Warner Music Group and Sesame Workshop have recently announced a joint effort that marks the relaunch of Sesame Street Records, the label that released over 60 classic originalSesame Street albums from 1970 to 1984. To celebrate 50 years since the program first aired, the extensive Sesame Street music catalog, including original titles and newer collections from Golden Music, Koch and Sony Wonder, has finally joined the streaming age. As of this writing, a whopping 119 titles--many previously
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains the Same [Various Formats] (Atlantic/Swan Song) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Blu-ray Audio: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD/4LP/2DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham took the famous stage at New York's Madison Square Garden on July 27-29, 1973 for the concerts
ORIGINAL POST (6/18/2018) - UPDATES IN BOLD: Paul Simon may be retiring from the road, but the conclusion of his acclaimed Homeward Bound - The Farewell Tour on September 22 won't be the last we've heard of the legendary musician. On tour, he's currently previewing two upcoming projects: Alternate Tunings, a long-awaited collection of previously unreleased material (date TBA), and an album entitled In the Blue Light, due on September 7 on CD and vinyl. In lieu of a traditional tour program,
Paul Simon may be retiring from the road, but the conclusion of his acclaimed Homeward Bound - The Farewell Tour on September 22 won't be the last we've heard of the legendary musician. On tour, he's currently previewing two upcoming projects: Alternate Tunings, a long-awaited collection of previously unreleased material, and an album entitled In the Blue Light, due in September. In lieu of a traditional tour program, Simon is offering a lavish "Limited Edition Folio" for purchase at each
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,"
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Glen Campbell, Adios (UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Glen Campbell's final recordings, produced by his longtime band member Carl Jackson, comprise this release. Selections include the lead-off single "Everybody's Talkin'," and four songs by Jimmy Webb (including the touching title track as well as "Postcard from Paris," "Just Like Always" and "It Won't Bring Her Back"), plus compositions from Bob Dylan, Jerry Reed, Dickey Lee,
As Paul Simon is launching a summer tour on June 1 in St. Petersburg, Florida, Legacy Recordings is looking back to one of the famed troubadour's recent performances from across the pond. The Concert in Hyde Park will arrive from the label on Friday, June 9, in 2CD/DVD or Blu-ray packages, as well as via digital audio and video downloads and streaming. Simon's July 15, 2012 Hyde Park concert, closing night of the Hard Rock Calling Festival, spanned the entirety of Simon's career through his
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up...it's one of the year's most eclectic yet, with heavy hitters from Pink Floyd to Petula Clark...including releases from The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Edgar Winter and more! Petula Clark, Natural Love: The Scotti Brothers Recordings (Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) In the early years of the 1980s, Petula Clark was signed to the Scotti Brothers label in the U.S. and starring in a revival of The Sound of Music
The fall is almost upon us - which means some of the most exciting release weeks of the year are just around the corner! We hope you've checked out Ted's farewell to the sounds of summer, because we're kicking off September right here with a new release from Second Disc Records - as well as goodies from The Doors, Eydie Gorme, Micky Dolenz, Peter Frampton, Pugwash, and many more! To our U.S. readers, we wish you a safe and happy Labor Day weekend filled with great new (and old)
When Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel took the stage on April 24, 2010 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, it's doubtful that many in the audience knew they were witnessing the end of one chapter in the story of Simon & Garfunkel. That concert marked the final time that the famous duo have performed together to date, but over five years later, the specter of Simon & Garfunkel still looms large over both men. It's no surprise; the question of a reunion cropped up almost
Legacy Recordings is seeing that the only sound isn't silence with the release this summer of two new projects from Simon and Garfunkel. In less than a month, on August 7, the label will issue Simon & Garfunkel - The Complete Columbia Albums Collection, a six-album, newly-remastered set featuring each one of the duo's studio albums plus Greatest Hits, all pressed on 180-gram vinyl. The box will be joined by a new, remastered CD/DVD reissue of The Concert in Central Park, as
Paul Simon met Art Garfunkel in the halls of Queens, New York’s P.S. 164 in the sixth grade, with both young men cast in a school production of Alice in Wonderland. They soon bonded over a mutual love of music, and by 1956, Simon and Garfunkel were performing locally as “Tom and Jerry,” modeling themselves on the Everly Brothers, with whom they would later collaborate. Though he and Simon briefly split in the early 1960s, they reunited for 1964’s Wednesday Morning 3 AM, a low-key collection of
Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours (Real World) In 2010, Peter Gabriel released Scratch My Back, a new set of cover songs. The plan was to pair them up with covers of his own work by the artists he covered; some of them were released as B-sides but others never materialized. (Radiohead, David Bowie and Neil Young declined to contribute.) This version combines the original album with those covers (also separately released today), including cuts by Arcade Fire, Paul Simon, David
It's that time of year again! Though Black Friday has taken a backseat in recent years to the once-unheard-of Thanksgiving Day sales, the folks at Record Store Day still hold the day after Thanksgiving in high esteem. News has begun to trickle out about this year's RSD Back to Black Friday exclusives, and the team at Legacy has certainly put together a collection of special vinyl releases - and a handful of CDs, too - that look back to recent releases from the label and forward to future
I. Hello Darkness, My Old FriendMore than 45 years ago, Paul Simon dramatized a journey “to look for America” in the song boldly and simply called “America.” Over 3-1/2 gorgeously elegiac minutes beginning with hymn-like vocalizing, Simon abandoned conventional song structure and rhyme to portray two young people searching for the heart of this promised land. The conversational lyric is both deceptively simple and densely packed. Optimism (“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes
Eric Clapton, Unplugged: Expanded and Remastered Edition (Reprise/Rhino) The guitar god's '90s comeback was done on an acoustic. The Grammy-winning, best-selling album and the acclaimed episode of MTV Unplugged from which it was taken are paired up and considerably expanded, more than two decades later. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) King Crimson, The Road to Red (Panegyric) Holy crumbs, this 21CD/1DVD/2BD set is a massive tribute to King Crimson's Red album, including new stereo and surround
UPDATED 9/24/13 [UPDATES IN BOLD TO ORIGINAL POST OF 8/19]: And here’s to you, Mr. Simon. There isn’t much that Paul Simon hasn’t accomplished in his 50+ years as a professional musician, singer, and songwriter. Born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Queens, New York, Simon has racked up 12 Grammy Awards, an Emmy, a Kennedy Center Honor, the first-ever Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and Academy Award, Golden Globe and Tony nominations. That’s not to mention being one-half of the most
Today, The Second Disc remembers Phil Ramone. The multiple Grammy-winning producer, 79, died on Saturday, leaving behind a legacy of song from artists ranging from Barbra Streisand to Paul McCartney, Barry Manilow to The Band. Yet unlike so many of his contemporaries, Phil Ramone didn’t have a signature style. Instead of molding a band or singer to a preferred sonic specialty, he was a true architect of sound, tailoring each production to the individual artist. Ramone was equally comfortable
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
The first-ever 2-CD anthology of the collected works of Arthur Ira Garfunkel is titled The Singer (Columbia/Legacy 88725 45816 2, 2012). In a life and career that’s also seen Garfunkel as an actor, poet, author, athlete and student, “singer” seems the most apt appellation. Indeed, he is not just a singer, but The Singer, in longtime service to the art of the song. Garfunkel was an anomaly in the young world of 1960s rock, leaving the songwriting to his partner Paul Simon while still lending
When the singer’s gone, let the song go on… Jimmy Webb wrote those words for the unlikely rock star by the name of Arthur Garfunkel, a former architecture student endowed with a purity of tone and the ability to pierce the heart. And thankfully, both the singer and the song remain very much alive today. Garfunkel, of course, was the yin to Paul Simon’s yang, the Tom to his Jerry. It’s most appropriate, then, that he will bookend his old friend with a new anthology coming on August 28 from
Hey, we've said it a million times, but let's say it again: The Second Disc has some of the best readers out there. The idea that so many of you like catalogue music as much as Joe and I do, and the idea that so many of you come back to read our news and musings, day in and day out...well, it just makes me feel good. And we've done a solid job (we hope!) of reaching out to every fan old and new across the Internet, be it Facebook or Twitter or even in the comments section of the site. As I type
When Paul Simon travelled to Graceland, he was aware of the mighty contradictions: “And I may be obliged to defend every love, every ending/Or maybe there’s no obligations now…” Those days of miracle and wonder took place in 1986, and now some 25 years later, the restless artist is still defending Graceland. The path to Graceland was a circuitous one, with stops in New York, Los Angeles, London, Louisiana and most crucially, Johannesburg. Though the multi-platinum record picked up Grammy
In recent years, the retailer-exclusive bonus track has become an important if controversial part of music sales. Today’s Short Takes, then, is your public service announcement and guide to the bonus tracks available with three recent and upcoming titles from some of music’s most legendary artists. Chances are you might want to own these previously-unreleased rarities! Last week saw the release of Carole King’s The Legendary Demos from Rockingale Records and Hear Music. Its thirteen