Carmen McRae - The Second Disc

The Weekend Stream: April 12, 2025

April 12, 2025 by The Second Disc | No Comments

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. By now, you might have hit your participating local shop for Record Store Day – and happily, we’re kicking off this Saturday’s column to share material from five exclusive vinyl titles that are getting a second life in the streaming and download world too. It’s a great way to check out some titles if you missed them, or weren’t sure if you wanted to add them to your…

Try to See Things Their Way: Ace Preps ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ Third Collection of Beatles Covers Through a Black Lens

November 14, 2024 by Mike Duquette | 1 Comment

As fans prepare for the release of the new Disney+ documentary Beatles ’64, chronicling The Fab Four’s legendary inaugural trip to America, U.K. label Ace Records has an exciting release coming that same weekend, featuring nearly two dozen Black artists paying tribute to a series of songbooks that owed so much to soul music and rhythm and blues traditions. Here, There and Everywhere: Black America Sings Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, available November 29, is the seventh of Ace’s “Black America Sings” releases, which began with a 2011 entry on Bob Dylan and…

Categories:

News

Formats:

CD, Vinyl

Genres:

Blues, Classic Rock, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rock

Release Round-Up: Week of March 8

March 8, 2024 by The Second Disc | 2 Comments

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. The Rolling Stones, Live at The Wiltern (Mercury Studios) 2CD/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP (Amazon Exclusive Black and Bronze Swirl): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP Black Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The Rolling Stones’ 2002-2003 Licks World Tour was one of The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band’s most innovative. To celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary (and the release of the career-spanning…

Categories:

Release Round-Up

Formats:

CD, DVD, Digital Download, Digital Streaming, Vinyl

Genres:

Classic Rock, Jazz, Pop, Popular Standards/Vocal, R&B/Soul, Rock

Tags:

Alice Cooper, Bananarama, Carmen McRae, Dion, Ella Fitzgerald, Judas Priest, Norah Jones, The Rolling Stones, The Stylistics

Release Round-Up: Week of December 3

December 3, 2021 by The Second Disc | No Comments

Welcome to the first Release Round-Up of the last month of 2021! The Doors, L.A. Woman: 50th Anniversary Edition (Elektra/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Rhino.com) The sixth and final studio album from The Doors featuring Jim Morrison gets a 50th anniversary expansion from Rhino on 3 CDs and 1 LP. The original stereo album (newly remastered by Bruce Botnick) is present on both CD and LP while the bonus discs have more than two hours of previously unreleased sessions. The first CD also includes two bonus tracks, a previously unheard Sunset Sound recording…

Categories:

Release Round-Up

Formats:

Blu-Ray, Box Sets, CD, DVD, Digital Streaming, Vinyl

Genres:

Country, Folk, Jazz, Pop, Popular Standards/Vocal, Rock

Tags:

Calvin Keys, Carmen McRae, Chris Connor, Depeche Mode, Doc Watson, Doug Carn, Garbage, Nina Simone, The Black Keys, The Doors, Tom Jones, Travis, Trini Lopez

All This and Heaven, Too: BMG Reissues “Nina Simone and Her Friends” Featuring Chris Connor and Carmen McRae

November 1, 2021 by Joe Marchese | No Comments

BMG is following up its reissue earlier this year of Nina Simone’s 1959 Bethlehem Records debut Little Girl Blue with the label’s follow-up, Nina Simone and Her Friends. Like the earlier title, this newly remastered edition will be available on CD, LP, and in both high-definition and standard digital/streaming versions. The LP will be a Record Store Day Essentials emerald green 180-gram pressing available at record stores everywhere. All formats will arrive in stores on December 3. Simone’s discography for Bethlehem is famously small – just the Little Girl Blue album and…

Categories:

News

Formats:

CD, Digital Download, Digital Streaming, Vinyl

Genres:

Jazz, Popular Standards/Vocal, R&B/Soul

Tags:

Carmen McRae, Chris Connor, Nina Simone

Ain’t Misbehavin’: Mosaic Collects Louis Armstrong’s “Complete RCA Victor and Columbia Studio Sessions 1946-66”

February 2, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments

Louis Armstrong Complete RCA and Columbia Mosaic 1946 1966

Throughout his remarkable and influential career, Louis Armstrong recorded in a variety of styles for a number of labels. In April, some of his most significant sides for both RCA Victor and Columbia are coming to CD in a new box set from the fine folks at Mosaic Records. The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia and RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-1966 is a sprawling and comprehensive 7-CD collection with all 29 of Satchmo’s 1946-47 RCA sides plus his ’50s Columbia LPs with producer George Avakian (Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, Satch Plays Fats);…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Box Sets, CD

Genres:

Jazz

Tags:

Carmen McRae, Dave Brubeck, Lambert Hendricks and Ross, Louis Armstrong

Gee, But It’s Good to Be Here: Stage Door Releases “Lost Broadway 1956-57”

August 1, 2019 by Joe Marchese | No Comments

For the second volume in its Lost Broadway series of 2-CD sets, the U.K.’s Stage Door Records label has turned its attention to the years 1956 and 1957. Musical hits during the 1956-1957 and 1957-1958 seasons included Bells Are Ringing, Li’l Abner, West Side Story, and The Music Man, but Stage Door’s attention doesn’t lie with those smashes but rather with the largely-forgotten, but certainly worthy, shows that haven’t received nearly as much love over the years. Like the first volume (which looked back to 1961), this edition features original cast performances…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Genres:

Cast Recordings, Popular Standards/Vocal

Tags:

Barbara Cook, Carmen McRae, Chita Rivera, Eartha Kitt, Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, Lena Horne, Leonard Bernstein, Mel Tormé, Sammy Davis Jr., Various Artists

Review: Various Artists, “Here Today! The Songs of Brian Wilson”

August 3, 2015 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments

The title of Ace Records’ recent collection is Here Today! The Songs of Brian Wilson, after one of those famous Wilson songs off The Beach Boys’ 1966 Pet Sounds. But the fact of the matter is – as this enjoyably diverse set proves over the course of its 25 tracks – Brian Wilson’s music is not only here today, but will be here for many tomorrows. Unlike Ace’s 2003 volume Pet Projects: The Brian Wilson Productions, this anthology concentrates on Brian as songwriter. But there are a couple of cuts here with…

Categories:

Reviews

Formats:

Genres:

Classic Rock, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul

Tags:

Bobby Vee, Brian Wilson, Carmen McRae, Hugo Montenegro, Jan and Dean, Nick DeCaro, The Beach Boys, The Tokens, Three Dog Night, Various Artists

Ace Collects Good Vibrations On “Here Today! The Songs of Brian Wilson”

May 22, 2015 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments

2015 has been a banner year for Brian Wilson. The Beach Boys legend has already released a new album, is currently preparing for a tour with Searching for Sugar Man cult hero Rodriguez, and will next month see the full release in theatres of his biopic Love and Mercy. Ace Records is joining the celebration with the June 29 U.K. release (July 10 in the U.S.) of Here Today! The Songs of Brian Wilson. One of Ace’s first releases in its Songwriters and Producers Series was 2003’s Pet Projects: The Brian Wilson…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Genres:

Pop, R&B/Soul

Tags:

Bobby Vee, Brian Wilson, Bruce and Terry, Carmen McRae, Gary Usher, Hugo Montenegro, Jay and the Americans, Nick DeCaro, The Beach Boys, The Tokens

Big Break Serves Up Soul, Jazz and Funk from Carmen McRae, Billy Paul, Azteca and More

January 29, 2013 by Joe Marchese | No Comments

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 for 1973’s Dick Jensen, the self-titled album by the renowned entertainer…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Genres:

Jazz, Popular Standards/Vocal, R&B/Soul

Tags:

Azteca, Billy Paul, Carmen McRae, Dick Jensen, Tyrone Davis