“Les Cousins: The Soundtrack to Soho’s Legendary Folk and Blues Club” Features Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Al Stewart

“For two-and-a-half years, I had the Friday night show at Bunjies Coffee Bar, and it became a residency for me,” Al Stewart remembered in an interview with this author for the recent collection of his U.S. singles.  “After a while, I got another residency right around the corner at a club called Les Cousins.”  The Greek Street venue was a focal point of the London folk scene.  Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Alexis Korner, John Renbourn, and a young American named Paul Simon all passed through its doors.  Stewart met Bert Jansch there,…

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Review: Kate Bush, “Remastered in Vinyl” Boxes 3 and 4, CD Box 2

When Kate Bush returned to music in 2005 after a 12-year absence, about all that could be expected was the unexpected…and the sonic auteur, naturally, delivered.  Her 21st century work and assorted ephemera has been collected by Parlophone as one box of remastered CDs and two box sets of remastered vinyl LPs. Aerial opens Parlophone’s CD Box 2, and Remastered in Vinyl Box 3.  The record was conceived as two halves, one on each disc.  The first, A Sea of Honey, is a collection of finely-wrought songs with familiar Bush touchstones (romance,…

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In the Pocket: Ace Salutes Mickie Most, Reggie Young on New Anthologies

The names of Mickie Most and Reggie Young might not be among the most familiar except to diehard music aficionados, but the songs that benefited from their respective golden touches certainly are among the most well-known ever.  Ace Records has recently paid tribute to both of these late talents with a pair of deluxe anthologies. The Pop Genius of Mickie Most may be the most lavish single-disc package yet released by Ace, housed in a heavy slipcase also containing a squarebound 74-page biography of the producer-impresario. Most (1938-2003) made no bones about…

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Got My Mojo Working: Cherry Red, Grapefruit Collects Alexis Korner and Baroque Pop On Two Box Sets

Periodically this month, we’ll be looking at titles released in the latter part of 2018 that we either didn’t cover, or only covered briefly, the first time around! We hope you enjoy this look at “some nice things we’ve missed”… Cherry Red’s Grapefruit imprint has recently released a pair of 3-CD box sets touching on two very different aspects of the sixties British music scene. One of the fathers of the British blues boom, Alexis Korner (1928-1984) has been celebrated on Every Day I Have the Blues: The Sixties Anthology.  This handsome…

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Release Round-Up: Week of October 19

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Frank Sinatra, Sings for Only the Lonely: 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Capitol/FSE/UMe) 2-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada On Frank Sinatra’s 1958 Capitol concept album masterwork, he sang for Only the Lonely.  But now, 60 years on, that classic is being revisited for everyone in a new 2-CD anniversary edition.  Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely: 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition features the original 1958…

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Release Round-Up: Week of August 17

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Neil Diamond, Hot August Night III (Capitol) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD/BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Neil Diamond’s August 2012 concerts at Los Angeles’ Greek Theater marking the 40th anniversary of the original Hot August Night are captured on this new live release which also follows 1987’s Hot August Night II and 2009’s Hot August Night/NYC (with honorable mention to 1977’s Love at the Greek).  Expect all of Diamond’s greatest…

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This Could Be The Night: Shout! Factory To Release “T.A.M.I. Show” and “The Big T.N.T. Show” on Blu-ray

While we normally concentrate on CD reissues here at The Second Disc, we do occasionally like to highlight other titles which we think may be of interest to our readers.  One such project, just announced from Shout! Factory, certainly qualifies:  a 2-disc Blu-ray set entitled the T.A.M.I. Show/The Big T.N.T. Show Collector’s Edition due out on December 2. Directed by Steve Binder, T.A.M.I. Show (meaning either “Teenage Awards Music International” or “Teen Age Music International”) was filmed on October 28 and 29, 1964 in California and released in December of that year. …

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Don’t Fear the Reaper: “Now!” Series Releases a Halloween Volume

We’ve reported on several Christmas reissues being released in the lead-up the yuletide season.  And when it comes to holidays throughout the year, Christmas certainly reigns supreme in terms of the quantity of music devoted to it.  However, some other holidays and occasions throughout the year have music devoted to them.  One of the more popular ones is Halloween which is coming up this weekend.  To provide a soundtrack to your Halloween parties or trick-or-treating, Legacy Recordings, in association with Universal, has recently released Now That’s What I Call Halloween! This 18-track…

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Release Round-Up: Week of June 16

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring the return of a veteran artist, celebrations of the renowned musicians of Nashville and Los Angeles, a classic Disney soundtrack, and much more! Various Artists, Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City (Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Legacy teams with the Country Music Hall of Fame for this 2-CD, 36-song companion soundtrack to the Nashville museum’s current exhibit chronicling Music City’s fusion of country of rock.  One previously unreleased cut by Bob Dylan joins both familiar and rare tracks by Johnny Cash,…

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Donovan, Mick Softley, More Featured On “The Eve Folk Recordings”

In 1965, Geoff Stephens and Peter Eden entered into an agreement with EMI’s Columbia label to capitalize on the folk boom Britain was then experiencing.  The deal between Stephens and Eden and EMI was to produce four LPs.  Though the fourth never materialized, the three albums released under the banner of The Eve Folk Recordings have been collected, along with bonus tracks, on RPM’s 2014 two-CD set of the same name.  Stephens and Eden’s early managerial client, Donovan, is featured, along with Mick Softley, Bob Davenport and The Rakes, and Vernon Haddock’s…

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