Reissue Theory: Philip Bailey, “Chinese Wall”

Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on notable albums and the reissues they could someday see. Despite the presence of a hit single with a famous singer/songwriter/producer and a killer soul vocalist, Philip Bailey’s hit sophomore record remains unexpanded on CD. What would such a project look like? This article is the only way you’ll ever know-oh-ohh…

What does it say about Philip Bailey that his biggest hit wasn’t entirely his?

It’s not like Bailey only had so much talent. Quite the contrary: as the lead singer of Earth, Wind and Fire, Bailey’s distinctive falsetto lit up some of the best R&B singles of the late ’70s, like “Fantasy” and the sublime “September.” But his biggest success as a solo artist came with the aid of one of the most prolific musicians of the ’80s – so much so that some thought the musician in question had actually discovered Bailey!

The discussion continues after the jump.

Pino Donaggio’s Lost “Ordeal” Released at Last

Kritzerland’s restoration of Pino Donaggio’s complete score to Carrie was one of the most lauded film score releases of 2010. Today, the label announced a title that could be considered a follow-up: the premiere of Donaggio’s shelved score to the 1985 film Ordeal by Innocence. This Cannon Films adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1958 novel was directed by Desmond Davis of 1981’s Clash of the Titans, and featured a starry ensemble including Christopher Plummer, Faye Dunaway and Ian McShane. The transition from page to screen wasn’t a simple one, however. After Donaggio turned in his final score, the filmmakers found themselves re-editing and re-shooting. Donaggio was no longer available to re-score, so the entirety of his symphonic work was replaced. Oddly, the choice to replace him wasn’t another established film composer, but rather jazz legend Dave Brubeck (who, in 2011, is going strong at 90 years old!). Some of Brubeck’s existing compositions were re-recorded, and while splendid musically, Brubeck’s style seemed an uncomfortable match for the dark world of Ordeal by Innocence.

Now, more than 25 years later, Donaggio’s complete score receives its first-ever release, with only the 17-minute “Suite for a Dying Venice” having previously appeared on Silva Screen’s Three Original Motion Picture Soundtracks by Pino Donaggio (SIL 5093-2, 1992). Kritzerland has uncovered every note written and recorded for the film as well as a bonus suite of alternate cues, and the entire project has been assembled from the original first-generation two-track music masters housed in Italy.

There’s little doubt that Ordeal by Innocence will take its place among Donaggio classics such as Dressed to Kill and Carrie. Hit the jump for Kritzerland’s press release as well as order information and track listing!

Nick Cave and The Band Seeds to Reissue Four Albums on CD/DVD

The latest batch of reissues by U.K. rockers Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have been announced for release this spring.

Mute Records will continue their ongoing reissue campaign for the band by re-releasing four of the band’s albums from 1994 to 2001. As with previous batches, each set will be a two-disc CD/DVD affair, pairing the remastered original album on CD alongside a DVD featuring the original album, B-sides and videos, all remixed in 5.1 surround sound. These batches will also include another four parts of Do You Love Me Like I Love You?, a short film commissioned for the project. (The extra content will be available for download so listeners can enjoy them apart from the DVD.)

Each set will be released May 16. Read the track lists after the jump. (Credit to Slicing Up Eyeballs for first reporting this story.)

New Paul Revere & The Raiders Comp Has a Track List

If you’ve been around Amazon lately, you might have known that the previously mentioned entry for Paul Revere & The Raiders in Legacy’s Essential series has a track list.

The two-disc set is due out in two weeks, but fans have certainly been wondering what this set will have that others before it (namely Collector’s Choice Music’s three-disc Complete Columbia Singles) did not. The first blurb Legacy released about the product promised promo-only tracks and some mono single mixes, all curated by Bob Irwin of Sundazed Music. Of course, Amazon’s track listing isn’t going to point out the intricacies of each tune.

So we’re going to do something a little different: the track list is after the jump, albeit without discographical comment. We can’t differentiate which mixes are different, so for now we’ll just give you the songs on each disc. Have at it in the comments!

Rush Celebrates 30 Years of “Moving Pictures” With Surround Mixes and More

For fans of music in surround, every new release can be a cause for celebration. Surround music hasn’t proliferated for years, but a small if steady flow keeps the torch burning over multiple formats. Last year saw the surprise launch of Rhino Handmade’s Quadradisc series with classic quadraphonic titles arriving on DVD from Aretha Franklin and Chicago, while Tom Petty and UMe offered Damn the Torpedoes as a 5.1 Blu-Ray. King Crimson continued its 40th Anniversary Series on Inner Knot with a group of lauded DVD-Audio titles, and Acoustic Sounds offered remarkable three-channel mixes of Nat “King” Cole’s Capitol catalogue. (Of new music in surround, Trent Reznor is offering his Oscar-winning score to The Social Network in surround.) A few weeks back, The Second Disc reported a tantalizing tidbit about a surround-sound reissue of Rush’s 1981 classic Moving Pictures. Details are now in, and the news looks great!

Moving Pictures is generally considered the strongest album by the band. Members Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart built on their hard rock-meets-new wave sound pioneered on Permanent Waves, incorporating reggae and even pop influences. The Mercury label will release the 30th anniversary edition of Moving Pictures on April 5 in two formats. A CD+DVD edition will feature the original seven-track album as Disc One. Disc Two will contain the entire album in audiophile-quality surround and stereo mixes plus the music videos for “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight” and the previously-unreleased “Vital Signs.” All tracks on the DVD will be presented in both 5.1 and stereo. Both mixes will be in 96 kHz/24 bit resolution for DVD-A users, and Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo for those listeners utilizing DVD-V players.

Do you prefer your music in the more recent Blu-Ray format? No worries! Moving Pictures will also be issued as CD+BD. Again, the original album will comprise Disc One on CD, and the Blu-Ray will contain the same tracks as the DVD.  For Blu-Ray, however, the surround mixes are available in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 in addition to 96 kHz/24 bit PCM 5.1 and stereo. Engineer Richard Chycki remixed Moving Pictures for surround and wrote on his blog, “It really was an amazing experience to spread the original tracks of such a classic CD into the 3D world of surround. (The car [on the track “Red Barchetta”] speeds off, goes behind and banks a sharp right in rear, [by the way]). The listening experience is drastically enveloping and coupled with songs and performances that epitomize this band, it’s definitely a great time to re-discover Rush.” Chycki has revealed on his blog that he is also currently remixing the band’s 2002 Vapor Trails, presumably as a standard stereo CD, for release sometime in the future.

To top off this truly deluxe package, Moving Pictures will contain new liner notes by music historian David Fricke, updated artwork by original album designer Hugh Syme, and a gallery of previously unreleased photos from the recording sessions. Hit the jump for pre-order information and a full track listing with discographical annotation!

The Man Who Sang “Liberty Valance”: RPM Continues Gene Pitney Reissues

With one of the most resonant and recognizable voices in rock and roll, Gene Pitney (1940-2006) was the rare American talent to be able to withstand the British Invasion and continue to thrive. He collaborated with Phil Spector and The Rolling Stones, wrote hit songs for Roy Orbison, Bobby Vee, Ricky Nelson and the Crystals, and brought to life the songs of others, too. Among the recipients of the Pitney treatment were Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and even (two-time Oscar winner) Randy Newman. He popularized Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington’s “Town Without Pity,” an Oscar-nominated song from 1961, and had even greater success with “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance.” While it was an “exploitation” song not actually in the 1962 film of the same name, it became a signature song for Pitney.

His long out-of-print albums for Aaron Schroeder’s Musicor label were reissued in a series of two-fers by Sequel Records in the late 1990s. Upon their deletion, they began commanding high prices on the second-hand market. Pitney’s catalogue has since been marked by an inordinate number of budget releases, making it difficult for a new fan or even a longtime collector to know where to start. Thankfully, RPM (another arm of Cherry Red) is ready to reintroduce Pitney’s original album classics to a new generation. The label has begun reissuing the Sequel two-fers in new editions featuring updated liner notes by Roger Dopson as well as redesigned artwork. Last year brought Pitney’s first two albums, The Many Sides of Gene Pitney and Only Love Can Break a Heart, as RETRO 881, and just last week, RPM delivered Sings Just for You and Sings World-Wide Winners as RETRO 887. Hit the jump for stories behind both albums, plus track listings and discographical information!

ICON Updates from Universal

The next batch of Universal’s ICON series is out in a few days, but we’re already seeing more on the horizon.

Two Icon country titles are coming out on March 22: one by Josh Turner, who enjoyed his biggest hit on the country charts last year with the No. 1 single “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” and Billy Currington, who’s racked up an impressive nine Top 10 singles on the country charts since his debut in 2003.

But that’s not all – April 5 is going to see another batch of ICON discs from all corners of the Universal catalogue according to Amazon, including Eric Clapton, The Who, Quincy Jones, B.B. King, Sublime, Cat Stevens, Joe Cocker, Avant and Local H. Only track lists for the last two (admittedly lesser known) bands have surfaced, but both sets actually boast a handful of previously unreleased tracks. While the bigger names likely won’t spoil fans with rare content on a budget title, we’ll surely find out soon enough.

Check out the track lists for Currington and Turner’s sets after the jump, and keep it here for more information on these compilations as it happens.

Short Takes: Hectic Edition

Sincerest apologies to all our readers who may have wondered where The Second Disc went off to. Though I hate jumbling personal/professional stuff with maintenance of the site, today was kind of busy. But there will be a few relaxed posts over the weekend as a way of thanking you, the reader, for your patience (and continued readership, of course!).

In any case, here are two links that might be worth your perusal on the reissue front:

• The Yep Roc label posted a neat interview with Nick Lowe, who discusses at length his forthcoming Labour of Lust reissue, coming out in the U.S. on Yep Roc next month. Illuminating stuff for power pop fans.
• R.E.M.’s Mike Mills talked to Billboard about the band’s forthcoming record Collapse Into Now, and while the article is mostly about the new album (and the fact that the band will not tour behind it), the last paragraph confirms a 25th anniversary deluxe edition of Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) is on the way (as has been the case with every album of the band’s for the past few years). Mills says the set will have “a lot of demos, some of which I think are actually better than the songs on the record.” The new album also marks the conclusion of R.E.M.’s contract with Warner Bros., their home since 1988; no word on their next move or how it will relate to their catalogue affairs.

“I Spy” a Set of Soundtrack Reissues from FSM

Film Score Monthly’s latest release is a nice reissue of a pair of LPs from the classic comedy I Spy.

The show, riding high on a wave of ’60s spy mania thanks to the likes of James Bond, was a deft blend of action and comedy, featuring a groundbreaking pair of actors as secret agents: Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. It was the first major role for a black actor on television, and through all their jet-setting adventures, Cosby’s race was smartly never even acknowledged, let alone played for laughs.

Earle Hagen, known for providing music for other shows produced by the show’s executive producer, Sheldon Leonard (including the iconic, whistled theme to The Andy Griffith Show) recorded an ambitious body of music used during the show’s three-season run. When the show got its own soundtrack releases, though (an album apiece on Warner Bros. and Capitol), Hagen re-recorded his music with many of the same players used for the show itself.

In 2002, FSM released the first soundtrack CD of I Spy, but utilized the original recordings from the show, as only one LP was up for licensing. Now, in a bold, cross-licensing set, both LPs have been included on one CD, which will not be pressed in limited quantities. Film music historian Jon Burlingame contributes new liner notes alongside reproductions of the original notes (written by Cosby himself for the second album).

Go to FSM’s site to order your copy and hit the jump for the full track list.

Earle Hagen, et al., I Spy, Vol. 2 – The LPs 1966-1968 (Film Score Monthly Vol. 14, No. 3, 2011)

1. I Spy
2. Tatia
3. Hi Yo Scotty
4. Angel
5. Away We Go to Tokyo
6. Rickshaw Ride
7. Away We Go to Mexico
8. Ah So! *
9. The International Set
10. Another Kind of Blues
11. Fiesta del Sol
12. The Wonderfulness of You *
13. Made in Hong Kong
14. I Spy
15. Over the Wall
16. Montezuma’s Revenge
17. Islands in the Sea
18. The Golden Age
19. The Voice in the Wind **
20. To Florence with Love *
21. Sophia
22. Rots of Ruck
23. There’s No Escape
24. Domingo
25. The International Set

Tracks 1-13 released as Warner Bros. LP WS-1637, 1966. Tracks 14-25 released as Capitol LP ST-2839, 1967.
* denotes music composed by Hugo Friedhofer. ** denotes music composed by Earle Hagen and Gene Lees.

It’s Official: Queen Will Rock Fans with U.S. Reissues

To finally clear up all the confusion, Hollywood Records issued a press release confirming that the upcoming reissues of the band’s first five LPs – the ones we’ve covered at great length here – will be getting Stateside releases this spring.

As with the U.K. versions coming from Island/UMe in March, these sets will be two discs each, pairing the original LPs with a bonus disc of rarities. (The track listings are identical worldwide.) The Deep Cuts compilation is not set for a U.S. release, but the press release does mention the forthcoming Record Store Day single, and confirms that on April 19, the Greatest Hits II compilation will see its first standalone release in the U.S. (recall that Hollywood, who’d at the time of the disc’s release in 1991 had only just secured catalogue distribution rights for the band, opted for an entirely different set of compilations.)

Hit the jump for the full release, and raise a glass knowing that you’ve just been saved a bit of cash by not having to import these sets!