Marshall Crenshaw has marched to the beat of his own drum (metaphorically speaking!) since making a splash with his self-titled 1982 major label debut. Though he hasn't exactly been away, the power pop hero has returned this week with the official release of I Don't See You Laughing Now, a new 3-track vinyl EP that also happens to mark Crenshaw's launch of a new music subscription series. With shifts in the music landscape occurring on what seems like a day-to-day basis, Crenshaw's new model
Duke Ellington Is "In Grand Company" with Ella, Basie, Satchmo, Coltrane and More
The legendary composer-arranger-pianist-bandleader Duke Ellington is In Grand Company on a new collection of the same name from Starbucks Entertainment, Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. Much has been written of Ellington’s fertile creative partnership with “Take the ‘A’ Train” composer Billy Strayhorn, and indeed, Strayhorn is represented on this disc. But he’s just one of the many, varied artists represented on this collection’s fifteen tracks. Spanning four decades of recording on
Review: Billy Joel, "She's Got a Way: Love Songs"
“She’s got a way about her…I don’t know what it is,” Billy Joel sings on his very first album. But it isn’t long before the song’s narrator explicates many of those ways about her, like a “smile that heals me” or “a light around her.” Even if he can’t put his finger on it, he’s confident that “a million dreams of love surround her ev’rywhere.” Yet rarely (in life or in art) has love been so simple for Billy Joel. “She’s Got a Way” lends its title to a new compilation subtitled Love Songs
Review: The Pogues, "The Very Best of The Pogues"
Since the birth of the greatest hits album, the preparation of such a product has become a bizarre form of performance art. Do you include only hit singles or sprinkle in favorite album cuts? Do you keep things chronological or craft some sort of fancy playlist for maximum listening pleasure? How intricate do you make the packaging - do you need liner notes, song-by-song credits and all that? The fires of these debates are further stoked with the release of The Very Best of The Pogues (Shout!
Big Beat Has "Too Much to Dream" with Two New Psychedelic Sixties Collections
When one thinks of musical psychedelia, the city that most often comes to mind is San Francisco. That rock epicenter hosted the likes of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Blue Cheer and Moby Grape at venues including The Fillmore, The Matrix and the Avalon Ballroom. But psych-rock exploration wasn’t limited to San Francisco, with New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and Austin among the other American spots making major contributions to the genre.
For Your Eyes Only: Edsel Plans Expanded Two-Fers of Sheena Easton's Catalogue
Edsel is expanding and reissuing four albums by Scottish pop star Sheena Easton as a pair of double-disc sets in February. After the success of 1980's insanely catchy "Morning Train (9 to 5)," Easton generally continued recording in the soft, synth-based pop vein in which she'd proven to work well. But sophomore You Could Have Been with Me, released by EMI in 1981, was most bolstered by two singles that didn't appear on the album: "When He Shines" was a Top 20 hit in the U.K., and "For Your
Back Tracks: Adam Ant
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41A91X5pns] It's the statement few in the Internet age expected to type: today, Adam Ant releases his first album in nearly 20 years. Adam Ant is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunnar's Daughter (try saying that three times fast) features brand-new original compositions by Ant with longtime collaborators/guitarists Marco Pirroni and Boz Boorer, and is the first album on his new label, the eponymous Blueblack Hussar Records. Early critical notes
Reviews: Buck Owens, "Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics" and Don Rich, "Sings George Jones"
With its two latest releases, Omnivore Recordings continues its great Bakersfield rescue mission. Texas-born and Arizona-raised, Buck Owens made his mark in that California city, answering the prevailing “countrypolitan” style with a return to a pure and unadorned honky-tonk sound. But that “natural” sound had roots that ran deep in Bakersfield. Yet Owens’ parallel career as the avuncular, perpetually joking co-host of television’s cornpone Hee Haw may have caused audiences to take his
Kritzerland's Got the Action with "Butch and Sundance" and Vintage Dean Martin Comedy
Kritzerland has just announced its first releases for 2013, and these two rare soundtracks, both of which are making their CD debuts, couldn’t be more different: George Duning’s Who’s Got the Action? and Patrick Williams’ Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. Almost ten years after the runaway success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 20th Century Fox realized its hopes for a follow-up film with Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. At the conclusion of the first film, though, raindrops
Rare Gems Hidden in New "Playlist" Wave
The latest wave of Playlist releases is almost here from Legacy Recordings, and the series dedicated to collecting “the hits plus the fan favorites” doesn’t look to disappoint. On January 29, Playlist volumes will be released for an eclectic cadre of artists in a variety of genres: vintage metal (Accept), traditional pop (Andy Williams), blue-eyed soul (The Box Tops), classic rock (Mountain, The Doobie Brothers, Harry Nilsson), country (Sara Evans, The Highwaymen), hip-hop (G. Love and Special
La-La Land Releases "Dave," "The Relic" Scores
Following a strong 2012 release slate, La-La Land Records looks to be keeping the spirit of catalogue soundtracks alive with their first releases of the new year: one an expansion of a score to a modern comedy classic, the other a premiere release of the music to a '90s sci-fi flick. Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline) is a simple businessman with a bizarre trait: he's the spitting image of the President of the United States of America. When that president falls ill, his team decides to use Dave to their
Morning of Their Lives: Bee Gees' Original Australian Albums Reissued on CD by Festival Label
Though Bee Gees’ First introduced Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb to the world at large, the album title was actually a misnomer. The Bee Gees’ first album was, in fact, The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs, released in Australia in 1965 on Festival Records’ Leedon label. Two albums were released in Australia before the Gibbs’ international debut, with a third “odds-and-ends” collection having arrived in late 1967 just months after Bee Gees’ First. The Bee Gees’ Australian output has
Review: Roger Cook, "Running with the Rat Pack"
The rules of pop music were changing, and Roger Cook didn't want to be behind the times. The songwriter of such nuggets as "You've Got Your Troubles," "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," "My Baby Loves Lovin'" and "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" had long balanced his work as a behind-the-scenes songwriter with a singing career. As one-half of David and Jonathan (with co-writer Roger Greenaway) and a member of Blue Mink, Cook was a familiar vocalist, and as a background singer, he added
Numero is (Possibly) Purple on Forthcoming LP Reissue
Nearly 35 years after the unceremonious release of The Lewis Conection, a local Minneapolis band's sole funk LP, The Numero Group is resurrecting the disc, giving it a premiere release next month. (It's part of an forthcoming phase at Numero to unearth significant and rare recordings from the early days of the Minneapolis sound.) What makes this set so special? According to popular lore, while recording the album at Minneapolis' Sound 80 Studios, The Lewis Connection invited an 18-year-old
Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: Jack White's Label Issues Rare Blues Masters on Vinyl
Jack White's Third Man Records label, not merely content to issue unique offerings of the ex-White Stripe's music on a variety of formats, is now getting into the historical catalogue business with three forthcoming LPs of vintage blues masters. The new venture, Document Records, will present "the building blocks and DNA of American culture," as the announcement put it. This first wave of recordings features the early works of Charley Patton, the lauded "Father of the Delta Blues"whose powerful
Big Break Goes Disco with KC and the Sunshine Band, George McCrae, Johnnie Taylor
The Temptations had sunshine on a rainy day, John Denver had it on his shoulders, and the O'Jays took their cue from an old standard to address a loved one as "my sunshine." But Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch, forming Miami's KC and the Sunshine Band, had sunshine both in the band name and in the joyful, exultant brand of music they played. Big Break Records has recently reissued one title recorded by those disco titans, one title produced by them, and one with another connection to the
Grammy Time: Music's Biggest Night Honored with Annual Compilation
We're just a few weeks from the 55th Annual Grammy Awards - or as I like to call it, "how many times can my music geek friends and I make cutting jokes on the Internet?" - and, as is customary, next week will see the release of a compilation of Grammy-nominated songs for your perusal. The 22-track compilation, distributed this year by EMI, has quite the cross-section of cuts from what is a rather diverse year for the awards ceremony. Altogether, six different artists - Dan Auerbach of the
Dusty Groove Label Returns From Real Gone Music with Steig, Humphrey, Harris
The venerable Blue Note Records label was founded in 1939, and from the late 1940s onward emphasized what was most modern about jazz. Blue Note became well known, of course, for the hard bop classics recorded under its aegis. But the varied influences that created hard bop led Blue Note to explore how the avenues of soul, rock and blues intersected with that of jazz. Three new releases from Real Gone Music and the reactivated Dusty Groove Records label explore three sonically-diverse titles
Real Gone Announces Hendrix-Produced LP from Cat Mother, Plus Grateful Dead, Rod McKuen, The Hello People, Freddie King, More
From a lost classic produced by Jimi Hendrix to Grateful Dead playing Warren Zevon, Real Gone Music’s February release slate has a little bit of soul, rock, pop, blues and even poetry! The label founded by Gordon Anderson and Gabby Castellana has an impressive line-up of titles due on February 26, including the first-ever standalone CD reissue of the Richard Perry-produced Reprise debut of Fanny (the first all-female rock group signed to a major label), a definitive 2-CD singles collection from
Beat The Boots: Digital Volumes of "Motown Unreleased 1962" Quietly Released Online
There's been much talk this week of Bob Dylan's 50th Anniversary Collection, a (very) limited edition title released in Europe to protect the singer's 1962 recordings from entering the public domain there. But we can report that it's not alone. On December 18, Universal Music very quietly released six exciting, digital-only compilations under the umbrella of Motown Unreleased: 1962. The New York Times has been among those speculating that the 120 tracks contained on the six "albums" have all
Intrada Goes Ape, Expands "Congo" and "Cromwell" Scores
Expanded scores by iconic composers? Reissues of soundtrack oddities paired with newly-discovered gems? Yes, it's certainly 2013 at Intrada! The label unveiled its first two titles for the new year on Monday: complete presentations of Jerry Goldsmith's score to Congo and Frank Cordell's Cromwell. Released at the height of the mid-'90s post-Jurassic Park frenzy, Congo (which, like JP, was based on a techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton) was the story of a team of scientists and mercenaries
Little Bit O'Soul: Thelma Houston, Syreeta, Nancy Wilson, Brecker Brothers, George Duke Reissued
Soul music was alive and well in 2012, and some of the finest reissues arrived courtesy of Cherry Red's SoulMusic Records label. With the label already looking forward to 2013 releases from artists including Ronnie Laws, Patti Austin, Stephanie Mills, George Duke, Gwen Guthrie and Freda Payne (more on those soon), the time is right to revisit some of the year-end titles that might have fallen under the radar! In addition to celebrating the post-Motown recordings of Mary Wells at 20th Century
Mad Season's "Above" Rediscovered for Expansive Deluxe Edition
Though the group isn’t often spoken of in the same breath as Crosby, Stills and Nash or The Traveling Wilburys, Mad Season was a bona fide supergroup for the 1990s. The Seattle-based group of musicians - Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, drummer/percussionist Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and bassist John Baker Saunders of The Walkabouts and The Lamont Cranston Band - joined together in 1994 and released just one album, 1995’s Columbia Records release
We Love You Conrad, Oh Yes We Do: "Bye Bye Birdie" Film Soundtrack Turns 50, Is Newly-Expanded
Gray skies are gonna clear up... More than seven years before the first Tribe of Hair let the sun shine in, another cast of characters brought rock (and roll!) to the New York stage. Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ smash hit musical Bye Bye Birdie skyrocketed its leading actors Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera to greater fame in 1960, alongside director/choreographer Gower Champion, in a sweet but timely tale of a hip-swiveling rocker about to go off to the Army and the one
Information on "Inspiration": Shuggie Otis Returns with New Tour, Expanded Album with Unreleased Songs (UPDATED WITH TRACK LIST)
Shuggie Otis was born into a musical family, the son of Johnny Otis, the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues." Bandleader, songwriter and performer Johnny (real name: Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes) scored successes with Etta James, "Little" Esther Phillips, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Ace, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and more, so it could have been no surprise that Shuggie (born Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr.) would follow in his father's footsteps. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known for his work
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