While the months of January and February are usually down times on Broadway, Sony’s Masterworks Broadway is keeping things going during the winter by announcing a quartet of musical theater titles to be released between now and March. The most expansive release, due February 26, is another entry in Sony’s long-running Essential series: The Essential Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim, of course, needs no introduction to musical theater aficionados. Perhaps the most acclaimed theatrical composer and lyricist of the past 50-60 years, his breathtaking canon includes shows ranging from shows like West Side Story…
UPDATE: Lose That Long Face: “Judy Garland Sings Harold Arlen” Premieres New-to-CD Tracks, Unearths Lost Recording
UPDATE 2/10/16: Whether imploring those around her to “Get Happy” or dreaming of a place “Over the Rainbow,” Judy Garland gave some of the most immortal performances of her career (and indeed, of the whole of popular music as well as film) with the songs of Harold Arlen. In Arlen’s sophisticated yet blues-based melodies, Garland found the perfect expressions in which to bare her soul, alternately with vulnerability, tenderness, desperation and joy. Now, JSP Records, the label which has recently released such landmark Garland collections as Lost Tracks (and the new The…
Review: The Monkees, “Classic Album Collection” and “The Cereal Box Singles”
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the first time Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork first hit TV screens and record sleeves as The Monkees, and indeed, it’s shaping up to be an auspicious year. In advance of the restored Blu-ray premiere of The Monkees’ television show, new album Good Times! and a tour featuring Dolenz and Tork, Rhino has released The Monkees 50: Classic Album Collection, a 10-disc box set collecting the original version of every one of the band’s Colgems albums between The Monkees (1966) and Changes…
When I Say Groove: Ace Explores “Detroit Soul,” “South Texas Rhythm ‘n’ Soul” On Recent Compilations
When it comes to chronicling the various regional iterations of rock and soul, Ace Records has few equals. The U.K. label’s Kent imprint has two recent, rarities-packed collections touching on two American locales and their contributions to popular music. Dave Hamilton’s Detroit Soul Volume Two brings together 24 tracks spanning the 1960s-1980s from Hamilton’s small but prolific Motor City studios. Hamilton had been a presence on the Detroit musical landscape since the late 1940s, and continued to churn out music for decades after. The first volume of this series arrived in 2011,…
Feelin’ Groovy: Now Sounds Collects Harpers Bizarre’s “Complete Singles”
Now Sounds is back with its first release of 2016, and with it, the label is spreading some California sunshine. Harpers Bizarre’s The Complete Singles Collection 1965-1970 compiles all 26 sides issued on 45 RPM singles by Warner Bros. Records, including tracks from the group’s early incarnation as The Tikis and numerous mono mixes never before available on CD. The resulting release, which follows Now Sounds’ reissues of Harpers’ Feelin’ Groovy and Anything Goes albums, is a refreshing journey through some of the most inventive, happily frothy and sun-flecked pop music of…
Live at The Whisky 1969: The Unreleased Masters
Legendary flautist Herbie Mann’s long tenure at Atlantic Records included 1969’s Live At the Whisky A Go Go where he was joined by other jazz luminaries including Steve Marcus, Roy Ayers, Sonny Sharrock, Miroslav Vitous and Bruno Carr. This album featured only two songs, one on each side of the LP. However, there was a lot more material recorded from the group’s four-night stand at the famous nightspot. Now, the tapes from these shows have been unearthed and newly mixed to create a 2-CD set featuring twelve unreleased songs: Live At the Whisky 1969: The…
Rock On! 7Ts Reissues David Essex’s First Three Albums
7Ts Records – Cherry Red’s imprint dedicated to all things seventies, returned late last year to the catalogue of one of its favorite artists, David Essex, for a trio of album reissues. The stage and screen star’s first three solo albums – Rock On, David Essex, and All the Fun of the Fair – are all newly available from 7Ts, with the latter two in slightly expanded form. David Essex, OBE, was born David Albert Cook in 1947. Since making his record debut on the Fontana label in 1965, he has scored…
Soul Beat: Ace Collects Previously Unreleased B.B. King
At the time of his death on May 14, 2015 at the age of 89, legendary bluesman Riley B. “B.B.” King left behind more than 60 studio and live albums, not to mention countless anthologies drawing on different aspects and time periods of his extraordinary career. Late in the year, though, Ace Records added another key collection to that total with the release of Here’s One You Didn’t Know About: From the RPM and Kent Vaults. All but two tracks on this 25-song, nearly 80-minute CD are previously unreleased, and the two…
Ooh Baby: Real Gone’s March Slate Includes Unreleased Herbie Mann Together with Dave Mason and Mickey Gilley Anthologies Plus Limited Vinyl Reissues
Yesterday we brought you the news of the upcoming Second Disc Records title to be released in conjunction with Real Gone Music: Bobby Darin’s Another Song on My Mind: The Motown Years anthology. Now we’ve got the rest of Real Gone’s March slate to tell you about and it’s as excitingly eclectic as ever! Kicking things off is a CD that should be of great interest to jazz enthusiasts. Herbie Mann is considered one of the greatest jazz flautists ever and was an early proponent of world music. His long tenure at Atlantic…
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Kritzerland Brings Herrmann’s “Snows,” Intrada Delivers Goodwin’s Disney “Oddball”
Kritzerland has announced its latest release, and it’s another classic score from the pen of the legendary Bernard Herrmann (Psycho, Vertigo). Twentieth Century Fox’s lavish 1952 film The Snows of Kilimanjaro starred Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner under the direction of Henry King and cinematography of the renowned Leon Shamroy. Kilimanjaro, nominated for two Academy Awards, was one of the year’s most successful movies, and yielded more memorable music from the veteran composer Herrmann. Kritzerland promises that “Herrmann captures all moods of the story, from nostalgia to sadness to joy…
