Forty years ago on Thanksgiving Day 1976, The Band took the stage at San Francisco’s Winterland for their final performance. Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters and others joined Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel for the concert event known as The Last Waltz. Director Martin Scorsese’s film of the evening was released in April 1978, setting a high bar for concert movies. On November 11, Rhino will mark this landmark anniversary of The Last Waltz with four new…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 23
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 Nyro, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession Hybrid Quadraphonic SACD (Audio Fidelity) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The classic 1968 album…
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Release Round-Up: Week of November 13
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 Soul and Oh Me Oh My: Aretha Live in Philly 1972. There are no…
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This Note’s For You: Neil Young Readies “Bluenote Café” For November Release
The ever-prolific Neil Young is following up his latest studio album The Monsanto Years with another dip into his fabled Archives. Bluenote Café is the title of his Archives Performance Series Volume 11, due in 2-CD and 4-LP editions from Reprise Records on November 13. Bluenote Café takes its name from the horn-powered band which backed Neil on his 1987-1988 tour before and after the April ’88 release of the studio album This Note’s for You (originally credited to Neil Young and the Bluenotes, to the ire of soul great Harold Melvin). …
Lotta Love: Varese Collects “The Very Best of Nicolette Larson” – AND YOU CAN WIN!
Today, Varese Vintage releases Lotta Love: The Very Best of Nicolette Larson, celebrating the life and career of the silken-voiced pop singer who died at the tragically young age of 45 in 1997. This 16-track anthology, culled from her years with Warner Bros. Records and featuring duets with Emmylou Harris, Steve Goodman and Michael McDonald, is a welcome reminder of Larson’s versatile gifts in the genres of pop, country and folk – and we would like to give you a chance to WIN ONE OF TEN COPIES of this new collection. Details…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 30
Welcome to our final Tuesday Release Round-Up – and it’s a doozy! As many of you know, the record industry will next week adopt a universal Friday release day. No releases are scheduled for Tuesday, July 7; instead, Friday, July 10 is the date! DVDs and Blu-rays will, for the foreseeable future, remain released on Tuesdays. We’ll resume with a new Release Round-Up on Friday, July 10! Ronny and the Daytonas, The Complete Recordings (2-CD Set) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) / The Viscounts, Harlem Nocturne (Limited Mini LP Sleeve Edition) (Amazon U.S….
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Going to the Country: “Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats” Chronicles Birth of Music City Country-Rock
Two legendary artists headline a new anthology arriving on June 16, 2015 from Legacy Recordings. Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City, a 2-CD, 36-track compilation, serves as an audio companion and soundtrack to the exhibit of the same name currently on display at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame through December 31, 2016. Like the exhibit, this new release explores the timeless sounds created at the intersection of country, folk and rock in Nashville between, roughly speaking, 1964 and 1975. Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash formed a mutual…
Review: Nils Lofgren, “Face the Music”
I. See What a Love Can Do Nils Lofgren was just seventeen years old when Neil Young called upon him to play piano on his third solo album, After the Gold Rush. The guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and onetime child prodigy joined Jack Nitzsche and the men of Crazy Horse – Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina – on an instrument which was largely unfamiliar to him. He added the understated, stark and raw piano parts that Young and producer David Briggs were looking for, and also supplied harmonies and acoustic guitar to the…
Release Round-Up: Week of July 8
Crosby Stills Nash and Young, CSNY 1974 (Rhino) The legendary supergroup documents the so-called “Doom Tour” for its 40th anniversary in an absolutely stunning package containing 40 songs, over 3 hours of music (on CD or Blu-ray Audio), a nearly 200-page book and a bonus video DVD with eight additional performances. 3 CD/1 DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Blu-ray Audio/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Highlights Disc: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Jackson Browne, Late for the Sky (Inside Recordings/Rhino) The SoCal troubadour goes bare-bones to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his seminal Late for the Sky. The album has been freshly…
Review: Bob Dylan, “The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration: Deluxe Edition”
Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, held on October 16, 1992 at New York’s Madison Square Garden to mark Dylan’s Columbia Records debut, could have been a valedictory. The 51-year old honoree and participant was nearly at the halfway point of a self-imposed sabbatical from writing and recording original songs; it would last seven years, from 1990 to 1997. He had not had an album reach the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 since 1983’s Infidels and hadn’t cracked the Top 5 since 1979’s Slow Train Coming. When Good as I Been…
Neil Young’s “Time Fades Away” to Be Reissued on Record Store Day
He’s called it “the worst record I ever made,” but Neil Young’s putting his 1973 live album Time Fades Away back into print for only the second time, as part of a limited box set for Record Store Day. The Neil Young Official Release Series Discs 5-8 box set, limited to 3,500 copies at participating independent retailers on this year’s Record Store Day events on April 19, will feature 180-gram reissues of Time Fades Away, On the Beach (1974), Tonight’s the Night (1975) and Zuma (1975), newly remastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering, pressed at Pallas MFG Germany and featuring reproduced…
Release Round-Up: Week of December 10
Eric Clapton, Give Me Strength: The ’74/’75 Recordings (Polydor/UMe) One of Clapton’s most prolific periods is revisited with this six-disc box, featuring expanded versions of 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), There’s One in Every Crowd (1975), a remixed and expanded double-disc version of live album E.C. Was Here (1975), a disc of sessions at Criteria Studios with blues legend Freddie King and a Blu-Ray featuring new 5.1 surround and original quadrophonic mixes. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Ella Fitzgerald, The Voice of Jazz (Verve/UMe) A ten, count ’em, ten-disc overview of one of the greatest jazz vocalists ever. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)…
Neil Young Opens The “Cellar Door” With Vintage 1970 Concerts
No, there’s still not a date on the calendar for the much-talked-about release of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s 1974 concert tapes last scheduled for August 27 and currently anticipating release next year. (Or so it’s been reported.) But Neil Young has a solo live release scheduled for December 10 that should whet appetites for that CSNY project and excite fans and collectors in its own right, too. Young’s camp has confirmed Live at the Cellar Door, the latest installment of Young’s Archive Performance Series. The new release has been culled from…
Short Takes: Neil Young’s Budget Box Set, The Latest from Heart, and Incubus Goes Live
What’s the contender for the title of Longest-gestating Music Box Set? That dubious honor would have to go to Neil Young’s Archives, Volume 1, bandied about since the 1980s and not released until 2009. Available as 10 Blu-rays, 10 DVDs or 8 CDs, Archives provided an immersive journey deep into Young’s vaults, and it picked up a Grammy Award for Art Direction in 2010. In conjunction with the massive box (supposedly the first of five such sets), Young has branded a number of his catalogue titles with the Archives label including the…
The Second Disc’s Record Store Day 2012 Essential Releases
Well, Record Store Day is finally upon us! Tomorrow, Saturday, April 21, music fans and collectors will descend upon their local independent record stores to celebrate both the sounds on those black platters and the cherished physical shopping environments alike. As Record Store Day 2012 will offer a typically eclectic array of limited edition releases (primarily on vinyl but also some on CD, too!) from many of our favorite artists here at Second Disc HQ, we thought we would take a moment to count down the titles to which we’re most looking…
Chili Peppers Revisit Classic Covers on Digital EP
How do the Red Hot Chili Peppers celebrate their graduation to legend status per their recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction? They pay tribute to the ones that came before on a new digital EP that includes a handful of B-sides paying tribute to their favorite fellow inductees. We Salute You, to be released May 1, includes covers of Dion and The Belmonts, The Ramones, The Stooges, Neil Young, The Beach Boys and David Bowie, all of which can certainly be argued as influences for the long-running funk-rock outfit. Half…
California Feelin’: The Beach Boys’ Al Jardine Reissues and Expands “Postcard From California”
Dennis Wilson did it in 1977. Carl Wilson did it in 1981. So did Mike Love. Brian Wilson waited until 1988. But it wasn’t until 2010 that Al Jardine released his first solo studio album. Entitled A Postcard from California, Jardine had to content himself with a limited release via Amazon’s MOD (Made on Demand) system. Now, with the surviving Beach Boys reuniting for a hotly-anticipated 50th anniversary tour beginning later this month and gearing up for the band’s first studio album since 1996, Jardine has finally gotten a wide release for…
The Second Disc Buyers Guide: The 100 Greatest Reissues of All Time, Part 6 (#75-71)
The hits just keep on coming! The latest part of our TSD Buyers Guide, which counts the reissues of the albums in Rolling Stone‘s 100 greatest albums of all time (as selected in 2003), features some classic hard rock and soul and a lot of CD pressings (if not as many bonus tracks in this batch). We begin below with one of the heaviest albums of all time! 75. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II (Atlantic, 1969) Led Zeppelin II is arguably the band’s heaviest and rawest work in studio, in part because it was recorded…
The Second Disc Buyers Guide: The 100 Greatest Reissues of All Time, Part 5 (#80-76)
It’s almost the weekend, and we’ve got the perfect set of tunes to rock your Saturday and Sunday! It’s Part 5 of our first-ever official Second Disc Buyers Guide, in which we look at the 100 greatest albums of all time, as selected by Rolling Stone in 2003, through the filter of when and how these classic albums have been reissued, remastered and repackaged. If you’ve ever wondered to yourself which versions of these albums to buy for certain bonus tracks and the like, we’re your one-stop shop. 80. The Zombies, Odessey and Oracle (CBS/Date, 1968) It’s…
Release Round-Up: Week of October 24/25
It’s Tuesday, but most of the new music this week has already been out for a day. But assuming you were too busy to get out to the shops, here’s a look at what’s new. And there’s quite a bit! Various Artists, Phil Spector Presents The Philles Album Collection (Phil Spector Records/Legacy) Six of the first seven Philles albums presented in mono, along with a bonus disc of those delightfully out-there instrumental B-sides. Seriously, have you heard any of them? They’re crazy. In a good way, that is. Diana Ross & The Supremes,…
Bruce Springsteen, Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan, Metallica Join Neil Young For “Bridge School Concerts” CD/DVD
Who but Neil Young could have brought The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sonic Youth, Ben Harper, Eddie Vedder, Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, and Los Lonely Boys together on the same stage? Though Young is an easy target for what can appear as a capricious attitude towards his back catalogue – announcing, then delaying or cancelling titles with alarming frequency – one aspect of the man’s great legacy cannot be in dispute, and that is his philanthropy. Since 1986, Young and his wife Pegi have offered annual support for The Bridge School, an…
Review: Neil Young, “A Treasure”
Are you ready for the country? In 1984, Neil Young certainly was. His Geffen Records debut, Trans, had just a couple of years earlier plunged Young into a “high tech” world of vocoders, synthesizers and dance beats while the singer ruminated about “The Computer Age,” “Computer Cowboy” and “Transformer Man.” 1983’s Everybody’s Rockin’ was an exercise in recreating rockabilly, with Young’s band billed as The Shocking Pinks. Originals like “Kinda Fonda Wanda” blended right in with covers of “Mystery Train” and “Cry, Cry, Cry.” Had Young lost his mind? Was he just…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 14
Paul McCartney, McCartney: Deluxe Edition / McCartney II: Deluxe Edition (MPL/Concord) The next entries in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection, Macca’s first two purely solo LPs, originally released in 1970 and 1980. You’ve got your choice of formats: regular remasters, double-disc deluxe editions packed with extra content, vinyl sets or super-deluxe editions in hardback book cases (McCartney‘s deluxe edition adds a DVD while McCartney II adds another CD and a DVD). (Official site) The Beatles, Anthology (Digital) (Apple/EMI) Speaking of Beatles, iTunes now has all three volumes of Anthology available to download. They’re remastered, which of course…
Elton, CSN, Costello, Taylor and More Salute Neil Young on Tribute DVD and Blu-Ray
What do David Crosby, Luciano Pavarotti, Bono and Neil Diamond all have in common? Each gentleman is a past honoree as MusiCares Person of the Year. Administered by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and chosen by the MusiCares Foundation, the title is bestowed upon artists to commend both artistic achievement in music and commitment to philanthropy. A tribute is to paid to the recipient with an evening of eclectic performances celebrating his or her legacy. In 2011, the award went to Barbra Streisand, and one year earlier, Neil Young…
Neil Young Unearths “A Treasure” For May/June Release
Well, the wait for Archives, Volume 2 is far from over, but Neil Young fans and collectors know that the artist rarely goes too long anymore without throwing them a bone (however delayed!). Such a bone is coming your way in May and June from Reprise. A Treasure compiles twelve live recordings dating from 1984 and 1985, including previously unreleased songs. One of these, “Grey Riders,” will be the album’s lead-off “single.” Young is backed by the International Harvesters, who supported him on 1985’s Old Ways (which in fact was a re-recorded…
