Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today! As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Jackie DeShannon, Love Forever: Demo Recordings 1966-1968 (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Jackie DeShannon signed with Liberty Records and Metric Music in 1960 as a performer and songwriter. Her big break would come in 1964 when she would open for The Beatles on their first U.S. tour. The next year
We've already told you about the Jackie DeShannon CD - Love Forever: Demo Recordings 1966-1968 - coming from Real Gone Music tomorrow, May 9. But the label has a packed line-up of other titles ranging from pop to metalcore and years spanning the 1960s to 2000s on both CD and vinyl. Keep reading for all of the details. First up is a new expanded CD reissue of Petula Clark's 2007 album Solitude & Sunshine: The Songs of Rod McKuen. Clark and McKuen first met in France in the 1960s and
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Joni Mitchell, Archives Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980) (Rhino) 6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980) features six CDs (also available as a "highlights" set on four LPs) chronicling the Canadian icon's trek
Real Gone's Halloween line-up began last month and now that October has rolled around, the label is continuing the party with more reissues to play on October 31 filled with material from the 1950s to the 1980s. All of these titles hit store shelves, tomorrow, October 5. First up is a Real Gone/Second Disc Records vinyl reissue: Songs Our Mummy Taught Us by Bob McFadden and Dor. This one-of-a-kind LP was the creation of voiceover artist Bob McFadden - best-known as the voice of
The stockings are hung, the presents are wrapped, and the time is now to wish all of our readers at The Second Disc a wonderful holiday season before we enter a brief winter hibernation until the new year! 2023 was our 13th year as (we hope!) one of the more fun destinations for music reissues, box sets and catalogue releases. The business has certainly changed a lot in that time - maybe too much vinyl, maybe not enough CDs? - but labels big and small keep finding new, old and interesting
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today! Johnny Mathis, Christmas Time Is Here (Legacy/Real Gone/Second Disc) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada "Christmas Tree Green" Vinyl LP: RealGoneMusic.com / Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada "Holly Red" Vinyl LP: BarnesandNoble.com Johnny Mathis is back with his first album since 2017 and his first yuletide set in a decade. Christmas Time Is Here boasts ten
Here at Second Disc HQ, tomorrow is all about the holidays! We've teamed with Real Gone Music for a pair of new releases - one looking forward to Christmas, and another that's ideal for a wild Halloween. First up is the new studio album from the legendary Voice of Romance, Johnny Mathis. His very first holiday album, 1958's Merry Christmas, sold over five million copies and remains one of the biggest-selling Christmas albums of all time. Now, he's back with his first album since 2017 and
Tired of "Monster Mash"? Through with calling "Ghostbusters"? If your Halloween playlist is begging for something different, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records have you covered! On October 6, you can look no further than the frightfully fun Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease. Don't believe us? Take The Bride of Frankenstein's word for it - she's on the cover! One of the most unusual records of all time, this "Symphony for Tape Delay, IBM Instruction Manual, & Ohm
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Donna Summer, Encore (Crimson Productions) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The ultimate Donna Summer box set, Encore bring together the late superstar's complete albums on 33 CDs, including 8 discs of 7″ and 12″ mixes, single edits, non-album cuts, and other rarities. It totals a staggering 329 tracks, truly the most comprehensive tribute to Summer ever collected. Christian John Wikane provides the new liner notes. The set is
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Rod McKuen, New Ballads (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Real Gone celebrates the late Rod McKuen with a slate of releases this week. For the 1970 album New Ballads, the singer-songwriter teamed with renowned arranger-conductor Don Costa for this remarkable collection of songs including "As I Love My Own," the dramatic Jacques Brel collaboration "I'm Not Afraid," "Thank You for Christmas," and a composition which
"Come with me/What wonders we'll find," sings Rod McKuen to open his lilting waltz "Kaleidoscope" in his recognizable sandpaper voice. But the more revealing lyrics come later, when the poet-singer-songwriter asserts, "You'll look in my eyes and see you." Over a career spanning seven decades - but particularly during a purple patch in the late 1960s and early 1970s - McKuen's loyal legion of fans saw themselves in his deceptively simple art. His empathetic words conveyed the beauty of everyday
We've already filled you on a number of titles from Real Gone Music's January slate, including our Second Disc Records release of Laura Nyro's rare mono More Than a New Discovery on vinyl and the first-ever reissue of Miss Barbara Eden on CD and vinyl. Now, Real Gone has announced a pair of titles from a true iconoclast: the late Rod McKuen. On January 31, the label will premiere New Ballads, the singer-songwriter-poet's highest-charting Warner Bros. album, on CD alongside a newly-expanded
With Halloween less than a week away, we thought we'd take a look at a new compilation which was recently released from Cherry Red's Righteous Records imprint: the 2-CD Trick or Treat: Music To Scare Your Neighbours - Vintage 45s from Lux and Ivy's Haunted Basement. The Lux and Ivy in the title are the husband and wife mainstays of the punk/rockabilly group The Cramps, who debuted in the 1970s and were active until Lux's death in 2009. Aside from being punk innovators, the pair also
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Melissa Manchester, Mathematics: The MCA Years (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music bring Melissa Manchester's 1985 MCA album to CD for the very first time in an expanded 2-CD deluxe edition! Mathematics: The MCA Years features the original Mathematics (produced by George Duke, Brock Walsh and Robbie Nevil, Trevor Veitch and executive producer Quincy Jones!) on
Even though Fall has just begun, we are already looking ahead to Christmas as several artists have already announced yuletide albums for this year. And, continuing their annual tradition, our friends at Real Gone Music are releasing selection of classic Christmas CDs this year, the first three of which they have just announced. All three of these are due on November 2. First up is Season's Greetings From the McGuire Sisters - The Complete Coral Christmas Recordings. The singing trio of
In the canon of all-time great film composers, the name of Henry Mancini still looms large. Cherry Red's El imprint has brought two of his classic 1960s scores together on one CD: the original RCA Victor soundtrack album of Two for the Road (1967) and the Columbia Records release of Me, Natalie (1969) - the latter of which has only been previously available on CD as part of a large Mancini box set. Mancini scored four films for Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, Wait Until
For nearly 50 years, getting the complete score to 1969's animated feature A Boy Named Charlie Brown was as fruitless as kicking a football held by Lucy Van Pelt. Kritzerland's newest album changes all that, offering Vince Guaraldi and John Scott Trotter's score and Rod McKuen's songs as they appeared in the film for the very first time. A Boy Named Charlie Brown found producer Lee Mendelson and director Bill Melendez teaming up again to bring Charles M. Schulz's beloved Peanuts comic strip
In the case of Rod McKuen, "prolific" might well have been an understatement. Before he turned 35, McKuen had already lived many lives - from farm hand, lumberjack, rodeo cowboy, disk jockey, and U.S. Army veteran to singer, songwriter, actor, and the most commercially successful poet of his time - or any other. Despite an enviable career that saw him receive two Academy Award nominations and Frank Sinatra dedicate an entire album to him, the songs of Rod McKuen frequently haven't received
When singer-songwriter-poet Rod McKuen teamed with composer-arranger-conductor Anita Kerr for the 1967 album The Sea, neither had any inkling that the record's success would lead to an entire series of albums under the San Sebastian Strings moniker through 1975. The oft-imitated, never-duplicated, platinum-selling The Sea epitomized the now-moribund genre of "mood music," offering spoken word and music in a relaxing, spellbinding mélange. Cherry Red's él imprint has recently reissued the box
Cherry Red's él imprint has a trio of recent releases continuing its commitment to truly eclectic sounds of the pre-1964 era. Two of these are musical odes to the big city life of London and New York, from arrangers Wally Stott and Bobby Scott, respectively; the third reissues and expands a compilation from the late Rod McKuen. Singer-songwriter-poet-author-renaissance man McKuen, who died earlier this year, was recently the subject of Varese Vintage's Reflections: The Greatest Songs of Rod
CONGRATULATIONS! The following 15 entrants have won a copy of Varese Vintage's brand-new Rod McKuen anthology, Reflections: The Greatest Songs of Rod McKuen, on CD! If you entered our contest via Facebook and your name is on the list below, please drop us a line at theseconddisc-at-gmail-dot-com or a Private Message on Facebook with your name and mailing address! If you entered via email, you don't have to do anything - your CD will be in the mail soon! Watch this space soon for more
Varese Vintage recently celebrated a singular career when the label released Reflections -The Greatest Songs of Rod McKuen. This definitive overview of McKuen's work as a singer-songwriter features 24 of his most famous compositions including "If You Go Away," "Jean," "Seasons in the Sun," "A Man Alone" and "Love's Been Good to Me." I was proud to pen the liner notes for this collection, and now, Varese and I would like to give you a chance to WIN THIS NEW RELEASE! Though a self-professed
Well, this is it - the final big release week of the year! While next week will see releases slow to a trickle, this week is packed with exciting box sets and much more! Bruce Springsteen, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (Columbia) 4-CD/3-DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada 4-CD/2-BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada This 4-CD/3-DVD or 4-CD/2-BD set celebrating The Boss' seminal album The River features a treasure trove of previously unreleased material across its 53 audio tracks
On November 13, Varese Vintage will celebrate a singular career when the label releases Reflections - The Greatest Songs of Rod McKuen. This definitive overview of McKuen's work as a singer-songwriter features 24 of his most famous compositions including "If You Go Away," "Jean," "Seasons in the Sun," "A Man Alone" and "Love's Been Good to Me." Though a self-professed loner who often wrote of isolation and solitude, McKuen had an extraordinary ability in music, poetry and prose to
When Charles Schulz, director-producer Lee Mendelson and co-producer Bill Melendez announced they were bringing Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the Peanuts gang to the big screen for the very first time, anticipation was naturally high. A Boy Named Charlie Brown was well-received upon its December 1969 theatrical debut, going on to do good business and receiving credit for breaking the Disney monopoly on feature-length animation. Today, it's still remembered as the best of the four Peanuts animated