Welcome to the third part of our Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight - Cherry Red Box Set Bonanza! Click here for Part One, featuring Evelyn "Champagne" King, and here for Part Two featuring Graham Bonnet! When one thinks of bands assembled by audition, The Monkees usually spring to mind. Davy, Micky, Peter, and Michael had been assembled by Screen Gems for the purposes of starring in a new television sitcom, and by sheer force of will became a "real" band making some of the era's most
The Shape I'm In: Capitol, UMe Prep The Band's "Stage Fright" In New Stereo and Surround Mixes For 50th Anniversary Releases
With their seminal first two albums, Music from Big Pink and The Band, the group consisting of Garth Hudson (keyboards, piano, horns), Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin), Richard Manuel (keyboards, vocals, drums), Rick Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals) had earned the right to call themselves, simply, The Band. They effortlessly fused folk, country, blues, gospel, soul, and a dash of rock to create an organic, back-to-basics sound that reverberated with
Soundtrack Watch: Everybody's Talkin' About Quartet's Score Reissues
As we approach the end of 2020, soundtrack labels are working overtime to put out some great archival score presentations. Not to be ignored this time of year is an impressive line-up from European label Quartet Records: last week they announced three incredible expanded releases and a new re-recording. Additionally, they recently issued another two expanded releases that are absolutely worth fans' time. Those recent releases are a pair of acclaimed scores from 1990: Jerry Goldsmith's work on
Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers' Songbook Vol. 1
Barry Gibb has teamed with an illustrious array of Nashville artists to celebrate the Bee Gees' songbook. Vol. 1, Greenfields, was recorded in Nashville with producer Dave Cobb and features such artist-song pairings as Keith Urban on "I've Gotta Get a Message to You," Dolly Parton on "Words," Brandi Carlile on "Run to Me," Allison Krauss on "Too Much Heaven," Sheryl Crow on "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," and Olivia Newton-John on "Rest Your Love on Me." Other performers include Little Big
Stir It Up: Bob Marley's 75th Anniversary Celebration Continues with Two Box Sets, Vinyl Reissues
Nearly 40 years after his passing, Bob Marley's music, image and message continue to fascinate audiences the world over. The end of this year has seen some considerable activity around his classic '70s and '80s catalogue for Tuff Gong/Island Records, including a new career-spanning box set and some vinyl reissues - and another box set, a new version of an old collection, is due early next year. Five years from its original vinyl release in 2015, a CD edition of The Complete Island Recordings
Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: Cherry Red Box Set Bonanza - Graham Bonnet's "Solo Albums 1974-1992"
Perhaps no label this holiday season has offered such a bonanza of box sets as Cherry Red. Yesterday, we looked at Evelyn "Champagne" King's The RCA Albums 1977-1985. Today, we're turning the spotlight onto Graham Bonnet's Solo Albums 1974-1982! Cherry Red's Hear No Evil (HNE) imprint has long been a home for archival releases from singer Graham Bonnet of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Alcatrazz, and The Michael Schenker Group. Now, HNE has brought together Bonnet's first four solo albums,
Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: Cherry Red Box Set Bonanza - Evelyn "Champagne" King, "The RCA Albums 1977-1985"
Perhaps no label this holiday season has offered such a bonanza of box sets as Cherry Red. Today we kick off a three-part feature on five of these sets (any of which just might make the perfect stocking stuffer!) with a Holiday Gift Guide spotlight on Evelyn "Champagne" King's The RCA Albums 1977-1985. Bronx-born, Philadelphia-raised vocalist Evelyn "Champagne" King came from a showbiz family including her uncle Avon Long - perhaps best known as Sportin' Life in multiple productions of Porgy
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Kiki Dee, "The Fontana and Motown Years"
UPDATED DECEMBER 2020: Kiki Dee rocketed to worldwide stardom (no pun intended) on Elton John's Rocket Records in 1976, imploring "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" to John on the chart-topping duet. She had been recording for Rocket since 1973, scoring such U.K. hits as "Amoreuse" and "I've Got the Music in Me," the latter of which also went to the top 20 of the U.S. Hot 100, as well. Anyone familiar with Dee's Rocket recordings knows her to be a singer of both power and sensitivity, and last year,
Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Doors, "Morrison Hotel: 50th Anniversary Edition"
For The Doors, 1970 should have been a new beginning. Upon the February 1 release of the band's fifth album, Morrison Hotel, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore were still recovering from the events of the prior year. On March 1, 1969, Morrison famously (or infamously?) exposed himself onstage in Coconut Grove, Florida. The Lizard King's "indecent exposure" led to the cancellation of over two dozen concerts and some radio stations' refusal to play The Doors' music.
In Memoriam: Charley Pride (1934-2020)
Before Darius Rucker or Lil Nas X, there was Charley Pride. The fourth of eleven children born to sharecroppers in Sledge, Mississippi didn't just break the race barrier in country music; he positively shattered it. Pride wasn't the first African-American performer in the genre - DeFord Bailey's success in country and blues dated back to the 1920s - but he earned the same level of stardom accorded his white contemporaries such as Willie Nelson or Glen Campbell. With Pride's death today of
Short Takes: David Bowie, Burt Bacharach and Melody Federer, Willie Nelson, and Frank Sinatra
An unusual amount of news broke this morning, so another installment of Short Takes is here to cover it all in bite-sized nuggets! The third volume of David Bowie's Brilliant Live Adventures series is now available for pre-order in 1CD and 2LP editions. Liveandwell.com was culled from performances in New York, Amsterdam, and Rio de Janeiro during Bowie's Earthling tour and first issued in 2000 as a website-exclusive release for subscribers to Bowienet. This expanded and remastered edition
Holiday Gift Guide Reviews: Cat Stevens, "Mona Bone Jakon" and "Tea for the Tillerman" 50th Anniversary Editions
1970 was a defining year for pop music, and few stars ascended to quite the same heights as Cat Stevens, whose Mona Bone Jakon and Tea For the Tillerman re-introduced the songwriter and singer to audiences. Gone are the production excesses of his late-'60s pop recordings. Here, Stevens' songs are stripped-down as he looks inward and embraces a soulful sound. Fifty years on, these two albums have been revisited by Yusuf through his aptly titled Cat-O-Log Records imprint, in coordination with
Release Round-Up: Week of December 11
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Neil Young, After the Gold Rush: 50th Anniversary Edition (Reprise) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The 50th Anniversary Edition of Neil Young's classic album features new art based on Gary Burden's original album cover design. The CD is out today while the vinyl edition will be released in March, 2021 and presented in a box set with the LP and a bonus 7″ single in a newly designed picture sleeve. This set includes two different
Holiday Gift Guide: Vinyl Me, Please - A Year in Review
Over the past few months you've probably heard us mention Vinyl Me Please. The subscription-based record club frequently partners with the major labels to create exclusive pressings from across genres. They also curate Records of the Month for subscribers - available in three tracks: Classics, Essentials, and Hip Hop - specially selected by their staff to spotlight albums of importance in pop, rock, soul, world music, jazz, and beyond. This year, the offerings ran the gamut from The Stooges,
Play It Again: Esoteric Salutes The Moody Blues' Ray Thomas with Anthology, Surround Mix
As a founding member of The Moody Blues, Ray Thomas (1941-2018) played the haunting flute solo on the band's 1967 hit "Nights in White Satin." He also was responsible for writing many of the Moodies' most beloved songs including "Twilight Time," "And the Tide Rushes In," and "Legend of a Mind." A multi-instrumentalist and singer, Thomas recorded two solo albums for the group's Threshold Records label: 1975's From Mighty Oaks and 1976's Hopes, Wishes, and Dreams. This fall, Cherry Red's
Soundtrack Watch: La-La Land Plans Goldsmith Series, 'Tremors' and More
Six new and archival soundtracks made up La-La Land's celebrated Black Friday batch this year, including continuations of several of the label's riessue series and the creation of a new one! The label continues its ongoing individual expansions of Bill Conti's scores to The Karate Kid series with a new pressing of the score to the third film in the series. Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita and director John G. Avildsen again reunited for a slightly redundant story in which Daniel and Mr. Miyagi are
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, "A Merry 'Hee Haw' Christmas"
Omnivore has served up one of the year's most festive treats with the first-ever CD reissue of A Merry "Hee Haw" Christmas from Buck Owens and The Buckaroos. The 1970 Capitol release collected both of Buck and his band's Christmas albums - 1965's Christmas with Buck Owens and His Buckaroos and its 1968 follow-up, Christmas Shopping - as a double-album tie-in with Owens' starring role on television's Hee Haw. The country-themed variety show was midway through its 1969-1971 run on CBS-TV; it
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Donna Summer, "The Wanderer: 40th Anniversary"
A new beginning - Donna Summer was certainly ready for one when she signed as the first artist on David Geffen's upstart record label in 1980. She had clashed and litigated with her longtime home of Casablanca Records over her artistic direction, and on a personal level had become a born-again Christian. Her first album for Geffen would build on her success at Casablanca but confidently introduce a new Donna Summer, as well. The Wanderer, her eighth studio album, became a top 20 success in
They're Red Hot: AIDS-Combating Compilations Get Digital Reissues for 30th Anniversary
Since 1989, the Red Hot Organization (RHO) has been combatting the scourge of HIV/AIDS. Red Hot has primarily raised money through the creation of music compilations beginning with the 1990 release Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter. Now, that star-studded release and numerous others have come to digital and streaming services to continue raising money for the charity. RHO co-founder John Carlin, an entertainment lawyer spurred into action by the devastating losses suffered by the New
Release Round-Up: Week of December 4
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Cat Stevens, Mona Bone Jakon: 50th Anniversary Edition (A&M/UMe) 4-CD/Blu-ray/LP/12″ Box: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Cat Stevens, a.k.a. Yusuf, revisits 1970's Mona Bone Jakon with a new, 50th anniversary edition available in a host of formats. The 4-CD/Blu-ray/LP 50th anniversary
A New Level: Jazz Dispensary and Vinyl Me, Please Team Up For "High Fidelity" Jazz-Funk Reissues
This fall, Vinyl Me Please is partnering with Craft Recordings' Jazz Dispensary imprint to reissue some crate-diggers' delights from David Axelrod, Jack DeJohnette, Bernard Purdie, Leon Spencer, and Idris Muhammad with full audiophile treatment. The music has been remastered in an all-analog chain from original tape sources by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio. Each LP, meanwhile, is pressed on 180-gram color vinyl at RTI and features a heavyweight, tip-on sleeve bearing exact reproductions of
Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Free Design, "Butterflies Are Free: The Original Recordings 1967-72"
"Sorry - only one group like this to a generation," renowned engineer-producer Phil Ramone wrote on the back cover of The Free Design's 1968 sophomore album You Could Be Born Again. After over 50 years, The Free Design are still a singular group, difficult to pigeonhole. Their gentle, even childlike style has frequently landed them in the sunshine pop genre, but that match was never quite right: not only were they from New York, but their sound lacked the brightness and even brashness that
Butterflies Are Free: The Original Recordings 1967-72
Cherry Red's El label takes a deep dive into the psychedelic world of The Free Design, sort of an underground Spanky and Our Gang - or sunshine pop, New York City-style. (Most of their material was recorded with Phil Ramone at his A&R Studios.) This 4-CD slipcased box features seven complete albums and bonus mono mixes and rarities. The group's rich harmony versions of such songs as "The 59th Street Bridge Song," "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," "Happy Together," "California
Snowblind: Black Sabbath's "Vol. 4" Goes Super Deluxe in February with Unreleased Studio, Live Material
Ozzy Osbourne hasn't been far from the news lately, appearing on the cover of GQ, sharing details of his ongoing struggle with Parkinson's disease, releasing the new album Ordinary Man, and appearing on various television projects. On February 12, 2021, however, Rhino will be looking back with Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward for a 4-CD or 5-LP celebration of their classic 1972 album: Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Now a platinum seller, Vol. 4 was the band's first self-produced LP
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Lou Reed, "New York" [Deluxe Edition]
"I'll take Manhattan in a garbage bag with Latin written on it that says "It's hard to give a shit these days..." Indeed, Lou Reed always gave off the vibe of someone who didn't give a shit - and moreover, someone who didn't take any shit. But beneath that hip veneer was an artist who cared deeply, and had the talents to express himself and his keenly-felt beliefs in song. He was ready for a new start in 1988 when he began recording his first album for Sire Records after his second stint at
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