After leaving Deep Purple in June 1973, lead singer Ian Gillan began to pursue other avenues for his creativity. He purchased a hotel, built motorcycle engines, and opened a recording studio. But the siren song of singing was too difficult to resist, and in 1975, he founded The Ian Gillan Band. Though ostensibly a jazz-rock outfit – with keyboards, but no brass or winds in the core lineup – Gillan didn’t ignore the rock part of the equation. Now, Edsel has collected the group’s recorded output on the comprehensive 8CD box Down…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 29
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. Deep Purple, Rapture of the Deep: 20th Anniversary Edition (earMusic) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada A 20th anniversary edition of Rapture of the Deep, Deep Purple’s 18th studio album, offers a remix and resequencing of the album by Roger Glover, with two non-LP tracks (“MTV” and “Things I Never Said”) now added into the sequence. This was the second album from the band’s longest-tenured line-up, the…
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Release Round-Up: Week of August 15
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. Doc Pomus, You Can’t Hip a Square: The Doc Pomus Songwriting Demos (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Omnivore) You Can’t Hip a Square: The Doc Pomus Songwriting Demos collects more than 160 tracks from the late, legendary songwriter, who died in 1991 at the age of 65 and was subsequently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Blues Hall of Fame. Over…
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From Japan to ‘Rapture’: Deep Purple Remix, Expand Albums from Mk. II and VIII Line-Ups
Two very different albums from Deep Purple’s long history will be remixed and reissued this summer: 1975’s Made in Japan and 2005’s Rapture of the Deep. Coming from Rhino on August 15 – 52 years since the first of the concerts represented on the original LP were staged – a new super deluxe edition of Made in Japan, spanning 5CD/1 Blu-ray or 10 LPs, offers new mixes by Steven Wilson of the original album and the complete trio of concerts it came from, complete with bonus encores and a few original single edits. The band’s…
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Listen to the Music: Rhino’s Rocktober Slate Features Doobie Brothers, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, Monkees, More
Rhino’s annual Rocktober campaign – this year encompassing 43 limited edition colored vinyl reissues of rockers both classic and contemporary – kicked off on October 4 with titles from Black Sabbath, Bush, Deep Purple, Devo, The Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, The Monkees, Stone Temple Pilots, and more. Next, on October 18, the collection will grow to include releases from Ramones and The Velvet Underground. The slate concludes on October 25 with The Cars, Foghat, Iron Butterfly, and more, including a second volume of Yes’ Yessingles. As usual, Rocktober titles will only be…
Release Round-Up: Week of July 19
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. Mungo Jerry, Electronically Tested: Expanded Edition (7a Records) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Mungo Jerry’s eclectic 1971 album Electronically Tested, featuring the global hit “In the Summertime,” returns in a newly remastered and expanded edition from our friends at 7a Records. It adds four bonus tracks including the infectious single “Lady Rose” and its flipside “Little Louis,” the B-side “The Man Behind the Piano,” and…
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Release Round-Up: Week of March 29
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. Deep Purple, Machine Head: Super Deluxe Edition (Warner/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Rhino.com) Deep Purple’s 1972 album Machine Head remains the venerable hard rock band’s most commercially successful album. The third LP from the Mk. II lineup of Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice introduced one of rock’s most famous riffs with “Smoke on the Water,” and influenced a generation of rock and metal musicians. …
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Pictures of Home: Rhino Revisits Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” on New Super Deluxe Edition
Deep Purple’s 1972 album Machine Head remains the venerable hard rock band’s most commercially successful album. The third LP from the Mk. II lineup of Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice introduced one of rock’s most famous riffs with “Smoke on the Water,” and influenced a generation of rock and metal musicians. On March 29, Rhino revisits Machine Head as a 3CD/1LP/1Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition with various versions of the album: 2024 Dweezil Zappa album mix on CD and LP; 2024 Original Album Remaster on CD; March…
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You Keep On Moving: David Coverdale Pays Tribute to Deep Purple Years with Expanded Whitesnake Set
David Coverdale first entranced the rock world with his vocals as a onetime member of Deep Purple. The latest reissue from his own band, Whitesnake, will join his past and present together with some stirring archival finds for fans. On October 13, Rhino will give 2015’s The Purple Album the ongoing remaster/remix treatment it’s given many of the other albums with Coverdale in the driver’s seat. The remixed “Special Gold Edition” album of Mark III and Mark IV-era Deep Purple covers comes with a bonus disc of live material, alternate mixes, and…
Release Round-Up: Week of November 26
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! It’s a smaller week than usual owing to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday as well as to Record Store Day’s slate of Black Friday releases! To all those who celebrated Thanksgiving, we hope it was a wonderful one! David Bowie, Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) (Parlophone) 11CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 17LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Parlophone continues its career-spanning series of box sets for the late David Bowie. The fifth Era box set, Brilliant Adventure, includes: Five remastered studio albums (Black Tie White Noise (1993), The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), Outside (1995), Earthling (1997), ‘hours…’ (1999)); A remastered and expanded…
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Shine It on Me: Cherry Red Celebrates Guitarist Ray Fenwick on New Anthology
In a career spanning eight decades, guitarist Ray Fenwick has played pop, prog, hard rock, rhythm and blues, rock-and-roll, and just about every genre conceivable. He’s curated a new 3-CD compendium for Cherry Red’s Lemon imprint appropriately entitled Playing Through the Changes: Anthology 1964-2020, bringing together 61 tracks (some previously unreleased and new to CD) on which his guitar is heard alongside The Spencer Davis Group, Roger Glover, Ronnie James Dio, David Coverdale, Bo Diddley, Ian Gillan, Graham Bonnet, The Syndicats, James Burton, Hardin and York, and many others. It covers his…
The Walrus and Me: “Looking Through a Glass Onion” Collects Pop-Psych Beatles Covers
Let me take you down… The Beatles’ songs were so sturdy and well-crafted that artists such as Matt Monro and Ella Fitzgerald became early adopters. But from the start, John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s contemporaries had been just as likely as the older generation to mine their songbook. As the sixties continued and the Beatles ushered in the shift from pop to rock (minus the “and roll”), similarly youthful artists brought their own increasingly adventurous spins to the lads’ material. Countless various-artists collections of Beatlesongs have proliferated over the years – enough…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 7
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Neil Diamond, Live Reissues 1972-2018 (Capitol/UMe) Hot August Night (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Links TBD / uDiscoverMusic.com) Love at the Greek (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscoverMusic.com) Hot August Night II (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscoverMusic.com) Hot August Night/NYC (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscovermusic.com) Hot August Night III (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscovermusic.com) All-Time Greatest Hits (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscoverMusic.com / Target.com) Capitol and UMe are reissuing five classic Neil Diamond live albums as 2-LP vinyl editions beginning with 1972’s seminal Hot August Night and continuing with the unofficial sequel Love at the Greek (1977) as well as Hot August Night…
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Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy: Rhino Kicks Off 2020 With Start Your Ear Off Right Campaign
As has become an annual tradition, Rhino has kicked off the new year with another exciting slate of Start Your Ear Off Right releases. The first few titles have already hit shelves, and more are on the way over the course of the month. Punk, new wave, counterculture rock, singer-songwriter classics, and sleek ’80s pop hits…it’s all part of this year’s campaign. Each week, a batch of these limited edition color vinyl pressings will be released to brick and mortar shops and a select few larger retailers. A press release notes that…
Release Round-Up: Weeks of December 20 and 27, and January 3
Welcome to our final Release Round-Up of 2019! This edition covers today’s releases as well as those of the next two weeks, the quietest time of the year for new releases. The weekly Release Round-Up will be back on January 10. In the meantime, Happy Holidays to all! Frank Zappa, The Hot Rats Sessions (Zappa/UMe) 6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada This 6-CD box set explores Frank Zappa’s 1969 primarily instrumental solo album Hot Rats from every angle. The first…
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Memory Lane: Esoteric Collects Baker Gurvitz Army Albums, Celebrates “Underground Sounds of 1968”
Today we’re looking at a pair of recent releases from Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings imprint featuring some heavy sounds! With a résumé including Cream, Blind Faith, Blues Incorporated, The Graham Bond Organisation, and Fela Kuti’s group, Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker has long been recognized as one of rock’s greatest – and most volatile – drummers. With a personality as outsize as his talent, Baker brought a powerful touch to all of his projects and various bands. Between 1974 and 1976, Baker led Baker Gurvitz Army with brothers Adrian (guitar/vocals) and Paul (bass/vocals)…
On The Frontier: Esoteric Announces Renaissance “Ashes Are Burning,” Byrds’ Self-Titled Reissues, 1968 Box Set, and More
February promises to be a packed month for music fans, as Esoteric brings listeners a new, expanded reissue of Renaissance’s 1973 classic, Ashes Are Burning, as well as a reissue of The Byrds, the reunion album by the legendary folk-rock group. Also on the way are reissues of Tear Gas’s self-titled album, an expanded edition of Greenslade’s Time and Tide, and a new 3-CD set called Revolution: Underground Sounds of 1968. Meanwhile, Esoteric’s Reactive imprint will issue a 4-CD set entitled Tangerine Dream: The Blue Years Studio Albums 1985-1987, celebrating their Jive Electro era. All these…
Love Is All: Cherry Red, Purple Records Reissue Roger Glover’s “Butterfly Ball” Featuring Ronnie James Dio
A poem written for children in 1802 would not have been the most obvious subject for Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover for tackle, but that’s precisely what he did in 1974 with The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast. Glover wrote, produced, and played on the pop/rock opera concept album which yielded the hit “Love Is All,” sung by Ronnie James Dio. Now, that original album has been expanded to 3 CDs for a new box set from Cherry Red’s newly-reactivated Purple Records imprint. In 1973, William Roscoe’s original poem inspired a…
Music of the Night: Andrew Lloyd Webber Celebrates His 70th Birthday with a New Box Set
Since September 25, 1979, there hasn’t been a day when an Andrew Lloyd Webber melody hasn’t been heard on Broadway. That was the opening night of Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita. Before it ended its run in June 1983, Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats had opened, launching a record-breaking run through September 2000. But on January 26, 1988, the show opened which would eclipse them all: Phantom of the Opera. It today celebrates 30 years (marked with a special gala earlier this week) and is comfortably the longest-running show in Broadway history,…
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Release Round-Up: Week of September 15
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! The Doors, The Singles (Elektra/Rhino) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K. 2CD/1BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K. Vinyl box set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K. Singles compiles all 20 of the singles from The Doors’ official discography. This not only includes every A and B-side from their core studio albums, but several albums recorded and released after the passing of frontman Jim Morrison, including Other Voices (1971) and Full Circle (1972) plus An American Prayer (the divisive 1978…
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Shades of (Deep) Purple: Cherry Red Reissues Two From Hard Stuff
Cherry Red is bringing out the Hard Stuff. The label has just issued Hard Stuff: The Complete Purple Records Anthology for the British hard rockers, bringing together their only two albums and assorted bonus tracks to tell the story of the band’s time on Deep Purple’s own record label. The seeds of Hard Stuff were planted by guitarist John DuCann and drummer Paul Hammond when both departed Atomic Rooster over the ever-popular “creative differences.” The duo attempted to keep the Atomic Rooster name, but when that didn’t pan out, they reinvented themselves…
Smoke On The Water: Career-Spanning Deep Purple Compilation Due From Rhino
Deep Purple have just kicked off their latest tour in Las Vegas, co-headlining with Alice Cooper. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees and part of the “Holy Trinity of British Hard-Rock” (with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath) are nearing their 50th anniversary and Rhino Records has announced a new anthology, available in several configurations to celebrate the band’s legacy. A Fire in the Sky will be available in single and 3-CD editions on September 8, with a 3-LP edition following on November 8. The band was formed in March of…
Bach Onto This: Deep Purple Founder Jon Lord’s “Before I Forget” Reissued by Cherry Red
“Jon Lord and Whitesnake fans must occasionally want to be introspective,” reckoned Deep Purple and Whitesnake founding member Jon Lord, “and I’d rather they did so with my music than Barry Manilow’s.” Lord was explaining the impetus for his third solo album, 1982’s Before I Forget. Cherry Red and Purple Records have recently reissued the composer-producer-keyboardist’s Before I Forget on CD in an expanded edition bringing together bonus tracks included on the 1999 and 2012 editions. For the Harvest Records release of Before I Forget, Lord jettisoned orchestral pomp in favor of…
Good Time Music: Cherry Red Reissues Two From Ronnie James Dio’s Elf
“We played it hot, hard and heavy at the Carolina County ball/And we sang ‘Ooooo’/On a boogie-woogie Friday night…” Ronnie James Dio’s early band Elf played it hot, hard and (pretty) heavy throughout its relatively short lifespan. Elf released three studio albums between 1972 and 1975 before going to superstardom with Rainbow (the core of which was actually built from Elf), Black Sabbath, and Dio. Last year, Cherry Red released a reissue of 1972’s debut Elf; now, the label has turned its attention to the group’s second and third albums: Carolina County…
Rock My Soul: Cherry Red, Grapefruit Collect Early British Hard Rock On “I’m a Freak, Baby”
What do Deep Purple, The Move, Hawkwind, Fleetwood Mac and The Yardbirds all have in common? Though each of those five bands carved out distinct musical identities, all incorporated elements of psychedelia in their early hard-rock explorations. A new 3-CD box set from Cherry Red’s Grapefruit imprint offers an in-depth chronicle of the music that planted the seeds of progressive rock and metal. I’m a Freak, Baby is, as per its subtitle, A Journey Through the British Heavy Psych and Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-1972. As with the best journeys, it offers…
