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)
7A Records sure isn't Monkee-ing around with its first release! On July 13, the newly-formed label - a labor of love for BBC radio and television presenter Iain Lee - will release Micky Dolenz's The MGM Singles Collection on vinyl. This collection reissues for the first time all ten single sides released between 1971 and 1974 by Dolenz on the MGM, Lion and Romar labels. That Lee and his partner at 7A are Monkees fans is an understatement; even the label's name is derived from the studio
For The Monkees, the third time's the charm. The 1966 debut album from Davy, Micky, Peter and Mike has been expanded twice before on CD - first in 1994 on one CD and then in 2006 as a two-CD set. Rhino Handmade has recently unveiled the third and most comprehensive release of this album yet, and with 45 previously unreleased bonus cuts among its 100 songs, The Monkees: Super Deluxe Edition (R2-543027) is not just Monkee mania, but Monkee manna. The story of this American fab four has been told
The Monkees, The Monkees: Super Deluxe Edition (Rhino Handmade) (Exclusively available directly from label) It's Monkeemania all over again: Davy, Micky, Peter and Michael are back with a 3-CD expansion of their debut album featuring 100 tracks - 45 of which are previously unreleased! ABBA, Gracias Por La Musica: Deluxe Edition (Polar/Universal) (Amazon U.S. Link TBD / Amazon U.K.) ABBA is saying "Thank You for the Music" - in Spanish! The band's Spanish-language 1980
Stevie Nicks, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault (Reprise) 2-LP Vinyl + Download Card: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Standard Edition CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. The Fleetwood Mac rock legend dips into her vault for a newly-recorded album of songs composed between 1969 and 1995. The album features co-production by Dave Stewart and guitar great Waddy Wachtel, and is also available in a deluxe edition exclusive to Nicks' website. Various Artists, The Classic Christmas Albums
In 1967, Monkeemania was sweeping the country. "I told people I would outsell The Beatles, and they laughed at me," impresario Don Kirshner once recalled. "Then the first album sold four million." That first album which led the television foursome to outsell The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and, well, everybody else in 1967 is the subject of a new 3-CD Super Deluxe set arriving from Rhino Handmade on November 11. The Monkees - Super Deluxe Edition rewinds the series of box sets
For a few years in the halcyon days of the sixties, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were on top of the world. Singers, songwriters and producers, Boyce and Hart - individually or collectively - were behind some of the most enduring hits of that era or any other: "Last Train to Clarksville," "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone," "Come a Little Bit Closer," "Hurt So Bad," "I Wanna Be Free," "Valleri," "Pretty Little Angel Eyes," and of course, the immortal "Theme from The Monkees." As if turning out hits
Johnny Cash, Out Among the Stars (Columbia/Legacy) This new album of newly-discovered mid-'80s outtakes is perhaps better than what was released at the time. Gorgeous and, at times, haunting, the way Johnny Cash albums should be. CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: 40th Anniversary Edition (Mercury/Rocket/UMe) Elton's classic double album comes back to glorious life with several lavish editions, featuring new covers of songs from
Second Disc HQ may be surrounded by layers of detestable snow, but a new release schedule from Real Gone Music is as good as any sunshine! (Plus, these titles are due in April, by which everything will have melted...WE HOPE.) You've already read about two of the label's new April releases courtesy of Joe's post about Doris Day earlier today, but that's not all they're offering. A complete singles collection by Patti LaBelle and The Bluebells - featuring the three future members of LaBelle with
And then there were three. Peter Tork had departed The Monkees in December 1968, just a couple of months prior to the February 1969 release of the band’s seventh studio album, Instant Replay. The remaining trio of Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Mike Nesmith soldiered on, though, cutting numerous new tracks and updating old ones for an eighth effort. Issued by Colgems in October 1969 on the heels of an unsuccessful greatest-hits album, it was The Monkees Present and emphasized the slimmer group
Fleetwood Mac, Then Play On: Deluxe Edition / Fleetwood Mac: 1969-1972 (Warner Bros./Rhino) The pre Buckingham-Nicks era of the Mac gets some love on CD and vinyl: their last Peter Green-led album from 1969 is expanded with bonus tracks, and it's also included in a remastered vinyl box set with follow-ups Kiln House (1970), Future Games (1971) and Bare Trees (1972) (plus the 1969 single "Oh Well" on 45). Then Play On: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 1969-1972: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Jimi
Wings, Wings Over America: The Paul McCartney Archive Collection (MPL/Hear Music/Concord) Paul McCartney's first great U.S. tour was chronicled brilliantly on this 1977 live album, and it's been greatly expanded herein for McCartney's ongoing reissue campaign. 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 3CD (Best Buy exclusive) 4CD/1DVD box: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Tony Bennett & Dave Brubeck,
The recently-announced, and hotly-anticipated, Rhino Handmade box set of The Monkees Present isn’t the only one of the band’s albums on the reissue docket. Following last year’s similar edition of 1987’s Pool It!, Friday Music will, on May 28, reissue The Monkees’ 1996 reunion album Justus in a CD/DVD package combining the original 12-track CD with a DVD of the original Rhino Home Video tie-in program. Justus marked the first studio album to feature all four Monkees – Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz,
Listen to the band! The Monkees' eighth album, The Monkees Present, was a grab bag unlike any other previously produced by the group. By October 1969, The Monkees was off the air and remaining Monkees Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Mike Nesmith were soldiering on for their second album without Peter Tork. February's Instant Replay, the first sans Tork, had managed a respectable showing at No. 32 on the pop chart, but in the post-Head days, hit singles were far from guaranteed for the group.
Born to Be Together: could a more apropos title have been devised for a collection of the songs of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil? Married since 1961, the team both defines and defies the phrase “unsung heroes.” Without hit records as recording artists, Mann and Weil have never had the name recognition of their Brill Building-era compatriots like Carole King or Neil Sedaka, but these Grammy Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are hardly unsung. If all they’d ever written was the most
Chain, chain, chain…chain of fools… Don’t be cruel…to a heart that’s true… Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees…people say we monkey around… Those three songs are still among the most recognizable in rock and soul, yet they barely scratch the surface of the songwriting careers of Don Covay, Otis Blackwell and the team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, respectively. Ace Records has recently searched the discographies of all of those gentlemen to create the latest entries in the label’s definitive
Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé, Barcelona: Deluxe Edition (Island U.K.) The Queen frontman's final solo effort - an ambitious collaboration with a Spanish opera legend - has been given new life on CD, with its original synth instrumentation fully fleshed out by an orchestra. A super deluxe box includes scores of audiovisual extras, and the newly-orchestrated album is also available on vinyl. Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance: Special 30th Anniversary Edition (Columbia/Legacy) A
The union of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry was a brief one. Married in 1962, the same year that they began a songwriting partnership, they were divorced in 1965. Their professional partnership only continued for a short time thereafter. And to this day, the team of Greenwich and Barry is spoken of in the same breath as two other successful Brill Building husband-and-wife teams, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (married 1961, still going strong!) and Gerry Goffin and Carole King (married 1959,
It's no exaggeration to state that the entertainment world was shaken by the sudden passing of Davy Jones on February 29 of this year, responding not only with an outpouring of grief, but with genuinely fond memories of the actor, singer and Monkee. Friday Music is joining Rhino Entertainment in keeping Jones' rich legacy of music alive, with two new releases slated for April 24. After having recently reissued Jones' pre-Monkees debut, the label turns its attention to Jones' 1971-1972 recordings
Carole King, The Legendary Demos (Rockingale/Hear Music) Who wouldn't want to hear early recordings of some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded? I know I would. Davy Jones, The Bell Recordings 1971-1972 / The Monkees, Pool It! Deluxe Edition (Friday Music) The late Monkee's first post-band project released on CD and expanded with bonus tracks, as well as a CD/DVD of the band's penultimate 1987 album with two bonus tracks and the group's videography. T. Rex, Electric Warrior: Deluxe
UPDATE 2/29/12: Today at The Second Disc, we join music fans all over the world in mourning the loss of Davy Jones, who died this morning at the age of 66. The worlds of music, stage and screen all lost an icon with the passing of the actor, singer, comedian and beloved Monkee. Davy brought a little of the British Invasion to the California band, as well as lot of talent, sweetness, heart and chutzpah. New York DJ Cousin Brucie Morrow took the airwaves on Sirius/XM satellite radio early
Monkee Alert! In 1969, the band itself was coming apart at the seams, and its television program had been cancelled a year earlier. But Colgems Records had a solution to reignite interest in the zany music makers: release the first-ever Monkees hits collection! That LP was The Monkees Greatest Hits, a 14-track album that lives up to its promise: "I'm a Believer," "Last Train to Clarksville," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Daydream Believer," "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," and so on. The
When The Monkees' Instant Replay was released in February 1969, less than three years had passed since the band's vinyl debut in October 1966. But the pop world of 1966 might have been a lifetime ago. Five days before Instant Replay's February 15 release, The Beach Boys unveiled the album 20/20, on which America's band surreptitiously recorded a song by Charles Manson. Two days after, The Temptations skyrocketed to Cloud Nine, meeting psychedelia head-on. By the year's end, the dream of
Well, friends, all good things must come to an end, but we couldn't be more excited with the offerings we have for you today, the final day of Second Discmas! Courtesy of our terrific friends at Rhino Entertainment, we've got an amazing pack of three of the label's finest Handmade releases of 2011: the expanded 2-CD box set of The Beau Brummels' Bradley's Barn; the first-ever release of the heavy psychedelia of Iron Butterfly's Fillmore East 1968; and finally, the brand-new, hot-off-the-presses
The Marvelettes, Forever More: The Complete Motown Albums, Volume 2 (Hip-o Select/Motown) A four-disc box presenting the last four of The Marvelettes' albums (two of which are in stereo and mono) alongside rare and unreleased gems from the storied Motown vaults. Smokey Robinson, The Solo Albums Volume 6: Warm Thoughts / Being with You (Hip-o Select/Motown) Smokey's early-'80s comeback, represented with these two LPs on one CD (Warm Thoughts bows on the format for the first time!) along with a