Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing weekly review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there's plenty of great new/old music to discover! A short but sweet release week has jazz, soundtracks and a lost pop record from one of the best-loved rock frontmen of the last few decades. Max Q, Max Q (Golden Rebel) (iTunes) INXS may have announced some activity around the 40th anniversary of their classic Shabooh Shoobah this fall (more on that as we keep
65 years ago this coming Christmas Eve, The Lawrence Welk Show welcomed a winsome young quartet for their very first television appearance. The story goes that the host's teenaged son brought Dianne, Peggy, Kathy, and Janet Lennon home to sing for him; their shimmering vocal harmonies won the elder Welk over and he quickly booked them to appear on his show. The response was so tremendous that The Lennon Sisters continued to appear every Saturday night with the "wunnerful, wunnerful" host until
It wouldn't be Black Friday without an announcement of one last killer batch of archival soundtracks from La-La Land Records. The impressive slate of titles the label announced are on sale now, and we've got the scoop on all of them! First up, it's a second, long-promised collection of music from Star Trek Voyager, the third live-action spinoff based on Gene Roddenberry's iconic sci-fi series that aired between 1966 and 1969. Hot off the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
Sure, you can wait to find Real Gone's lineup of holiday-themed titles under the tree, but why wait? A trio of merry Yuletide albums will be available on color vinyl on November 1, including Cyndi Lauper's Merry Christmas... Have A Nice Life!, the Home Alone Christmas soundtrack compilation, and the soundtrack to Love Actually. First up: Cyndi Lauper's Merry Christmas... Have A Nice Life! This often-overlooked slice of Lauper's discography is a fresh spin on the time-honored tradition of
For the second volume in its Lost Broadway series of 2-CD sets, the U.K.'s Stage Door Records label has turned its attention to the years 1956 and 1957. Musical hits during the 1956-1957 and 1957-1958 seasons included Bells Are Ringing, Li'l Abner, West Side Story, and The Music Man, but Stage Door's attention doesn't lie with those smashes but rather with the largely-forgotten, but certainly worthy, shows that haven't received nearly as much love over the years. Like the first volume (which
Stage Door Records' five volumes of Lost West End have sampled numerous rare musicals that have played London over the years. Now, the U.K. label is turning its sights across the pond to the Great White Way to launch a new series: Lost Broadway. The first volume focuses on the year 1961, when composer-lyricist Jerry Herman made his Broadway debut with the successful Milk and Honey; some of the brightest stars included Barbara Cook, Jerry Orbach, Elaine Stritch, and Alfred Drake; the venerable
On December 7, Verve/UMe will release The Founder, a 4-CD box set in honor of Norman Granz's centennial earlier this year (August 6, 1918). The collection will also be available as a digital download and on streaming services. The set includes 44 tracks, some appearing on CD for the first time ever. It presents a chronological overview of the first two decades of the jazz impresario's impressive career by way of recordings of the musicians he recorded. The booklet includes new liner notes by
Verve/UME celebrate the career of a jazz impresario for the ages. As founder of the Clef, Norgran and Verve labels, Granz helped bring jazz to the masses and launched the careers of many of the genre's brightest stars. The 4-CD set includes 44 tracks, some appearing on CD for the first time ever. The booklet includes new liner notes by Tad Hershorn, author of Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz For Justice. On the discs, you'll find incendiary performances by the likes of Coleman Hawkins
August 25, 2018 will mark what would have been the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein, and while the maestro passed away in 1990 at the age of 72, he left behind a lifetime of remarkable music in multiple genres. A number of classical releases have been issued for the Bernstein centennial, but a new entry concentrates on the popular side of the composer. The 2-CD anthology Jazz Loves Bernstein, on the Decca Broadway label in association with Verve and UMe, collects 27 examples from the
Fall apparently wasn’t arriving early enough for the folks at Starbucks, so the international coffee giant moved it up – to this past August 25 – with the early arrival of its familiar fall drinks. But when ordering up that pumpkin spice latte, you might want to check out two recent musical offerings, both curated with the Starbucks Entertainment label’s customary care. The simply-titled British Folk emphasizes the current crop of troubadours who currently follow in the footsteps of Nick