It’s a new year, and that means a new crop of Playlist titles from Legacy Recordings! As in the past, this crop of releases runs the gamut, with a number of titles including rare or new-to-CD material and others relying on the tried and true. The artists represented also encompass a wide variety of genres. Fans of classic rock-and-roll and pop will find plenty to enjoy on a career-spanning disc from Ronnie Spector and a reissue of the vintage Greatest Hits album of Simon and Garfunkel, while
Get Ready: Tommy Hunt's "Sign of the Times" Revives Northern Soul Favorites
Trivia: who was the first artist to release Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "I Don't Know What to Do with Myself" in 1962? Hint: it wasn't Dusty Springfield (1964) or Dionne Warwick (1966). The answer is Tommy Hunt, onetime member of The Flamingos and a member of the Scepter Records family between 1961 and 1964. At Scepter, Hunt introduced both that now-classic song and scored hits like "Human" (No. 5 R&B/No. 46 Pop, 1961) and "I Am a Witness" (No. 71 R&B, 1963). Hunt followed his
Reissue Theory: Fleetwood Mac, "Tango in the Night"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on great albums and the reissues they could someday see. As we welcome one of our favorite ladies in rock back to her famous band, we remember their last album altogether and the pop success it enjoyed. One of the best pieces of classic rock news to come out of this nascent year is easily the announcement of singer/keyboardist Christine McVie returning to Fleetwood Mac. McVie retired from the band (and touring in general) after
Rhino Gives The Royal Treatment To The King and Queen of Soul with New Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin Box Sets
Rhino is kicking off February’s Black History Month in a big way – with two new box sets dedicated to undisputed R&B royalty, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. On February 4, the label will release the 4-CD collections The King of Soul and The Queen of Soul, and despite the wealth of sublime soul music on these sets, both titles are priced with an eye to the budget-conscious. As of this writing, the Otis set is available at Amazon U.S. for $33.62, and the Aretha set for $34.05...or less
The Other Side of "The '59 Sound": Gaslight Anthem to Release B-Sides Compilation
As rock fans prep for a new album from New Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem (one which they are reportedly hard at work on), the band will release a new compilation of early B-sides later this month. The New Brunswick outfit have steadily earned fans over the past few years with a deft blend of Clash and Replacements-esque punk and post-grunge, plus an emotional storytelling streak that has earned comparisons to another rocker from New Jersey (who guested with them at the Glastonbury Festival
A Filmography Fit for a King, Chronicled on New Elvis Box Set
If a Legacy Edition of Elvis' Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis wasn't enough excitement from the King, try this one on for size: Sony's U.K. arm is releasing a 20-disc box set collecting Elvis Presley's soundtrack albums. From the beginning of his career, Elvis Aaron Presley had an eye on Hollywood. He enjoyed acting, despite having no formal training in it, and had a screen test for Paramount Pictures just days after his first long-player for RCA Victor was released. Producer Hal Wallis
Only the Strong Survive: Ace Reissues, Remasters Vintage Southern Soul from Stax, Fame
The mighty Stax Records catalogue got a lot of much-deserved respect in 2013, from a new book exploring the label's history (Robert Gordon's Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion) to a variety of catalogue projects, many from the venerable Ace Records label. Ace has recently followed up its reissues of classic albums by The Staple Singers, David Porter and Bettye Crutcher with further Stax discoveries from Darrell Banks and The Newcomers. And not to be outdone, Ace has
SoulMusic Goes "Loco" with Expanded Reissues From Dee Dee Warwick, The Four Tops
Dee Dee Warwick signed with Mercury Records’ Blue Rock imprint in 1964, the same year her sister Dionne solidified her place in the upper reaches of the charts with songs like “Walk on By,” “Reach Out for Me” and “You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart).” Though Dee Dee never saw the same kind of commercial success as Dionne, she carved out a unique vocal identity with her dark, bluesy and intense tone. At Mercury, Dee Dee recorded two albums and a number of singles. In 2012, Soul
"Catch the Love Parade" With Second Volume of Now Sounds' "Book a Trip"
Between 1965 and 1970, Los Angeles’ Capitol Tower – standing then, as it does now, near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine - was the place to be. Capitol Records had The Beatles, and the Beach Boys, too. But the label that Nancy Wilson and The Lettermen called home also hosted a number of bands with groovy names like The Tuneful Trolley, The Sugar Shoppe, The Pink Cloud, The New Kick and (my personal favorite) The Unforscene. These happening acts, and many more, take the spotlight on Book
Walk Out to Winter: Aztec Camera's Debut Expanded for 30th Anniversary
More than a year after Edsel expanded and reissued the Aztec Camera catalogue, the Scottish outfit's first album for Rough Trade will be reissued once again by Domino Records for its 30th anniversary. High Land, Hard Rain, originally released on the Rough Trade label in the U.K. and Sire Records in the U.S., is the first full-length to feature frontman Roddy Frame's prodigious gift as a sophisticated, dramatic pop writer, with tracks like "Oblivious" and "Walk Out to Winter" rich with evocative
From Brigadoon to Dogpatch, USA: Masterworks' Slate Features Robert Goulet Musicals, "Li'l Abner," "Virginia Woolf"
It might be a typical day in Dogpatch, USA, but it’s far from a typical one around these parts, for Sony’s Masterworks Broadway imprint has unveiled its first three releases of 2014 – each one a rare album never previously available in the compact disc/digital era. Next Tuesday, January 14, Masterworks will reissue the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the movie musical Li’l Abner, arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle. Next month, on February 18, comes the spoken-word Original Broadway
Come Into Their World: Dance Classics From The Emotions, Foxy Arrive On BBR
We have plenty of news coming your way from Big Break Records as the Cherry Red soul specialists have closed out 2013 and already announced plans for 2014 in a big way. Before we dive into recent releases from Joe Bataan, The Salsoul Orchestra, Chris Jasper and Herbie Mann, we wouldn’t want you to miss two recent disco-flavored releases from The Emotions and Foxy! The BBR label welcomes The Emotions, appropriately enough, with the R&B girl group’s 1979 album entitled Come Into Our World.
"Star Trek," "Abyss" Surface in Surprise Varese Club Batch
Varese Sarabande has opened up a new batch of CD Club limited edition soundtrack reissues for the holidays. Beginning in 2014, six titles - including two deluxe editions - will start shipping from the long-running soundtrack label. First up, a milestone from the final frontier: Varese expands the soundtrack to 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis. This time, the USS Enterprise encounters a dangerous foe from within the Romulan Empire: a villainous clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (played by a then-unknown
Todd's Blues: Rundgren's Live "Johnson" Captured On CD/DVD Set
When Todd Rundgren’s Johnson was released in April 2011, the singer-songwriter’s longtime fans were forgiven for greeting the album with surprise. While Toddheads have been trained to expect the unexpected, Johnson was a departure from even the artist’s most outré projects. It was Rundgren’s first-ever all-covers album, and its subject wasn’t a songwriter whose influence was readily apparent in Rundgren’s own music. (At various points in his career, a tribute to Laura Nyro or Kenneth Gamble,
High Moon Rising: Reissues From Gene Clark and Arthur Lee's Love Now Available For Pre-Order
At long last, High Moon is rising. Yesterday, on January 2, the long-aborning record label revealed on its Facebook page that pre-orders were being taken for the label's CD releases of Gene Clark's Two Sides to Every Story and Love's Black Beauty. We've closely followed the High Moon story here at The Second Disc, from the label's initial announcements in Spring 2011 through an optimistic status update almost two years ago on January 30, 2012. Deluxe, 180-gram vinyl LPs arrived for both titles
The Year in Reissues: The 2013 Gold Bonus Disc Awards
Welcome to The Second Disc’s Fourth Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! Though this is a slow time of year for news, it’s the perfect time to look at the year in review. As with every year’s awards, our goals are simple: to recognize as many of the year’s most essential reissues and catalogue titles as possible, and to celebrate those labels, producers and artists who make these releases possible in what many might deem an increasingly-challenging retail landscape. These labels have bucked the
Happy Holidays From The Second Disc
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…not even The Second Disc. It’s that time of year, folks, where we hope you’ll be spending time with your loved ones, looking back on the events of the past twelve months, and looking forward to a happy, healthy and fulfilling 2014. Watch this space for some special surprises coming up soon…and rest assured that we’ll be back on a regular posting schedule in the first full week of the New Year with even
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Various Artists, "The South Side of Soul Street"
The trusty musical archaeologists at the Omnivore label have the perfect stocking stuffer for those looking for a little bit of southern soul hung by the chimney with care. The 2-CD anthology The South Side of Soul Street (OVCD-68, 2013), collecting the A- and B-sides of 20 singles released by the Minaret label between 1967 and 1976, makes the argument that Valparaiso, Florida’s Playground Recording Studio deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Muscle Shoals, American Sound, Stax and
Motown Rarities Uncovered on Vinyl Box, Digital Outtakes Set
Motown aficionados have a lot of fun stuff to dig through on a number of formats, with the recent release of a box set collecting 14 rare cuts on vinyl and a new, copyright law-busting compilation of 52 previously unavailable outtakes from some of the label's biggest names. Recently issued in the U.K., The Motown 7s Box: Rare and Unreleased Vinyl seems to take more of a tack about "tracks unreleased to vinyl" than "never-before-released tracks on vinyl." Everything here has been made available
Of Mamas, Papas, Raiders and Soundtracks: Real Gone's February Slate Revealed
The announcement of Real Gone Music's release schedule for February 2014 would be cause for celebration any day of the week. But this particular day is special, as you're about to find out. In addition to an ironclad lineup that includes A Gathering of Flowers, the long out-of-print 1970 collection from The Mamas & The Papas; The Complete Recordings by Brotherhood, an unfairly obscure psych-rock band comprised of Phil Volk, Drake Levin and Mike "Smitty" Smith of Paul Revere & The
Piano Jazz: Robinsongs Revives Ramsey Lewis, Richard Tee LPs on CD
If you’re in the mood for funky jazz played by two piano giants, Cherry Red’s Robinsongs label has a couple of recent releases just for you. The late Richard Tee (1943-1993) may be best known for his session work; the pianist/arranger’s credits include pivotal recordings by Marvin Gaye, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Aretha Franklin, George Harrison, Daryl Hall and John Oates, The Bee Gees, Dionne Warwick and many others. For much of the seventies, if you needed electric piano, keyboards or organ on
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Donny Hathaway, "Never My Love: The Anthology"
This time of year, it’s nearly impossible to spend much time on a holiday music station without hearing the familiar, resonant voice persuasively imploring, “Hang all the mistletoe/I’m gonna get to know you better/This Christmas!” Donny Hathaway’s 1970 single “This Christmas” has become one of the most frequently-sung latter-day Christmas standards, recorded in recent years by everybody from Carole King to Mary J. Blige. In a too-short life that was tragically curbed at 33 in January 1979, the
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Buck Owens, "Buck 'Em! The Music of Buck Owens"
No less an eminent personage than American author William Faulkner once said that "a writer needs three things - experience, observation, and imagination - any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others." Country music legend and Bakersfield Sound pioneer Buck Owens, however, utilized all three of those key elements in his songs, which may help explain their timeless stature. Fifty of those recordings are anthologized on Omnivore's new Buck 'Em! The Music of
Holiday Tunes Watch: Sony CMG Celebrates The Season with Bing, Buck, B.J., JB, Elvis and More
Occasionally the aisles of your local grocery or big-box store turn up releases you won't find even in your local indie music store. Such is the case with a recent batch of holiday-themed titles from Sony Commercial Music Group. Just in time for Christmas '13, CMG has unveiled a number of holiday compilations - and a handful of straight album reissues - for fans of classic pop (Bing Crosby, Patti Page), country (B.J. Thomas, Buck Owens, Roy Clark), rock-and-roll (Elvis Presley) and R&B
Always Something There: Cherry Pop Reissues Viola Wills' "If You Could Read My Mind"
Released during the last days of disco, Viola Wills’ 1980 album If You Could Read My Mind blended then-current dance styles with deliciously soulful vocals and a genre-bending repertoire of songs. Cherry Pop has recently reissued this LP from the onetime Barry White protégé and Joe Cocker backing vocalist in an expanded and remastered edition that reveals it to be a hidden gem with appeal to fans of disco, Hi-NRG and MOR pop/soft rock. Los Angeles-born Viola Wills (1939-2009) was joined by
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