Vintage Soundtracks, Live Concert Coming from Varese

Varese Sarabande Records has revealed the latest titles in their long-running Soundtrack CD Club. This batch includes some of the most lauded composers in film history (Goldsmith, Newman, Conti) and a rare treat in the form of a film music concert on CD and DVD.

First up is another never-before-released score from Jerry Goldsmith. 1963’s A Gathering of Eagles was a thrilling military drama starring Kevin McCarthy and Rock Hudson as an Army general and colonel struggling to maintain order in their units during peacetime. Released the same year Goldsmith received his first of 17 impressive Oscar nominations, Eagles is early, prime Goldsmith that earns each of its 3,000 copies pressed.

Next is a Golden Age two-fer that features some star turns from 20th Century-Fox’s legendary Alfred Newman. On The Snake Pit/The Three Faces of Eve, Newman composed and conducted the former (an Oscar-nominated score to a 1948 psychological drama starring Olivia de Havilland) and conducted the latter, written by Robert Emmett Dolan for a 1957 picture about multiple-personality disorder. This set is limited to 1,500 copies.

The label has prepped two debut CD releases of previously-pressed LPs in this batch. Bill Conti’s score to The Formula, a 1981 thriller starring Marlon Brando and George C. Scott and directed by John G. Avildsen, gets a 1,200-unit run, while Nightflyers, a 1987 sci-fi film with a synth-heavy score composed by Doug Timm (a young composer tragically murdered two years later), will be pressed at 1,000.

Perhaps the most intriguing new release, however, is a live CD/DVD set recorded at the Fimucité Music Festival in the Canary Islands in 2008. Diego Navarro and Joel McNeely led the Tenerife Film Orchestra and Choir through all-time film score classics, and that performance has been preserved for fans to hear or view for posterity. Fimucité 2 is limited to 1,000 copies.

Check out all the track lists after the jump, and click on the titles above to place your orders (discs should ship around October 4).

The Irresistible Tammi Terrell, Compiled

To the non-believers and newcomers, Tammi Terrell isn’t more than a footnote in the story of Motown. Her name sits beside Marvin Gaye’s on a few iconic singles – “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “You’re All I Need to Get By” and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” to name three – but that’s it, right?

Wrong, says Hip-o Select’s new Terrell anthology Come On and See Me: The Complete Solo Recordings. On her own, Terrell recorded just one full long-playing record for Motown, but it was released after several years of hard work on other labels; Terrell, as Tammy Montgomery, began her career in the record industry in 1961, releasing various singles for Scepter/Wand Records, Checker and James Brown’s Try Me label before signing to Motown and creating a powerhouse trilogy of duets albums with Marvin Gaye (United in 1967, You’re All I Need in 1968 and Easy in 1969).

Now, all of this material is compiled on one two-disc set, including solo tracks that Gaye later laid vocals on for the duet albums, rare outtakes and a previously unreleased live set. It’s a fitting tribute to one of the most underrated members of the Motown pantheon (and one who was taken from us at far too young an age – Terrell died at 24 in 1970 of a brain tumor).

The set can be purchased here (it looks like Select is also providing audio samples for this one), and the track list is after the jump.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y! Rollermania Strikes Again in October

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y! For many readers, that chant will undoubtedly conjure up images of a group of tartan-clad Scotsmen, whose catchy, hook-filled 45s led hordes of screaming teenagers and teenyboppers to the dance floor (alongside adults with discerning taste in irresistible pop music, of course!). The history of The Bay City Rollers is being celebrated by the fine folks of the U.K.’s Salvo Records with the October 4 release of a deluxe four-disc anthology they’ve quite accurately called Rollermania (Salvo SBX451). The enterprising label has already given us similar career-spanning box sets for bands as diverse as The Move and Procol Harum, and this set looks to follow the format of those predecessors. It contains all of the major hit singles plus a smattering of album tracks and hard-to-find rarities, such as the original single version of “Saturday Night,” sung not by Les McKeown, but by Nobby Clark. With over four hours of music on 71 tracks plus a 36-page book, Rollermania is the most comprehensive look at the Rollers yet. And as the band sold an estimated 150 million records, it’s long overdue. Hit the jump for more on this powerhouse act of the 1970s!

Come and Get It, In One Shot: The Apple Box Set Announced

After months during which EMI kept us all guessing, official specs were finally released for the Apple Records reissue campaign, and The Second Disc duly reported that information back on August 5. As with most projects related to The Beatles and/or Apple Corps, however, there were as many questions as answers, even after the “final” information had been posted on the official Apple website.

For one thing, why downloads? Fans were sharply divided as to how they felt about the practice of offering additional bonus tracks for many of the albums as downloads only, especially when it appeared that at least some of the material could have fit on the physical discs. Another burning question was, “Where’s the box set?”  I was among those asking; surely Apple was planning a mega-box to contain all 17 albums (on 15 discs) that would sit on the shelf nicely alongside last year’s Beatles box sets.

Well, that product is a pipe dream no longer as The Apple Box Set has materialized!  With artwork cheekily designed after an apple crate and the “Fresh From Apple Records” slogan, the banner on the cover immediately tipped fans off to the box’s importance: “Contains 17 CDs.” Yes, The Apple Box Set (as yet without a snappy title!) will include all 15 individual releases, including the Come and Get It anthology, and will include all of the download-only bonus tracks on 2 CDs only available in the box set.

Hit the jump for more, including the complete track listing for both bonus discs!