As one of the most influential songwriters of his generation - or any other - Bob Dylan's music has long transcended borders, physical or otherwise. The Minnesota native's music struck a chord in Britain, both on the concert stage (see: the famous "Judas!" concert) and on records, and his influence on British artists from The Beatles down can't be underestimated. It's no surprise that his songs were seized upon by British artists with a zeal equal to that of their American counterparts. Ace
In less than two weeks, the Stax Records 60th anniversary celebration will continue with a new set jointly produced by Concord Bicycle Music and Rhino. Soulsville U.S.A.: A Celebration of Stax is a 60-song, 3-CD journey through the heart of Memphis with some of the Stax label's brightest stars including Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Booker T. & the MG's, William Bell, Sam and Dave, and more. It's due on September 22. Soulsville U.S.A. is a successor to the 2007 release
Cherry Red's Robinsongs imprint is turning up the Cool Heat with a new 2-CD, 25-track collection celebrating The Best of CTI Records and featuring many of the classic jazz label's most renowned artists including instrumentalists George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, and Stanley Turrentine, and vocalists Nina Simone, Patti Austin, and Esther Phillips. Chances are, if you think of a jazz artist, it wouldn't take many degrees of separation to reach Creed Taylor. The esteemed producer
Around this time last summer, we filled you in on two volumes of Ace's Beat Girls series focusing on sixties starlets from the Pye and Decca labels. Now, Ace has recently released another volume in the series. Marylebone Beat Girls looks at the big-city acts recording out of London's Marylebone district, home of EMI's headquarters and its labels like Parlophone, His Master's Voice, and Columbia. This 25-track collection of uptempo nuggets brings the Swingin' London fusion of pop, rock, and
Randy Newman once observed of his friend Harry Nilsson, "The records Harry made, and the first records I made, it was like The Rolling Stones never existed." Indeed, before his famously chronicled lifestyle as a Hollywood hellraiser threatened to overshadow his reputation as a talent nonpareil (and left his once-angelic voice in tatters), Nilsson had carved out an artful niche of wit and whimsy. He expressed his musical muse in gentle psychedelia, baroque pop, folk rock, vaudeville
The new anthology Milk of the Tree, from Cherry Red's Grapefruit label, sets forth its mission statement clearly in its subtitle: An Anthology of Female Vocal Folk and Singer-Songwriters 1966-1973. Still, how to anthologize such a broad and powerful group of artists during one of the most creatively fertile periods in popular music history? Grapefruit does a fine job in distilling the essence of the period - and charting the growth of artists from a pure pop framework to one in which they
What is the sound of Philadelphia? As Kent Records' exciting compilation Nothing But a House Party: The Birth of The Philly Sound 1967-1971 readily admits, there were many such sounds - the sound of teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon; of "South Street" and "The Mashed Potato" and Cameo-Parkway Records; of the doo-wop of The Dreamlovers, and before that, of Italian-American singers like Mario Lanza and Al Martino. But the sound of Philadelphia referenced here is the one with capital letters -
An advertisement reprinted in Ace Records' splendid new collection Making Time: A Shel Talmy Production reads, "Artistes Shel Talmy Has Recorded: The Kinks, The Bachelors, The Who, Chad and Jeremy" and so on. Add to that list Manfred Mann, The Creation, The Fortunes, Trini Lopez, Lee Hazlewood, and a certain David Bowie, and you have an idea of the scope of this first-of-its-kind collection dedicated to the work of the producer-engineer-impresario. Though born in Chicago, Talmy made his name
With its latest project, 7a Records has invited Monkees fans to Listen to the Bands - yes, plural. This recent 25-track collection features modern, independent artists all tackling Davy, Micky, Mike, and Peter's classic songbook - and making it even more special, all profits from the limited edition album will be donated by the label to the Davy Jones Equine Memorial Foundation. Appropriately, curators Glenn Gretlund and Iain Lee of 7a have made sure that many of the famous songwriting names
As longtime collectors know, great "nuggets" show up in the most unlikely places...and so do Nuggets, naturally. Warner Music Japan has just issued four volumes of Soft Rock Nuggets, but most of the tracks on these collections are firmly in the harmony-drenched, lushly melodic, sunshine pop genre. Any fans of Rhino Handmade's Come to the Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults (reissued on vinyl this year for Record Store Day) will find much to savor on these latest additions to the
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Beach Boys, 1967: Sunshine Tomorrow (Capitol/Brother/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The Beach Boys' Sunshine Tomorrow, a new 2-CD and digital collection, not only premieres the first-ever true stereo mix of 1967's Wild Honey, but also premieres a whopping 54 rarities recorded that year including the live album Lei'd in Hawaii, session material from both Wild Honey and Smiley Smile, and further live recordings (spanning
A Tribute Told in Vignettes... Well, I don't like to reduce us to just being part of the "Seattle Sound." I'd like to think of us as expanding more. Like, we're huge in Europe right now. I mean, we've got records... uh, a big record just broke in Belgium. -Cliff Poncier, Singles A Cameron Crowe film tends to have a "killer" soundtrack. Listening to a Crowe soundtrack is an intriguing adventure filled with carefully curated juxtapositions. In fact, the experience is a lot like the
Late in 2015, Ace Records released the compilation Jon Savage's 1966: The Year The Decade Exploded to coincide with the publication of the author-historian's book of the same name. Now, Ace and Savage have followed that CD release with another volume - 1967: The Year Pop Divided. The 2-CD collection's mission statement is clearly set out: "MOR ballads were rife in the U.K. charts in 1967, but thankfully not on this dynamic collection of rock, soul, pop, and incipient funk and psych the teenage
With a recent Grammy Awards salute, a new catalogue deal, and the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Fever, the music of the Bee Gees has been front and center in 2017. Ace Records has joined the celebration of the brothers Gibb with a new entry in the label's long-running Songwriters Series. To Love Somebody: The Songs of The Bee Gees 1966-1970 pulls into focus the early professional years of Barry, Robin, and Maurice, with 24 choice cover versions of songs both familiar and lesser-known.
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Various Artists, Honeybeat: '60s Groovy Girl-Pop (Real Gone Music) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Honeybeat: Groovy 60s Girl Pop, curated by Sheila Burgel from the Sony archives and released on Real Gone Music, features 19 songs from nine different labels, nearly a third of which have never been released on CD. While some tracks come from known artists such as Little Eva, Skeeter
To many, the phrase "English weather" conjures images of fog, clouds, and rain. To Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, English weather means something "melodic, melancholy, with jazz and folk touches, and the same similar shrug of resignation..." So explains the compilers of the recent English Weather, an absorbing 18-track compendium from Ace Records collecting rare and unusual songs that might be, in their words, akin to "an unfamiliar album with a hint of Crosby, Stills and Nash, but an identifiably
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring some of the most hotly-anticipated sets of the year! Fleetwood Mac, Tango in the Night [Various Editions] (Warner Bros./Rhino) 3CD/1DVD/1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Fleetwood Mac's 1987 album featuring "Little Lies" and "Everywhere" returns in a variety of formats including a 3-CD/1 DVD/1 LP version (with the original
Over the first two volumes of Manhattan Soul, Ace Records' Kent imprint has dug up some of the finest - and indeed, rarest - soul tracks to come out of the Big Apple in the 1960s. For the third installment of the series, the label has again tapped the vaults of Florence Greenberg's Scepter and Wand Records, plus rival label Musicor, for a definitive chronicle of some of the most urbane R&B of the decade. Though these outfits were based in New York, productions sometimes came from other
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
Welcome to Part Two of our RPM Records Round-Up! Part One put a spotlight on the Cherry Red imprint's recent releases from Welsh-born vocalist Maureen Evans and the New Zealand pop-psych band, The Avengers. Today, we're looking at Germany's The Boots, and a collection of Sweden's finest rockers circa 1964-1968! Don't miss out on Part One, either. You can read it right here! RPM's international tour continues with a complete release from Germany's The Boots. Beat! The Complete Telefunken
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Grateful Dead, The Grateful Dead: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Rhino) 2-CD (Original Album and Bonus Disc): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Picture Disc (Original Album Only): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. The Grateful Dead: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition presents the original 1967 album on Disc 1 and an unreleased concert from July 29, 1966 in Vancouver, Canada on Disc 2. The first disc has been remastered from the original tapes by David
Bob Stanley's Croydon Municipal label closed out 2016 with a pair of releases continuing the Cherry Red imprint's mission of excavating some of the most rare and well-done pop music inside and outside of Great Britain. And This is Me might be thought of as a kind of Golden Throats precursor. Subtitled Britain's Finest Thespians Sing, this 24-track compendium features a host of the finest actors, comedians, and personalities from pre-Beatles Great Britain's golden age of entertainment across
The latest entry in Ace Records' long-running Chartbusters USA series arrived late in 2016. The Special Country Edition turned its spotlight on Hot 100 hits which had crossed over from the Billboard Country chart. The 24 tracks on Chartbusters USA: Special Country Edition are all from the period of 1963-1969, needless to say a time of seismic change in pop music, and many come from the greatest names in any genre of music. The set, appropriately enough, opens with George Jones' 1964
Today, our very own Ted Frank takes a look at the annual CD series shining a spotlight on the best voices in pop you might not know! Although 2016 may be remembered for a number of losses in the artistic community, it has also been a reinvigorating one for the music industry. With the likes of David Bowie and Leonard Cohen tragically releasing some of their finest work in their final hours, to other legends such as William Bell, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Iggy Pop, The Rolling
As has become commonplace over the past several years due to the copyright laws in the U.K. and Europe, a couple of "copyright extension" releases came out at the end of 2016 to come in right at the deadline for 1966 recordings. While sometimes these collections have taken physical form like the two large Bob Dylan box sets that have been released over the past couple of years, they are more often than not digital-only releases. And in keeping with the traditions of the past several years,
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