Perhaps you've heard this story by now, but it's awesome even if you have: West Coast record chain Amoeba Music is digitizing their rarest and out-of-print stock to sell online. From Variety: Many of the LPs have been getting remastering upgrades from the original vinyl and shellac sources. Currently, there are only about 1,000 titles for sale, but Amoeba is adding 10 or 15 more every day. Some Vinyl Vaults artists are readily familiar, and in some cases Amoeba's source material emanates from
Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars: Él Collects Vintage Gilberto, Jobim, Bonfá on CD
Fewer images in music are more evocative than that of the tall and tan and young and lovely girl from Ipanema, walking like a samba and inspiring passersby to go, "Aaaah." Jazz musicians of every stripe and every instrument latched onto Brazil's bossa nova sound after it exploded to popularity in the wake of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luis Bonfá, Vinicius de Moraes and João Gilberto's soundtrack to the 1959 film Black Orpheus. Though Black Orpheus was the breakthrough, it wasn't the birth of bossa
Short Takes, Classic Pop Edition: What's Coming From Willie Nelson, Bing Crosby, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett
Today’s Short Takes looks at a variety of upcoming releases with one thing in common: great vocalists in the tradition of the Great American Songbook! First up, let's take a look at an album of new recordings from a favorite reissue label. One genre has never been enough to contain the musical restlessness of Willie Nelson. The country legend and honky-tonk hero created his own standards with his early songs such as “Crazy” and “Funny How Time Slips Away” before paying tribute to the Great
Marianne Faithfull's "Broken English" Fixes Up Nice for Expanded Reissue
As reported in this morning's Release Round-Up, Marianne Faithfull's iconic Broken English is getting the deluxe treatment from Universal's U.K. catalogue arm. Upon initial release in 1979, Broken English was a major surprise for almost everyone involved and listening. Then in her early 30s at the time, Faithfull had lived enough for a handful of people, going from chart-dominating folk singer (debut hit "As Tears Go By" was written for her by Mick Jagger) to swinging London sex symbol (she
Review: Dick Jensen, "Dick Jensen" - A Lost Philadelphia Soul Classic
When Dick Jensen was signed to ABC’s Probe Records label in 1969, only one album title seemed appropriate: White Hot Soul. The Hawaiian-born entertainer’s stage moves earned him comparisons to James Brown and Jackie Wilson, while his voice recalled the booming sonorities of Tom Jones or Engelbert Humperdinck. Tucked away on Side Two of that Don Costa-produced LP, Jensen included The Soul Survivors’ “Expressway to Your Heart” as part of a medley. That 1967 Top 5 hit, of course, was written by
Big Break Serves Up Soul, Jazz and Funk from Carmen McRae, Billy Paul, Azteca and More
Timeless soul music knows no regional boundaries, at least based on the latest quintet of releases from Cherry Red's Big Break Records imprint. With this group of reissues, you'll travel to Philadelphia by way of Hawaii, Oakland, Harlem and Chicago. All of the titles previewed below are available now in the U.K. and next Tuesday, February 5, in the U.S.! Two new titles hail from the Philadelphia International Records catalogue. Perhaps most exciting is the first CD release outside of Japan
Release Round-Up: Week of January 29
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours: Expanded/Deluxe Editions (Warner Bros.) Ahead of the band's forthcoming tour, a new 4CD/1DVD/LP deluxe box set edition of their most popular album, featuring the original album on CD and vinyl, two discs of studio outtakes (including the one from the 2004 reissue) and an unreleased documentary. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) A three-disc edition collects the album and the two new bonus CDs, so if you own the last expansion and can live sans DVD, you can pick the rest up for
Skydog, Celebrated: Life of Duane Allman Explored in New Career-Spanning Box Set
Duane Allman was just 24 when he perished on the streets of Macon, Georgia, the victim of an accident involving his motorcycle and a flatbed truck carrying a lumber crane. Yet in a short but intense period of time, the Nashville-born slide guitar virtuoso had established a reputation as a creative and versatile musician with invention to spare. His distinct tones on a Wilson Pickett recording caught the ear of Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, and while based at Rick Hall’s Muscle Shoals studio,
Call "Echo Valley 2-6809" For 7Ts' Latest Partridge Family Reissues
Even Reuben Kincaid might be happy with two upcoming releases from Cherry Red’s 7Ts label: two-for-one reissues of The Partridge Family’s Sound Magazine and Shopping Bag; and The Partridge Family Notebook and Crossword Puzzle. Continuing 7Ts’ David Cassidy and Partridge Family reissue series, both two-fers are out now in the U.K. and on February 5 in U.S. stores. 1971’s U.S. Top 10 album Sound Magazine, the third LP from the TV group fronted by David Cassidy and Shirley Jones, followed its two
Numero Unearths Early Hüsker Dü Cuts for Record Store Day
Are we talking about Record Store Day already? Even though it's not happening until April 20, The Numero Group has announced plans to issue on vinyl some of the earliest recordings by seminal rockers Hüsker Dü. While the world weeps for relations to improve between primary songwriters Bob Mould and Grant Hart (they won't -Ed., likely sighing wistfully) - at least to the point where Hüsker Dü can get a catalogue upgrade with the quality of, say, the Sugar discography - Numero will press a double
There He Goes Again: Marshall Crenshaw Launches New EP Subscription Service
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
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.
Such Greater Heights: Sub Pop Reissues The Postal Service
It was one chance group of collaborations between one of the most acclaimed indie-rock frontmen and a celebrated electronic producer - arguably both similar to and unlike anything either man had done before. And, bolstered by some unforgettable songs, it's a collaboration from which the world anxiously awaits more. Now, there is more - sort of: The Postal Service, the duo of Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello, will expand and reissue their sole LP, Give Up, with a bonus disc
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
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
Release Round-Up: Week of January 22
Billy Joel, She's Got a Way: Love Songs (Columbia/Legacy) The romantic side of the Piano Man is featured on this new compilation. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Rodriguez, Searching for Sugar Man (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) One of the most captivating catalogue music documentaries of 2012 is now available on DVD (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) and Blu-Ray (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)! The Blue Nile, A Walk Across the Rooftops / Hats: Deluxe Editions (Virgin/EMI) Slated for release in the
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
Let's Hang On to Two Volumes of Frankie Valli and 4 Seasons' "Gold Vault of Hits"
Whether you consider them the East Coast answer to The Beach Boys, or rivals to The Beatles (as on a famous Vee-Jay LP compilation), Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons have had a long, illustrious career. Despite having scored his first hit with the Seasons back in 1962, Valli has hardly slowed his pace over the years, overseeing companies and productions of the 2005 musical Jersey Boys, readying a film version, and recently performing a concert on Broadway with a new line-up of Seasons. The
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
Stephen Stills Turns Back the Pages with New Retrospective Box Set
If, like me, there’s a gaping hole in your box set shelf between “C” (for David Crosby’s 2006 Voyage) and “N” (for Graham Nash’s 2009 Reflections), fear no more. That hole is ready to be filled with a March 26 release from the third member of the Crosby, Stills and Nash triumvirate. Carry On celebrates the career of guitarist-singer-songwriter Stephen Stills in a new 4-CD box drawing on his legendary associations with CSN, CSNY, Buffalo Springfield, Manassas and of course, his solo projects
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
Otis Redding's "Deepest Soul" Explored on New Concept Album
When is a lost album not a lost album? In the case of Lonely and Blue: The Deepest Soul of Otis Redding, the answer is, “when the album has been created in 2013 to look, sound and feel like a Stax/Volt release from almost five decades prior!” On March 5, Stax and Concord Records will release this newly-created concept album of the late soul shouter’s most torrid ballads on both CD and a special blue vinyl LP. Compilation producer David Gorman set out with one goal in mind: “to find the
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- …
- 223
- Next Page »