Last year, Cherry Red's RPM imprint closed up shop after almost 30 years and some 600+ releases. But a new imprint was announced to pick up where RPM left off: Strawberry. Its inaugural collection, Halcyon Days: '60s Mod, R&B, Brit Soul, and Freakbeat Nuggets has proved an auspicious debut for the imprint with big shoes to fill. The 3-CD collection traces the development of '60s British soul and R&B from the mod period to the first flowering of psychedelia featuring a blend of names
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Johnny Cash, The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991 (Mercury/UMe) 7CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 7LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991 will be available on 7CD or 7LP, 180-gram vinyl formats. The box collects all six albums Johnny Cash recorded for Mercury Records during that era: Class Of '55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming with Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Carl
There are many peculiar stories in the annals of rock and roll, but surely one of the most peculiar is the tale of Them and The Other Them - and it's just been chronicled anew in Cherry Red/Grapefruit's release of Them: Belfast Gypsies. The Northern Irish band Them always had a fluid lineup; frontman Van Morrison wrote candidly in 2015 that "Them was intended as a vehicle, a way for me to sing and play the blues." The first line-up, featuring Eric Wrixon on keyboards, only ever recorded
It has been a pretty big year for Van Morrison, both with new recordings and reissues. At the beginning of 2015, he released his latest studio effort, Duets- Re-Working the Catalogue. In August, it was announced that Sony/Legacy Recordings had acquired the rights to the majority of his catalogue. The label quickly released an Essential volume and put 33 albums up on digital services with the promise of more projects to come. Then, just last week, Rhino released expanded editions of two of