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. Bob Dylan, The 1974 Tour Recordings (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) In 1974, Bob Dylan embarked on an extensive tour with his old backing band. Now, they, too, were universally known – as The Band – and the double bill hit indoor arenas across North America for 40 concerts over 30 dates and 21 cities. The tour became one of the largest and highest-profile of the era, in…
Edge of the World: Run Out Groove Announces Sam Phillips’ “Fan Dance” as Next Release, Voting Open for Next Month’s Title
Run Out Groove has recently announced its latest limited-edition title. The winner of the last fan vote is singer-songwriter Sam Phillips’ Fan Dance, her ninth studio album and first for Nonesuch Records. For its first worldwide release on vinyl, Fan Dance has been freshly remastered. It will be issued on 180-gram vinyl in a deluxe tip-on jacket with a booklet, and the lacquers will be cut at Sam Phillips Recording Studio (the other, Sun Records Sam Phillips, that is). It will be pressed and numbered to a limited amount based on the…
Moanin’ At Midnight: Memphis Artists Gather for Sun Records Charity Tribute
In February 1952, Sam Phillips launched Sun Records at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee – the site of his Sun Studio, previously known as Memphis Recording Service. Two years later, the visionary entrepreneur signed Elvis Presley, and then opened the doors to such other legendary talents as Johnny Cash, Jerry Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, and more. The Sun Records rockabilly sound incorporated rhythm and blues, country, rock and roll, and gospel, forever changing the face of American popular music. 65 years after the label’s founding, a cadre of…
Omnivore’s Record Store Day Trio Revealed with The Honeys, MC Lyte, More “High Fidelity”
What do Brian Wilson, MC Lyte and Sam Phillips have in common? All three are among the artists and producers represented on Omnivore Recordings’ trio of delicious vinyl offerings for this April 18’s upcoming Record Store Day! Sessions ’64!! is so exciting that no less than two exclamation points will do!! This groovy 10-inch slab of translucent gold vinyl transports listeners back to 1964. It includes nine tracks produced by Brian Wilson and Jimmy Bowen for the Warner Bros. and Reprise Records labels, with arrangements from Wilson, Sandra Glantz (a.k.a. Ginger…
Starbucks Serves Up Cocktails with Mel, Serge and Judy, and Folk with Nick, Sandy and Eliza
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 Drake and Sandy Denny, both of whom are represented here with “Hazey…
Hank Williams, Jaco Pastorius Lead Off Omnivore’s RSD Slate
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUKPRPWCDHg] That change in the air pressure you’re probably feeling around your favorite indie record store can only mean one thing: Record Store Day 2014 is coming your way. April 19 will see a host of beloved major and independent labels celebrating the good old resilient brick-and-mortar store with various titles sold exclusively at participating stores. And the beloved cratediggers at Omnivore Recordings have four exciting titles prepared for the big day – nearly all of which feature artists making their debut appearances on the label. In a fitfully-brief career that ended…
On the Sixth Day of Second Discmas…
Here at The Second Disc, the holiday season is the perfect time to do what we love to do best: share the gift of music. For the second year in a row, we have we reached out to some of our favorite reissue labels and we’ve teamed with them to play Santa Claus to our awesome and faithful readers. It’s called – what else? – Second Discmas, and it’s going on now through Christmas! The sixth day of Second Discmas spotlights a truly original singer/songwriter: Sam Phillips! Thanks to the great folks…
Tuesday Tidbits: Incubus Teams with Best Buy on Exclusive “HQ,” Bert Jansch’s “Heartbreak” Is Expanded, and Musicians Fight Epilepsy with “Joey’s Song”
Today is the day for a 2-CD/1-DVD set of previously unissued live performances from the band Incubus. Celebrating their twentieth year together, Incubus is launching a 4-week, 18-city tour co-headlining with Linkin Park. The tour kicks off tonight in Boston, Massachusetts, but the performances on Incubus HQ Live date from one year ago, recorded in West Hollywood, California. That was when the band set up shop at a storefront on La Brea Avenue for seven special nights of performances. HQ Live preserves performances from the six nights that were broadcast live online…
Review: Sam Phillips, “Martinis & Bikinis”
To call the career of Sam Phillips a varied one is a colossal understatement. The singer and songwriter born Leslie Ann Phillips has played a mute terrorist opposite Bruce Willis, placed several singles in the contemporary Christian Top 10, and today can be found scoring the exploits of a headstrong dancer and her imperious mother-in-law on ABC Family’s drama Bunheads. Though Phillips has hardly slowed down in the intervening years, fans still hold close the creative period she shared with then-husband T Bone Burnett beginning in the late 1980s and continuing through…
Release Round-Up: Week of July 17
America, Perspective/In Concert (BGO) Two out-of-print albums from Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell circa 1984 and 1985 are now available as a two-for-one CD from the U.K.’s BGO label! Read more here. Donny Hathaway, Live + In Performance (Shout! Factory) The Shout! Factory label combines two of the late soul man’s live albums (the first, from 1972, and the second, a posthumous set from 1980) in one package, newly remastered by Steve Hoffman. Read more here. Elton John vs. Pnau, Good Morning to the Night (Mercury/Casablanca) Sir Elton opened up his vaults…
Martinis and Bikinis, with a Side of T-Bone: Sam Phillips’ 1994 Classic Coming to CD and Vinyl
How to describe the career trajectory of Sam Phillips? Leslie Ann Phillips first made a splash in the music world recording contemporary Christian pop in 1983, took the name “Sam,” moved to the mainstream in the late 1980s with then-husband T Bone Burnett at the production helm, and even threatened Bruce Willis as an onscreen nemesis (albeit a mute one!) in Die Hard with a Vengeance! Sam Phillips continues to write and record today, focusing her efforts on a digital subscription service of new music as well as on composing for the…












