Back in March, we filled you in about Universal Japan's plans for Motown's 60th anniversary campaign, which included a series of reissues and a 3-CD, 60-song collection. We recently reviewed the U.S.' reissue of the definitive Motown: The Complete No. 1s box set. Now, the U.K. is getting into the act with a different 3-CD, 60-song anthology of its own. Motown: Greatest Hits arrives on August 16. Like the Japanese set, it boasts 60 classics from the label on three CDs, but the selection is
Shimmering guitars, breezy horns, smooth keyboards, and crisp vocals on well-crafted songs with catchy choruses: all of those qualities might have once described "soft rock" or "adult-oriented rock," but more recently the genre has experienced a resurgence as "yacht rock." Though the term was originally intended in a pejorative way, it's come to be accepted by many of the progenitors of the genre including Michael McDonald and John Oates. There's an entire book on the yacht rock phenomenon, a
Smokey Robinson's mama famously told the young singer-songwriter that he'd better shop around, but happily, those looking for the definitive chronicle of Smokey and Diana and Mary and Flo and Martha and Marvin and Stevie and co. need shop around no more. To mark the label's 60th anniversary, Motown: The Complete No. 1s is back in print in a slightly-expanded edition, and this 11-CD box set is, simply, one-stop shopping. Impressively housed within a sturdy replica of 2648 West Grand Boulevard
Filmmaker Ken Burns has tackled many subjects over the years, from the Civil War to baseball. His documentaries have garnered numerous awards over the years. In 2001, he took an in-depth look at the genre of jazz. Now, he is aiming to explore a different genre with Country Music, an eight-part, 16-1/2-hour documentary premiering September 15 on PBS. And as with Jazz, there will be an accompanying soundtrack. The most expansive of these is a 5-disc box set debuting on August 30 from Legacy
Ace Records, as always, has delivered some of 2019's finest collections including Songwriter Series volumes dedicated to Eddie Hinton, Leonard Cohen and Merle Haggard, and celebrations of producer Mickie Most and musician Reggie Young. Today, we're taking a look at a pair of the label's other recent releases. Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs present Three Day Week: When the Lights Went Out 1972-1975 (Ace CDCHD 1542) is another sublimely curated compilation focusing on a particular period of
Stage Door Records' five volumes of Lost West End have sampled numerous rare musicals that have played London over the years. Now, the U.K. label is turning its sights across the pond to the Great White Way to launch a new series: Lost Broadway. The first volume focuses on the year 1961, when composer-lyricist Jerry Herman made his Broadway debut with the successful Milk and Honey; some of the brightest stars included Barbara Cook, Jerry Orbach, Elaine Stritch, and Alfred Drake; the venerable
Along with Buck Owens - with whom he shared a musical history and a wife - Merle Haggard (1937-2016) defined The Bakersfield Sound of country music: authentic, raw, rooted in honky-tonks. But unlike the Texas-born and Arizona-raised Owens, Haggard was actually born in Bakersfield and raised just across the river from that California town. "Hag," as he preferred to be known, rocketed to superstardom thanks to "Okie from Muskogee," his controversial 1969 song that was either a scathing
Today we're looking at a pair of recent releases from Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint featuring some heavy sounds! With a résumé including Cream, Blind Faith, Blues Incorporated, The Graham Bond Organisation, and Fela Kuti's group, Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker has long been recognized as one of rock's greatest - and most volatile - drummers. With a personality as outsize as his talent, Baker brought a powerful touch to all of his projects and various bands. Between 1974 and 1976,
The names of Mickie Most and Reggie Young might not be among the most familiar except to diehard music aficionados, but the songs that benefited from their respective golden touches certainly are among the most well-known ever. Ace Records has recently paid tribute to both of these late talents with a pair of deluxe anthologies. The Pop Genius of Mickie Most may be the most lavish single-disc package yet released by Ace, housed in a heavy slipcase also containing a squarebound 74-page
Ace Records has released a number of splendid Motown collections in recent years, but now the label is taking a different approach to the music of Hitsville, USA. As Motown celebrates its landmark 60th anniversary, On the Detroit Beat: Motor City Soul - U.K. Style 1963-1967 brings together 24 diverse British interpretations of Motown classics, making for a potent reminder that the Sound of Young America was, truly, international. Compiler Tony Rounce helpfully points out in his liner notes
Periodically this month, we'll be looking at titles released in the latter part of 2018 that we either didn't cover, or only covered briefly, the first time around! We hope you enjoy this look at "some nice things we've missed"... Cherry Red's Grapefruit imprint has recently released a pair of 3-CD box sets touching on two very different aspects of the sixties British music scene. One of the fathers of the British blues boom, Alexis Korner (1928-1984) has been celebrated on Every Day I
Last year, the Bella Union label released a collection that fell under the radar. Happily, we here at Second Disc HQ have discovered Paradise: The Sound of Ivor Raymonde, available in 1-CD, 2-LP, and digital formats. The name of Raymonde will surely be familiar to fans of Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, or The Walker Brothers, but those are only three of the artists with whom the late producer-arranger-conductor worked his magic. Paradise, co-curated by his son Simon Raymonde of Bella Union
As a member of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, Eddie Hinton played on countless recordings by the likes of Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Otis Redding. But there was another side of the guitarist that led Jerry Wexler to once proclaim him "the next big thing." Hinton was a persuasive performer and moreover, a fine songwriter. In collaboration with Donnie Fritts, he penned what's likely his most famous song: "Breakfast in Bed," first recorded by Baby Washington but made
Elvis and Dino took on hypocrisy. Dion lamented the senseless deaths of Abraham, Martin, and John. Johnny "Poetry in Motion" Tillotson cast a spotlight on the poor treatment of veterans returned home from war. Bing Crosby wondered "What Do We Do with the World" and Paul Anka observed that "This crazy world has come undone." Such are the moments captured on Ace's thoroughly captivating new collection Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs Present State of the Union: The American Dream in Crisis
Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," the first Stax single of 1968, should have been a new beginning for the artist and label. Instead, the posthumous release ushered in a tumultuous year for the Memphis institution. The death of Redding and members of The Bar-Kays on December 10, 1967 was a tremendous loss for Stax and popular culture, but no one could have predicted the upheaval that would affect Stax and the city of Memphis in the following twelve months. That time has just
Looking back from a vantage point thirty years on, there's no denying the special place that the 1980s have in the history of popular music. It was a decade that surveyed past musical ground while simultaneously advancing the art form further, making an indelible mark on music to come. With dancefloor grooves, yearning ballads, infectious pop, and more, it was a decade of great music. Now, Rhino has announced a new collection that reimagines some of the smash hits from the decade: 80s
Between 1973 and 1977, the London-based Contempo Records label released roughly 150 singles (not to mention numerous albums) celebrating soul in its various strains. Contempo made its mark with both reissues of classic soul material and all-new recordings, and now its legacy has been celebrated in a new 3-CD box set from Cherry Red's Soul Time imprint. The Contempo Story 1973-1977 collects 83 tracks featuring such boldface names as Major Lance, Fontella Bass, Bettye Swann, Doris Duke, Sam and
Cherry Red's Grapefruit imprint has recently released the latest volume in its year-by-year chronicle of British psychedelia. Try a Little Sunshine: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1969 follows Let's Go Down and Blow Our Minds (1967) and Looking at Pictures in the Sky (1968) with 3 CDs and 73 tracks from another fascinating year in music history. The box explores the various musical strains impacted by psychedelia, such as pop (including bubblegum, baroque, and sunshine/harmony pop),
There have been several reissues this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of individual projects released in 1968. But Craft Recordings has announced a box set which celebrates an entire year's worth of material with Stax '68: A Memphis Story, due on October 19. This 5-CD set contains the A- and B-sides of every single released under the Stax Records banner in 1968, including the company's sub-labels, for a total of 120 tracks. Some tracks are by soul legends like Isaac Hayes, The Staple
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Elvis Presley, Where No One Stands Alone (RCA/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) RCA presents 14 of The King's seminal gospel and spiritually-themed recordings, all remixed with new orchestrations and new supporting vocals from artists who knew and worked with Elvis including Darlene Love, Cissy Houston, and Lisa Marie Presley plus members of The Stamps Quartet and The Imperials. Includes new versions of "Stand by Me," "You'll
BUY NOW FROM AMAZON.COMWarner Music France is providing a breezy soundtrack for summer with the fourth installment of California Groove. Arriving seven years after Volume 3, this impressive 6-CD box set is a little bit country, a little bit-rock-and-roll - not to mention filled with pop, lounge, jazz, dance, R&B, soul, and beyond. It's too eclectic to be filed under "yacht rock," though many of that so-called genre's bright lights are here, including Christopher Cross and Steely Dan. What
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Bob Dylan, Live 1962-1966: Rare Performances from the Copyright Collections (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The new 2-CD set Live 1962-1966: Rare Performances from the Copyright Collections draws on Dylan's previously issued limited edition "copyright extension" collections to offer a sampler of Dylan onstage, from a pair of songs recorded on April 16, 1962 at Gerdes Folk City in New York ("Blowin' in the Wind" and
We've told you about one of Real Gone's September releases: the first-ever collection of Alice Coltrane's complete Warner Bros. recordings. Now we've got the news on a quartet of soundtrack releases also slated for the month. The first release actually hits one day before September, on August 31. It is a vinyl reissue of Even More Dazed and Confused, the second soundtrack album from Richard Linklater's 1993 film Dazed and Confused. The high school coming-of-age film takes place primarily
Throughout his career, Phil Collins has always been willing to share his talents - whether at the microphone or the drum kit, as a songwriter, or in the producer's chair - with his fellow musicians. On September 28, the superstar will collect 59 of his favorite collaborations on a new 4-CD box set. Rhino/Atlantic will release Plays Well with Others just one week before Collins launches his Not Dead Yet, Live! tour on October 5 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Collins states in the press
"Yesterday's Gone": the song by folk-pop duo Chad and Jeremy opens the first of the six discs comprising Cherry Red and RPM's new box set Fab Gear: The British Beat Explosion and Its Aftershocks 1963-1967. It's a most appropriate opener, as yesterday really was gone for an entire generation of artists swiftly rendered obsolete by the emergence of The Beatles. As the box eloquently explains, the Fab Four "in name, song, band structure, image, defined this new Beat music...Until 1967, when The
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