks at your local Barnes and Noble or the soon-to-be-late, lamented Borders, chances are you’re familiar with Mojo. The U.K.-published music magazine leads the vanguard of music publications across the pond along with publications like Uncut, Q, Classic Rock and Word, as high-end, glossy publications tailored for the music-centric crowd. One monthly feature of Mojo and Uncut is the inclusion of a cover-mounted CD designed to tie in with that month’s
Review: Three From Dave Grusin, Cy Coleman and Henry Mancini
With hyperbole the norm, it's questionable just how many buyers took notice of a 1957 album on the Liberty label entitled The Versatile Henry Mancini. Yet fewer record titles have proven as apt. As frequent collaborator Blake Edwards noted, "Whether the situation is romantic, humorous, tragic, ironic or full of action, Mancini creates exactly the right musical mood." Mancini's breakthrough came two years after that LP's release, when Edwards enlisted him to provide the cool jazz-inflected
Ride That Train: Johnny Cash "Bootleg III" Takes the Live Route
“Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day/And tell the world that everything’s okay. But I’ll try to carry a little darkness on my back/Till things are brighter, I’m the Man in Black.” And though Johnny Cash appeared as that Man in Black, immortalized in his song, he was in reality a man of many colors. His music reflected a crucial empathy that guided his career as he embraced the various strains of America itself, both its people and its music. Records preserve Cash walking with superstars
Review: Bobby Charles, "Bobby Charles: Rhino Handmade Edition"
Gumbo’s on the menu, and Rhino Handmade is serving. The self-titled Bearsville debut LP from Bobby Charles is a N’awlins stew of roots music, laid-back country, soul and pure rock-and-roll from the man who gave the world “See You Later, Alligator,” and Rhino Handmade has expanded the original 1972 LP with two discs of delicious bonus material (RHM2 52663, 2011), shipping today from the label. It’s somewhat ironic that Bobby Charles was recorded in Woodstock, New York, as the man born Robert
Johnny Mathis, Alfred Newman and Basil Poledouris Coming Soon From La-La Land
Let’s hope all of you film score fans out there have been saving your pennies! On Monday, Kritzerland will unveil its latest classic soundtrack release (watch this very space for that news!) and the very next day, La-La Land continues the musical bonanza with two unique offerings. Jean Neguelsco's 1958 film A Certain Smile starred Rosanno Brazzi (South Pacific) and Joan Fontaine (Rebecca). Adding to the luster, the soundtrack to the 20th Century Fox drama about a middle-aged man’s affair with
Out Of Control: Light in the Attic Invites You To Axton's "Late Late Party"
Light in the Attic is having a party, and you’re invited! Fresh from the success of Our Lives Are Shaped by What We Love: Motown’s MoWest Story (review here), the label has announced another exciting anthology. You might not know Charles “Packy” Axton now, but chances are, you’ll want to get to know him. Born in Memphis, Tennessee into the Stax Records family (his mother Estelle Axton and her brother Jim Stewart founded the Stax label!), “Packy” picked up the saxophone at a young age and
More Garland: First Hand Reveals "The London Studio Recordings 1957-1964"
The British Film Institute describes Ronald Neame’s 1963 film I Could Go on Singing as a “made-to-measure portrait of a singer grappling with her many demons before a London Palladium concert.” With the singer in question portrayed by the incandescent Judy Garland in what would turn out to be her final film role, it’s only natural to wonder just how much of the film was art imitating life. Or was it the other way around? Garland herself had performed triumphantly on the famed London stage as
Cold Chisel Expanded Reissues Arrive in Australia
Raise your hand if you're familiar with Cold Chisel! If you're not, don't worry - you can still pass "Go" and collect your 200 bucks. The band known as Cold Chisel comes from the home of Men at Work (of course), AC/DC, Olivia Newton-John, Peter Allen and Helen Reddy: Australia. Although the band never gained the international fame those other artists did, they remain one of the biggest acts ever in the land down under. Almost forty years after the band's founding, Cold Chisel kicked off
Joel McNeely's Score to "Squanto" Arrives From Intrada and Disney
Intrada Records sure knows how to keep promises! We first reported on the film score label’s partnership with Walt Disney Records back on June 27 when the initial release in a series co-branded with Disney was announced. That first Disney/Intrada release was Michael Giacchino’s Academy Award-winning score to Up (review here), and it was released simultaneously with John Scott’s score to the Touchstone picture Shoot to Kill, also from the Disney vaults under the Intrada Special Collection
Release Round-Up: Week of August 9
GQ, Two (Funkytowngrooves) GQ's 1980 Arista album gets the remastered treatment. (Amazon) Jefferson Airplane, Red Octopus (Friday Music) The 1975 effort from Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Grace Slick and co. arrives on 180-gram vinyl with the mega-hit "Miracles" a highlight! (Official site) Evelyn "Champagne" King, Music Box (Funkytowngrooves) King teams with T-Life for this groove-laden RCA set from 1979! (Amazon) The Motels, Apocalypso (Omnivore) The Motels' lost album from 1981 finally
Stax Remasters Continue with Thomas, Brown and The Dramatics (UPDATED 8/5 WITH TRACK LISTINGS)
While Berry Gordy was defining “The Sound of Young America” in Detroit, Jim Stewart, Estelle Axton and Al Bell were pioneering deep, gritty Southern soul in Memphis. To many, Motown and Stax were two sides of the same coin, both offering powerhouse R&B sounds that spoke directly to the country’s youth. Since acquiring Stax from Fantasy Records in 2004, Concord Music Group has relaunched Stax as an active concern with new artists and has introduced a number of healthy catalogue initiatives
Love Hurts, But This Nazareth Box Looks Painless
Madness isn't the only artist getting a career box set from Salvo Music this year. The U.K. label is affording the same treatment to Scottish rockers Nazareth. While the band had only fleeting chart success in either the U.K. or the U.S. (enjoying early success at home with Top 10 hits "Broken Down Angel" and "Bad Bad Boy," as well as high-charting tunes like their rocking takes on Joni Mitchell's "This Flight Tonight" and Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle," and having one brief Top 10 in the U.S.
FINAL UPDATE 8/4: "Phil Spector Presents the Philles Album Collection" and "Essential Phil Spector" Due From Legacy
Well, get a load of that! This is the photo I've been waiting for - and if you're reading this, chances are you've been waiting with bated breath, too! As of August 4, we have official confirmation that Legacy's Phil Spector Presents the Philles Album Collection is, indeed, coming on October 18, along with a two-disc retrospective as part of the label's long-running Essential series. Most purchasers of Legacy's first wave of Philles Records reissues last February took immediate notice of a
Superstar: Leon Russell's "Live in Japan" Arrives In Newly-Expanded Edition
Can anyone dispute that the Master of Space and Time has returned? Leon Russell is currently touring the country with none other than Bob Dylan, riding the wave of adulation he's received for 2010's high-profile Elton John collaboration The Union, as well as an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On August 9, the Omnivore label will remind listeners of just why Russell is so revered today. On that date, Omnivore will release Live in Japan, restoring to a print a 1974 Japan-only LP
Review: The Beau Brummels, "Bradley's Barn: Expanded Edition"
Before Abbey Road or Caribou, The Beau Brummels immortalized a famous recording studio as the title of Bradley’s Barn, their 1968 album for Warner Bros. Records. The San Francisco pop-rock outfit had travelled to Nashville, Tennessee to record at Owen Bradley’s storied venue at roughly the same time their contemporaries, The Byrds, were on the other side of town cutting Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Though the “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” hitmakers beat the Brummels to the punch
Elton, Orbison, Plant, Mellencamp, Allman Salute "The Producer" On New T Bone Burnett Comp
T Bone Burnett epitomizes cool. The former Joseph Henry Burnett, with his omnipresent sunglasses, is so cool, in fact, that he makes the name “T Bone” sound hip! He’s the producer as rock star, an artist whom superstars and fresh-faced talents alike seek out for a shot in the arm. He’s also the man who made bluegrass trendy. And lest his cool credentials be in doubt, the man toured with Bob Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Revue! Raised in Texas, by way of Missouri, Burnett relocated to
Special Weekend Post: Fourth-Quarter Straw Poll!
Here at Second Disc HQ, it's safe to say that catalogue music is still very much alive. After a week in which very little news was up for reporting, this week was a smorgasbord of box sets and vault titles. Add to that some really well-placed links to some of our posts, and we broke our all-time traffic record on Tuesday, followed by our second and third-highest traffic days on Wednesday and Thursday. It's clear to Joe and myself that The Second Disc must be doing something right in terms of
Where The Hits Are: Sedaka and Greenfield Profiled in "Songwriters" Series
Doo doo doo down doo be do down down/Come a come a down doo be do down down… One year before “Da Doo Ron Ron,” eleven before “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” and eighteen before “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield taught the world that “Breakin’ Up is Hard to Do” with their immortal wordless refrain. Sedaka went on to become the king of the “Tra-la-las” and “shoo-be-doos” with his early rock-and-roll records, and the Juilliard-trained musician was one of the
Smells Like More Details on 20th Anniversary "Nevermind" (UPDATED WITH TRACK LIST)
UPDATE: The track listing is now at the bottom of the post, courtesy of the NME! Original post: Back on June 22, we reported on Geffen Records/Universal Music Enterprises' plans for a 20th anniversary edition of Nirvana's 1991 Nevermind, originally released on September 24 of that year. New details have been released on the set which will arrive in stores on September 27, just three days after the exact anniversary. Universal has stopped short of providing a complete track listing, but one
The Smiths Are Out of the Bag: Massive U.K. Box Planned
As we at The Second Disc HQ love to point out, Morrissey once set his scathing lyrical pen on record companies' propensity for reissues on The Smiths' "Paint a Vulgar Picture." Currently, he must be shitting bricks: Rhino U.K. is planning The Smiths - Complete, a box set compiling the influential band's entire discography, all newly remastered. Clever fans spotted the presence of the set on the label's site late last night (we have super-reader Dean H. to thank for hipping us to it), and our
What The World Needs Now Is Rockbeat Records
Billy Vera, Alberta Hunter and Jackie DeShannon may not have terribly much in common at first glance. But they're just a few of the artists coming your way thanks to Rockbeat Records. Yes, there's a new player in the catalogue field, and their slate of reissues proves that they're ready to make a big impression! Founded by Arny Schorr of S'more Entertainment and distributed by eOne, Rockbeat counts among its team an alumnus of Rhino Records. James Austin, the former Vice President of A&R
One Stop Shopping: "Complete Collections" Coming From Denver, Washington, Kansas and Shorter
No sooner did your catalogue correspondent pop a very old disc of John Denver's 1985 Dreamland Express into the CD player than the news arrived that Dreamland Express would be collected along with 23 (!) other Denver LPs in Legacy's new The Complete Albums Collection. But that's not all. Following the first wave of releases which arrived just over two months ago, the catalogue initiative continues! For the uninitiated, The Complete Album Collection box sets bring together an artist's entire
Impulse Buys Abound from UMe
Universal Music Group got off to a great start anthologizing the deep catalogue of Impulse! Records with a four-disc box set from Hip-o Select earlier this year. Today, that catalogue is revisited yet again, in the form of 28 albums from the jazz label's catalogue collected as two-on-one discs. The titles are pretty diverse, collecting sets from Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson and others. You can order each of the titles on Amazon here and
The Adventure Begins With Safan's "Remo Williams" and Mancini's "Moneychangers"
Raise your hand if you remember the golden age of the television miniseries! Once upon a time, the miniseries was king: Rich Man, Poor Man, QB VII, North and South, Roots, The Thorn Birds. Sprawling novels were translated into multiple evenings of rich, dramatic television, with the small screen taking advantage of a length that even big screen fare couldn’t offer. One such miniseries was 1976’s The Moneychangers, based on a novel by Arthur Hailey (Hotel, Airport) and scored by the same man
Miles Ahead: Legacy Launches "Bootleg Series" For Davis
Move over, Bob Dylan. Another legendary Columbia Records artist just a couple of spaces over on the CD shelf is receiving the Bootleg Series treatment with the September 20 release of The Miles Davis Quintet – Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1. And this release looks every inch as lavish and essential as the releases in Dylan’s similarly titled, long-running series. It’s drawn from original state-owned television and radio sources in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and
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