Oh yeah, I'll tell you something I think you'll understand... At the height of Beatlemania in 1964, some members of the so-called "older generation" still hadn't caught on to what made the Fab Four more than the latest passing teenybopper fad. But Keely Smith was ready to make them understand. For her third album at Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records, the smoky-voiced chanteuse set out to have the adults in the room "meet the Beatles" in a new way. Keely Smith Sings the John Lennon-Paul
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Johnny Mathis, Close to You/Love Story: Expanded Edition (Second Disc/Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music continue their journey through Johnny Mathis' seventies catalogue with this expanded, remastered two-fer of Mathis' 1970 and 1971 albums. Close to You finds the singer reinterpreting hits by Bacharach and David, Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Beatles, and even Santana, while Love Story
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Michelle Phillips, Victim of Romance: Expanded Edition (Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) "Mama" Michelle Phillips' 1977 solo album, produced by Jack Nitzsche, returns to CD in a new expanded edition collecting the artist's complete sessions with Nitzsche. It adds three outtakes from the album sessions, including a Bee Gees cover ("Had a Lot of Love Last Night"), Dennis Lambert and Fil Spina's "Practice What You Preach,"
We've filled you in about some of Real Gone Music's releases for June, including releases from Cheap Trick and The Quick, but now we've got word of a couple of more, this time from "Mama" Michelle Phillips and Keely Smith, both due June 1. The first is a reissue of Michelle Phillips' one and only solo album from 1977: Victim of Romance. This new edition features liner notes by our very own Joe Marchese. After the break-up of The Mamas & The Papas, Cass Elliott, Denny Doherty and John
In spring 1963, Keely Smith entered the studio to cut her first full-length effort for Reprise Records, the label recently founded by her friend Frank Sinatra. Little Girl Blue/Little Girl New, recorded with arranger-conductor Nelson Riddle, exemplified Smith's classy vocal art and Riddle's peerless gift for orchestration. After far too long an absence from the shelves, this seminal release is back in print from Real Gone Music as the second entry in the label's Keely Smith series, with two
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up featuring our latest Second Disc Records title and much, much more! Laura Nyro, A Little Magic, A Little Kindness: The Complete Mono Albums Collection (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music are proud to present, for the first time on CD, the ultra-rare, original mono mixes of Laura Nyro's first two albums: More Than a New Discovery (Verve Folkways, 1967) and Eli
It's not even Memorial Day yet, but we're already looking ahead to the heart of summer for upcoming reissues and now we've got Real Gone's slate due just after Independence Day on July 7. As is usually the case with this label, it's an eclectic group of releases. You've already heard the news about Second Disc Records and Real Gone's A Little Magic, A Little Kindness from Laura Nyro, with notes by our very own Joe Marchese, but Joe's notes are also featured in two other Real Gone releases in
Rarely has an album so lived up to its name as in the case of The Intimate Keely Smith. The 1965 Reprise record, just brought to CD for the first time in a top-notch expanded edition via Real Gone Music, puts the song stylist front and center onstage in a tiny club, backed by just a small combo. The listener has a stage-side table. Other than the happy lack of clinking glasses and billowing smoke, you are there for a romantic, sensual, and yes, intimate set of classic ballads by Harry Warren,
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Big Star, Complete Third (Omnivore Recordings) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Omnivore does an in-depth vault dive into the creation of Big Star's Third for a new 3-CD box set. Complete Third includes every demo, rough mix, outtake, alternate take and final master from the Third sessions known to exist. The 69 tracks on this set represent the culmination of a decade-long search to assemble all extant recordings for the album
Real Gone Music has just announced their October slate of titles and while only one of them will get you into the Halloween spirit, there might well be something else among the eclectic choice of genres to pique your interest! First up, Real Gone is releasing three two-disc greatest hits collections. One of these features liner notes from our very own Joe Marchese: Percy Faith's The Definitive Collection. Faith was hugely in demand at Columbia Records, arranging and conducting for a large