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…
Touch My Heart: Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Expands “From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music” Box Set
Back in 1998, The Country Music Foundation teamed with Warner Bros. Records to release From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music. The 3-CD box set was divided into three thematic discs – The Stringband Era, The Soul Country Years, and Forward with Pride – which reflected on the immense contributions of African-Americans to country music in 60 songs. Today, the spotlight shines even more brightly on the black experience in the genre, in no small part due to the release earlier this year of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. The album…
The Weekend Stream: November 19, 2022
Madonna, You Can Dance (Single Edits) / Rain (Warner/Rhino) Dance: iTunes / Amazon Rain: iTunes / Amazon Rhino keeps digitally uploading intriguing stuff from Madonna’s single and remix catalogue, and this month saw two such releases: first, a bundle of mixes surrounding the Erotica favorite “Rain,” then this week, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of remix album You Can Dance, an upload of the rare promo version that found all the tracks unmixed and edited to single-ready lengths. Roger Waters, Comfortably Numb 2022 (Legacy) (iTunes / Amazon) A new version of the…
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Cherry Red, SoulMusic Round-Up, Part One: Labels Anthologize Solomon Burke, Esther Phillips’ Complete Atlantic Recordings
In recent weeks, Cherry Red’s SoulMusic Records imprint has launched a series of mini-box sets drawn from the Atlantic vaults including titles available now from Solomon Burke, Esther Phillips, Barbara Lewis, and Carla Thomas. Today we’re looking at the releases from Burke and Phillips, while we’ll next turn to Lewis and Thomas! The late Solomon Burke (who died in 2010 at the age of 70 or 74; reports vary) lived up to his moniker as The King of Rock ‘n’ Soul. SoulMusic’s 3-CD set of that title is drawn from his Atlantic…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 14
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmo’s Factory [Half-Speed Master] (Craft Recordings) LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP/merch bundle: Craft Recordings Online Shop Craft Recordings reissues Creedence Clearwater Revival’s hit-filled fifth album – featuring “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” “Run Through the Jungle,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Travelin’ Band,” and “Up Around the Bend” – on 180-gram half-speed mastered vinyl (from high-resolution transfers of the original analog tapes). Mastering is by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Read more here! Dolores Gray, Heat Wave: The Decca Singles 1953-1955 (Stage Door Records)…
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Super Strut: Cherry Red Collects Best of Creed Taylor’s CTI Label on “Cool Heat”
Cherry Red’s Robinsongs imprint is turning up the Cool Heat with a new 2-CD, 25-track collection celebrating The Best of CTI Records and featuring many of the classic jazz label’s most renowned artists including instrumentalists George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, and Stanley Turrentine, and vocalists Nina Simone, Patti Austin, and Esther Phillips. Chances are, if you think of a jazz artist, it wouldn’t take many degrees of separation to reach Creed Taylor. The esteemed producer began his career at Bethlehem Records overseeing a roster including Herbie Mann, Charles Mingus, Carmen McRae,…
SoulMusic Spotlight Part One: New Anthologies Arrive For Esther Phillips, Levert, and Mtume
Cherry Red’s SoulMusic Records label has added another quintet of releases to its rapidly-growing Anthology series, and this batch is among the most eclectic yet, blurring the lines of jazz, pop, and R&B with Esther Phillips, Levert, Tom Browne, Kashif, and Mtume. As the premier vocalist on CTI Records’ Kudu imprint, Esther Phillips (1935-1984) played a key role in producer Creed Taylor’s “Cool Revolution” at CTI. A gifted vocalist, Phillips nonetheless struggled with personal demons throughout her too-short life. The former “Little Esther” had her first taste of success in 1949, just…
Magic’s in the Air: SoulMusic, Cherry Red Reissue Brook Benton, Esther Phillips Albums
Two late legends of soul – Brook Benton and Esther Phillips – have recently been feted on a pair of reissues from SoulMusic Records and Cherry Red. By the time Brook Benton signed with Atlantic Records’ Cotillion imprint in 1968, he had already enjoyed an illustrious career at labels including OKeh, Epic, RCA, Mercury and Reprise. The move to Atlantic paid off when his recording of Tony Joe White’s “Rainy Night in Georgia” not only reached No. 1 but became a signature song for the vocalist. Benton followed Brook Benton Today (featuring…
Release Round-Up: Week of January 29
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up featuring a host of deluxe reissues, box sets, and more! Phil Collins, Face Value: Deluxe Edition (Atlantic/Rhino) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Phil Collins’ 1981 classic featuring “In the Air Tonight” gets expanded to two CDs or DD with the addition of eight live tracks and four demos (plus a new, modern cover photograph echoing the original). Ten of the twelve bonuses are new to CD. The original album will also be available on…
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Little Esther, All Grown Up: Raven Collects Esther Phillips’ First CTI Albums
As the premier vocalist on CTI Records’ Kudu imprint, Esther Phillips (1935-1984) played a key role in producer Creed Taylor’s “Cool Revolution” at CTI. A gifted vocalist, Phillips nonetheless struggled with personal demons throughout her too-short life. The former “Little Esther” had her first taste of success in 1949, just fourteen years old, and a taste of heroin not long after; stories of her mercurial behavior have entered into legend. But her talent was never in doubt. CTI recorded Phillips in a variety of settings from smooth pop to jazz, disco and…
Review: The Cool Revolution Continues – Four From CTI and Kudu
When he established Kudu as an offshoot of his titanic jazz label CTI, Creed Taylor wore his ambitions on his sleeve. The label was named after the long-horned African mammal and its logo adorned with Afro-centric colors, as Taylor intended to do no less than make Kudu a home for releases “indigenous to the black popular music of the United States.” Taylor always knew the importance of a visual, and much as CTi releases were recognizable for their striking, provocative cover photographs and lavish gatefolds, Kudu’s were no-frills, with bold, plain print…
Ode To A Kudu: CTI Masterworks Series Continues In October With Kudu Titles
Tuesday, August 9 brought the most recent quartet of CTI jazz titles to CD from Sony’s Masterworks Jazz division. For the next batch, due October 4, the label has turned its attention to CTI’s offshoot label, Kudu. Named after the long-horned African mammal, Kudu was launched by CTI’s Creed Taylor in 1971. Taylor described his new endeavor as “a black awareness label, more commercial oriented than CTI and indigenous to the black popular music of the United States.” Even the logo’s familiar Afro-centric colors would be a calling card to Kudu’s mission. …
