"I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing: that it was all started by a mouse." Walt Disney was, of course, speaking of his enduring creation, Mickey Mouse. The character's debut in the 1928 animated short subject Steamboat Willie was indeed the watershed moment from which decades of entertainment in every conceivable medium followed. But the business that became The Walt Disney Company had been founded five years earlier, in 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy. That's the anniversary
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Eric Clapton, Eric Clapton: Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Polydor/UMe) 4CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1LP (Original Album Only): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Eric Clapton's eponymous 1970 solo debut is reissued today in 4CD and 1LP iterations. The 4CD Deluxe Edition presents Eric Clapton in three separate mixes, with one mix on each of the first three CDs in the box: The Tom Dowd Mix, The Eric Clapton Mix, and The
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Jethro Tull, Stormwatch: 40th Anniversary Edition (Chrysalis) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Jethro Tull continues its long-running box set series with a new 4CD/2DVD expansion of 1979's Stormwatch, the final Tull album to feature the "classic" line-up of Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, John Glascock, John Evan, David (now Dee) Palmer, and Barriemore Barlow. The new edition features: The original album and associated recordings
A British compilation series recently released a magical volume for Disney fans - and with a host of rarities for collectors, to boot! Since 2016, Universal Music On Demand's Sing Your Heart Out series has annually issued hits-packed compilations meant for (you guessed it) singing together, at home or in the car. In October, the Sing Your Heart Out series expanded to include a volume of classics from the films of Walt Disney Pictures. A total of 52 tracks are featured across the set's first
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Debby Boone, You Light Up My Life: 40th Anniversary Expanded Edition (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Finally, the platinum LP containing the biggest hit of the 1970s arrives on CD! Real Gone's new edition expands Debby Boone's original You Light Up My Life album by a whopping thirteen tracks, tracing Debby's career back to her earliest recordings with her sisters as The Boone Girls. You'll hear their effervescent
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Grateful Dead, Cornell 5/8/77 (Grateful Dead/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Rhino teams with the Grateful Dead for the first authorized release of one of the band's most famous concert bootlegs: the Cornell 5/8/77 show. The bootleg recording of this show was so significant that it was added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2011. This 3-CD set ties in with a new book about the oft-discussed concert;
Curtain up! Analog Spark, the audiophile imprint of Razor and Tie, has brought back the luster of yesteryear with a trio of reissues from the days when people dressed up to go to the theatre. The label has given the Original Broadway Cast Recordings of My Fair Lady, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof the deluxe treatment on 180-gram vinyl, and indeed, one would be hard-pressed to think of three titles more worthy of the presentation. Fair Lady, Fiddler and West Side all reveal
Following its vinyl and SACD presentations of the original soundtrack of 1965's The Sound of Music and its 40th anniversary vinyl pressing of 1975's original Broadway cast recording of A Chorus Line, Razor and Tie's audiophile division Analog Spark has turned its attention to three more classic cast albums. My Fair Lady (1956), West Side Story (1958) and Fiddler on the Roof (1964) are all now available from Analog Spark in newly-remastered, 180-gram deluxe audiophile vinyl editions. These are
RCA Victor expected the soundtrack album to 1965's big-screen musical The Sound of Music to be a juggernaut. The label backed the release with a $100,000.00 promotional campaign, and arranged for tie-ins at locales including the New York World's Fair. The release was joined on the label's roster by other albums of the already-famous Rodgers and Hammerstein score in styles from jazz (Gary Burton's The Groovy Sound of Music) to "easy listening" (The Living Strings' Music from The Sound of
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Oddly, releases were split between yesterday and today, but both days add up to a wealth of titles in nearly every genre! Without a doubt, this is one of the most packed weeks yet this year! Jackie DeShannon, All the Love: The Lost Atlantic Recordings (Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) All the Love--The Lost Atlantic Recordings brings together DeShannon's entire 1973 Atlantic Records material in one place for the first time,
By anyone's estimation, Julie Andrews was one of Columbia Records' leading lights by 1962. Her Tony-nominated performances onstage in My Fair Lady and Camelot had both led to chart-topping, record-breaking original cast recordings on the Columbia label; in fact, it was under the leadership of president Goddard Lieberson that the record label underwrote the original Broadway production cost of My Fair Lady - an investment that, needless to say, paid off many times over! So it was unsurprising
Dusty Springfield, Faithful (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Faithful assembles for the first time on one CD all of the masters produced by Jeff Barry ("Chapel of Love," "Leader of the Pack," "Sugar, Sugar") for Dusty Springfield in 1971. From his home base at New York's Century Sound, Barry produced thirteen songs for Dusty - twelve intended for album release and one for a non-LP single. Four songs were released on two 45s, but when Dusty departed Atlantic Records, the
In the days when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Peter and Gordon, The Zombies, The Animals and The Kinks were vying for chart supremacy, there was another British Invasion going on. And it was virtually a single-handed one. The invader in question was a winsome soprano named Julie Andrews, who was a perfect nanny not once but twice on the silver screen. Andrews’ performance as Mary Poppins saw her headlining the No. 1 album in the United States in March 1965 (emerging triumphant over Beatles
This week brings a particularly impressive slate by any standard, but we're particularly proud to introduce the world to Second Disc Records with our first two releases, from Johnny Mathis and the late Bob Crewe! Johnny Mathis, Life is a Song Worth Singing: The Complete Thom Bell Sessions (Second Disc/Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Here, on two CDs, we proudly present both of Johnny Mathis' album collaborations - including the never-on-CD Mathis Is... - with songwriter-producer
With its upcoming roster boasting titles from Kate Bush, Ben Folds Five, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Laura Nyro and Julie Andrews, the new audiophile label Analog Spark is pulling out all the stops for its debut this spring. Yesterday, Razor & Tie announced the launch of Analog Spark, a new imprint which will focus on reissued releases on both 180-gram vinyl and SACD. Razor & Tie co-owners Cliff Chenfeld and Craig Balsam commented, “We’re very excited about the launch of Analog Spark
The hills are alive again! On March 10, Legacy Recordings will reissue RCA Victor’s chart-topping 1965 soundtrack to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s five-time Academy Award-winning The Sound of Music in a new 50th anniversary edition to coincide with the golden anniversary release on Blu-ray. Collectors will note that expanded CD reissues of the classic musical soundtrack starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are as inevitable as raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens; editions have
It's been a good year to be a fan of Henry Mancini. And it's about to get even better! The career of the composer, arranger and conductor - the rare artist for whom the word "legendary" is not only apt, but perhaps an understatement - has been recognized on disc in 2014 by labels including Varese Vintage, Vocalion, Intrada and Sony's Legacy Recordings. Legacy previously marked the 50th anniversary of Mancini's iconic music of The Pink Panther with a limited edition pink vinyl release for
In 1962, Carol Burnett was one of America's fastest-rising comedy stars, having reigned on Broadway as a brassy princess in Once Upon a Mattress and endeared herself to the rest of America as a regular on The Garry Moore Show. Julie Andrews shared a stage pedigree with Burnett, a performer since childhood and the originator of iconic roles in Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's My Fair Lady and Camelot. When Andrews teamed with Burnett as a guest on Moore's program, the chemistry was all too
I know a place where we can go to finally hear the complete Warner Bros. singles of one of the most acclaimed singers of all-time, Petula Clark. On July 26, The Second Disc reported on Collectors' Choice's complete singles collection for Clark's swinging tenure on Warner. Well, that auspicious project has finally been confirmed, but Collectors' Choice has sweetened the pot: also coming are Complete Warner Bros. Singles sets for fellow 1960s female icons Connie Stevens and Joanie Sommers, and a