Unforgettable...that's what he is. This year marks what would have been the 100th birthday of one of America's finest performers of popular song: Nat "King" Cole. In his decades-long career, Cole blazed the trail for many entertainers to come, influencing the likes of Count Basie and Ray Charles along the way. Universal Music Group will celebrate his milestone centennial with a pair of retrospectives this spring, plus a digital expansion of another vocal icon paying tribute to the
Happy Holidays! While gifts are flowing to friends and loved ones, there's not much new coming to stores! Here are a few highlights to keep you sated over the next three weeks! John Mellencamp, Other People's Stuff [LP] (Republic) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Other People's Stuff is a new collection of covers that shows Mellencamp applying his knack for storytelling to ten staples from the American music canon. The material is culled mostly from his own albums,
In a winter tradition that's as reliable as any, UMe has released the latest in the annual copyright extension series, entitled Motown Unreleased: 1968. The two-part compilation will arrive to digital download and streaming services today, December 14. Between the two volumes, there's a whopping 88 tantalizing, previously unreleased gems from the Motown vault! Motown heavy-hitters, soul superstars, and fan favorites abound on these two collections. There's a wealth of Stevie Wonder rarities,
We've already filled you in on the upcoming Record Store Day releases from Legacy Recordings, Rhino, and Real Gone Music, but there's still much more on offer from many of our other favorite labels! Here's a selection of "the best of the rest" to be released in brick-and-mortar independent record stores on Saturday, April 21! ABBA, Summer Night City (Polydor) (2000 copies) (Record Store Day UK) (Quantity TBA) Clear/yellow-splatter 7-inch release of ABBA's 1978 non-LP single Baby Huey,
Record Store Day is a little over a month away - Saturday, April 21 - and record labels large and small are celebrating in high style. Legacy Recordings is looking to make this the biggest and best RSD yet, with a line-up of nearly 30 titles in genres including classic rock, pop, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, comedy, and beyond. Many of the label's heavy hitters are represented, including Johnny Cash (an expanded vinyl box set of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: Legacy Edition), Jimi Hendrix (a new
As has become a yearly tradition for the past several years, Motown released a "copyright extension" compilation of previously unreleased tracks at the very end of 2017, only a couple of weeks after last year's similar set got a physical release. Motown Unreleased: 1967 gathers 89 tracks across the equivalent of 4 CDs, all previously unheard treasures from the seemingly inexhaustible Motown vaults. Like the collections of the past couple of years, there is a wide range of Motown talent on
Given the speed and frequency with which the Motown label made recordings during its heyday, the company's vaults are known to be vast. Large amounts of unreleased material have been added to compilations and reissues over the years, while still other collections have been solely devoted to never-before-heard tracks from the label's superstars. Due to European copyright laws that allow unused recordings to enter the public domain, Motown has been releasing digital-only copyright-extension
As has become commonplace over the past several years due to the copyright laws in the U.K. and Europe, a couple of "copyright extension" releases came out at the end of 2016 to come in right at the deadline for 1966 recordings. While sometimes these collections have taken physical form like the two large Bob Dylan box sets that have been released over the past couple of years, they are more often than not digital-only releases. And in keeping with the traditions of the past several years,
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
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Little Richard, Mono Box: The Complete Specialty and Vee-Jay Albums (Concord/Specialty) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) This new, 5-LP vinyl box set collects all of the studio albums that Little Richard recorded for both the Specialty and Vee-Jay labels between 1957 and 1965. The mono albums, each replicating the original label and jacket art, have been remastered from analog tapes. A 16-page booklet featuring new liner
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Bangles, Ladies and Gentlemen...The Bangles! (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Ladies and Gentlemen...The Bangles!, first released digitally in 2014, features all of the band's pre-Columbia studio material, plus four unreleased demos, two live tracks and other odds and ends! It arrives in stores from Omnivore just before Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson and Debbi Peterson hit the road again! Read more here! Laura
The first volume of Ace/Kent's series dedicated to the male artists of Motown was entitled Satisfaction Guaranteed - but that title would be equally apt for the recent release One Track Mind: More Motown Guys, a second disc of rarities from the Sound of Young America. With 16 previously unissued cuts among this collection's 24 tracks, it proves that the treasures of the Motown vault are far from exhausted. This is also one volume sure to keep your foot tapping and your body moving, with each
It may be Friday the 13th, but today's choice releases are hardly scary, with box sets, archival releases, new music from veteran artists, and much, much more! Aretha Franklin, The Atlantic Albums Collection (Atlantic/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) This 19-CD box set brings together 16 of the Queen of Soul's Atlantic albums as previously released on CD including the deluxe 2-CD Live at Fillmore East, the 2-CD Rare & Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Second Disc Records is going back to the beach with Ricci Martin, but that's far from all this week! We're also taking off with ELO, singing street-corner symphonies with The Four Seasons, and much more! Plus: new titles from classic artists! Ricci Martin, Beached: Expanded Edition (Second Disc/Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) What if key members of The Beach Boys, Chicago, America, and Wings had teamed up to create one of the greatest
On the evening of March 25, 1983, the Pasadena Civic Auditorium was alive with the sound of music – the Sound of Young America, to be more specific. Motown Records was celebrating its 25th anniversary, and producer Suzanne de Passe wasn’t pulling any stops. “Once in a lifetime” was as overused in 1983 as it is today, but the galaxy of stars assembled by de Passe couldn’t be described any other way: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie and the Commodores, Smokey Robinson and
Between August 1972 and May 1981, late night television was a little more rockin'. Producer Burt Sugarman's The Midnight Special followed Johnny Carson's Tonight Show on Friday evenings, welcoming viewers with Johnny Rivers' rousing rendition of the traditional tune (a Top 20 hit for Rivers in 1965). Over the course of 450 episodes, The Midnight Special presented a staggering array of music's top talent on network television with most songs performed live for the majority of its run. The
They did it. Nearly nine years after the first volume in Hip-O Select's The Complete Motown Singles box set series was released, the 14th and final entry in the series, Volume 12B: 1972, will be released on December 10, just in time for the holidays. The year 1972 marks, for many, the end of the "classic Motown" period. Label founder Berry Gordy moved label operations from Detroit to Los Angeles, and many of his most treasured acts were in periods of transition. Diana Ross was long a solo
Paul McCartney and Wings, Rockshow (Eagle Rock) Macca's newly-restored live show may not be in the Wings Over America box, but that means you can buy it for that much less now. (DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.; BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) ZZ Top, The Complete Studio Albums 1970-1990 (Warner Bros./Rhino) So not only are you getting all of ZZ Top's London/Warner-era albums in one convenient box, but you're getting a fair amount of them in their original mixes for the first time ever on CD.
It’s a shame, isn’t it? When Motown mainstays The Spinners departed the venerable Detroit label for the greener pastures of Atlantic Records, lead singer G.C. Cameron didn’t make the switch. Cameron, the unmistakable main voice of The Spinners’ Stevie Wonder-penned No. 14 hit “It’s a Shame,” remained with Motown. Cameron suggested his cousin and close friend Philippe Wynne replace him, and soon watched Wynne and co. score the group’s first ever Top 10 pop singles. In fact, Atlantic debut
Having recently introduced some EMI-controlled artists to the ICON roster, Universal now incorporates some of those artists (and some of their most treasured R&B and country acts) into a new budget-oriented series, Ballads. And while none of the artists covered here really, truly need more compilations on the market - and, one can assume, the assembly of these is as low-impact as the ICON series - there's actually some promise to be had here. The overall selection of artists isn't terrible,
When Motown: The Musical opens at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 14, it will mark yet another career landmark for Berry Gordy, the songwriter-producer-entrepreneur who turned Detroit, Michigan into Hitsville, USA some fifty-five years ago. The musical, written by Gordy and directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, depicts the rise to prominence of the Sound of Young America, with Brandon Victor Dixon (The Color Purple, The Scottsboro Boys) starring as Gordy. He’s joined by a cast of
Wow! Was it just over a year ago when a rather dubious report began circulating (that, shockingly, was picked up by many otherwise-reputable publications) that proclaimed the death of the CD was secretly scheduled by the major labels for 2012? Well, 2012 has come and (almost) gone, and it might have been the most super-sized year in recent memory for reissues, deluxe and otherwise, from labels new and old. Here at the Second Disc, we consider our annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards a companion
At long last, Trouble Man. With the upcoming 40th anniversary edition of Marvin Gaye’s 1972 album currently slated for November 13 release, each one of the Motown legend’s studio albums between 1971’s seminal What’s Going On and 1982’s Midnight Love has been expanded as a 2-CD set. (In the case of What’s Going On, an even more deluxe edition was released in 2011.) Trouble Man, the soundtrack to the 20th Century Fox “blaxploitation” film, turned out to be Gaye’s only excursion into movie
What you will see after the jump are eight more of Universal's generic ICON titles, released this past Tuesday. There are two country acts, two Motown acts, two Motown compilations, one from Dean Martin and one from pop/rock band Fall Out Boy. A stranger collection you'll rarely find. I'd give a halfhearted recommendation to the Motown ones if you want to spend a little money on someone who has the distinct displeasure of never having heard any Motown song, ever. If you have more money to spend,
Brace yourselves, compilation collectors: Legacy's got another batch of Playlist titles out next week. The latest batch of set, due out January 31, skew mainly toward modern country and rootsier rock (Gretchen Wilson, Montgomery Gentry, solo works by Gregg Allman) with some wild cards thrown in for good measure (R&B from Charlie Wilson of The Gap Band and Wyclef Jean, contemporary pop-rockers Augustana, a set from The Hooters that was delayed from the last batch). In a nice change of pace,