This May Be the Contents of the CHIC Box: Or, Can Anyone Speak Japanese?

Thanks to funk ambassador Donald Cleveland for this tip: a Japanese Web site called Disk Union has published what looks like a preliminary track list for Warner France’s upcoming CHIC box set.

Though it’s not final – and the other text, being loosely translated from Japanese to English, isn’t quite coherent or more descriptive than anything else we’ve read, it looks like some genuine rarities are going to be in this set, including excerpts from one particularly tantalizing unreleased CHIC-produced album (not the one with Johnny Mathis, sadly…).

Hit the jump to get the goods.

Does the New Bon Jovi Comp Have a Prayer?

Island Def Jam’s official pre-order page finally revealed the track list to Bon Jovi’s upcoming Greatest Hits package, and – well, it’s exactly what you might expect.

A friend said it best: for Bon Jovi, the grunge-inspired These Days (1995) was a fork in the road for the band. They could either continue down the path of rock royalty, or they could follow the newest trends in pop-rock music, no matter what the cost to their sound. They chose the latter, and it led to things like having songs written by Max Martin, the guy who wrote “Baby One More Time,” or the mid-2000s clutch of country snoozers.

Admittedly, this new set does slightly hew more toward tunes from the early days of the band (from 1984’s self-titled debut to 1994’s Cross Road, their first compilation – almost all the tunes from said compilation are here). But it’s the Cliff’s Notes version. Early singles like “In and Out of Love” and “The Hardest Part is the Night” are nowhere to be found, which isn’t much of a surprise – this is a greatest-hits set devoted to the most mainstream of fans, plus the band doesn’t seem to like those pre-Slippery When Wet albums (they briefly attempted to incorporate some of those album sides on their latest tour but quickly gave up when audiences failed to respond much). But as a fellow New Jerseyan who regards Jon, Richie, Tico, David (and Alec) as part of the Garden State’s pop-cultural legacy, it’s awkward to see them move some distance from their roots.

In any case, this set will be available in two packages: the standard, single-disc edition, boasting 14 hits and two new tracks; and the two-disc Ultimate Collection, armed with another disc of hits and two more new tracks. Those who pre-order the set from Island Def Jam directly will receive lead single “What Do You Got” a day earlier than its September 21 release date and an exclusive new song as well.

The whole affair streets on November 9. Hit the jump to get the track list.

They Call It MISTER New Batch of Intrada Releases

Intrada’s new releases will see three scores – two television film soundtracks from a score legend and the final chapter of a famous film series – released for the first time anywhere.

The Organization isn’t a universally recognized film, but it does star one of the greatest actors in one of the greatest roles of all time. That would be Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs, the hard-working detective created by author John Ball in the book In the Heat of the Night. The classic, Oscar-winning 1967 film adaptation and its sequel, They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) each featured a unique musical score from the legendary Quincy Jones (Southern-fried blues in In the Heat of the Night, topped by Ray Charles’ vocals on the title theme, and slicker, West Coast funk for Tibbs). But the least-remembered of the Tibbs films, The Organization (1971), had a different composer (Gil Melle, composer of such notable works as the TV movie That Certain Summer (1972)) and a different musical flavor. Melle, a noted jazz musician and artist who designed LP sleeves for Miles Davis and introduced legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder to Blue Note Records, would bring a bright, complex approach to the music of The Organization – one that finally gets a proper release after an LP was shelved at the time of recording. The Organization is limited to 1,000 copies.

The other release from Intrada is yet another in the vast and influential career of Jerry Goldsmith, one of the greatest composers of all time. This set draws from two television movie scores Goldsmith composed in 1970 and 1971 for some CBS suspense-drama flicks. A Step Out of Line saw Peter Falk, Peter Lawford and Vic Morrow trying to survive the perfect heist gone wrong, while Brotherhood of the Bell was a conspiratorial potboiler with Glenn Ford and Rosemary Forsythe. The disc includes several pieces from A Step Out of Line that weren’t used in the final film; both are sourced from CBS’ pristine quarter-inch mono master tapes. This set is capped at 2,500 copies.

Check out the track lists after the jump, and as always, your order links are here and here.

Short Takes: (Almost) Trackless Reissues from Sabbath, Madness and Howard Jones

With the holiday reissue bonanza in full swing, it’s no surprise that announcements of expanded titles and box sets are coming in fast. Some of them, it seems, are coming in faster than the actual information behind them, like track listings and such. These next couple titles you’re about to read about have nothing more than rough information about them right now, but we wanted to at least bring them to your attention when more info springs up.

Hit the jump to check out some developments on a pair of reissues from Black Sabbath, two from Howard Jones and another piece of the Madness collection.

Go West, Young Man: Two More Classic Westerns Arrive on CD

While much of the rest of the catalogue world is kicking into overdrive in time for the holiday season, at least one group of labels seems to keep busy year-round: that of the soundtrack reissue specialists. Our friends at Kritzerland yesterday announced their latest two-on-one CD release bringing two classic United Artists film soundtrack LPs back into print. These soundtracks were the work of true titans of the field: Dmitri Tiomkin, Bronislau Kaper and Andre Previn, from films starring the legendary likes of Audrey Hepburn and Burt Lancaster; and Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum.

John Huston’s 1960 The Unforgiven featured a score by Tiomkin, the Academy Award-winning composer of such classic westerns as High Noon, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and The Alamo, and in addition to stars Hepburn and Lancaster, had Audie Murphy and Lillian Gish among its cast. 1967’s The Way West had Bronislau Kaper in the composer’s chair (whose work has already been anthologized this year in a Film Score Monthly box set, to which this release is a perfect companion) and no less a luminary than Andre Previn conducting. Stubby Kaye and Sally Field, in her film debut, supported Douglas, Mitchum and Richard Widmark. Kaper’s score also features a title song with lyrics by Mack David performed by the Serendipity Singers, which is included on the soundtrack along with the group’s performances of “Mercy McBee” and the film’s finale.

Both titles have been issued on CD before; The Unforgiven appeared in FSM’s The Unforgiven: Classic Western Scores from United Artists box (FSM Vol. 10 No. 10) dedicated to the genre, and The Way West was released in a limited edition by Intrada (Vol. 92) but both CDs have been remastered under the supervision of producer Bruce Kimmel for this limited edition of 1,000 copies. Both releases are long sold out and fetch high prices on the collectors’ market, making this re-release particularly welcome.

Kritzerland’s edition is available at their usual single-CD price of $19.98 plus shipping and handling, and while CDs are guaranteed to ship by the second week of October, pre-orders are more likely to arrive at your doorstep later this month. The Unforgiven/The Way West features a 12-page full color booklet with new liner notes, and it can be pre-ordered here.  The track listing follows after the jump!

Merry Funkin’ Christmas!

Harry Weinger promised its release to us in our interview with him a few months back, and here it is: James Brown’s The Complete James Brown Christmas is the world-premiere release of all three of JB’s holiday LPs on CD, all on one package, from Hip-o Select.

James Brown loved Christmas so much, he recorded three Yuletide albums in four years (not nearly a surprise given The Hardest Working Man in Show Business’ lightning-fast album output at the time). Some of the tracks from these albums were holiday standards played to perfection by The Famous Flames (“Please Come Home for Christmas,” the immortal “Christmas Song”) – but most of them were in fact the usual mind-bending funk offerings from JB and The Flames – which at this point boasted the likes of Maceo Parker, Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis, Clyde “Funky Drummer” Stubblefield and the relatively new trombonist Fred Wesley, who’d lead The J.B.’s, the ’70s incarnation of the band – with a unique holiday twist. Tunes like “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto,” “Let’s Unite the Whole World at Christmas” and “Santa Claus is Definitely Here to Stay” are classic, inimitable Brown, celebrating the season and its values of charity, respect and fun with a dash of activism. (It’s that spirit that put “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud,” a Top 10 hit from earlier in the year, on the Soulful Christmas LP.)

There have been quite a few J.B. Christmas compilations on the market before. Rhino, back when they were an indie label, did Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag (Rhino 70194) in 1988, which sort of set the template for future compilations of the material (including the most recent one, an entry in Universal’s 20th Century Masters series from 2003). But this new collection is the CD debut for quite a bit of this material, making it quite the gift for catalogue enthusiasts. The set is rounded out with a clutch of non-LP mixes and versions, which had previously appeared on Volumes 5 and 7 of Select’s ongoing J.B. singles series.

Kick-off your holiday celebration early by pre-ordering this set here, and hit the jump for the full scoop on the tracks!