Weekend Wround-Up: The Smiths, The Beatles, Pearl Jam and More!

Happy Friday!  We’ve got some tidbits to tide you over till we return on Monday, with much, much more!

• If you’re eagerly awaiting that complete Smiths box set but are worried about the falling American dollar, worry no more!  Thanks to fine folks at MusicTAP for the heads-up that Rhino will be releasing The Smiths – Complete in the U.S. on October 18!  The American edition will be available in the same configurations as in the U.K.: a gigantic Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box set, a vinyl LP box, and a CD-only set.  In all forms it includes all eight of The Smiths’ long-players:  studio albums The Smiths (1984), Meat is Murder (1985), The Queen is Dead (1986) and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987); non-LP singles compilations Hatful of Hollow (1984), The World Won’t Listen (1987) and the U.S.-only Louder Than Bombs (1987) and the live album “Rank” (1988).  Read our full post here and mark your calendar for October 18, just a few weeks after the U.K. release date!

• The only surprise about Apple and EMI’s Beatles 1 remaster is that it took so long to happen!  But for those interested, September 13 will bring a reissue of 2000’s massively successful Beatles 1 compilation utilizing the 2009 remasters from Abbey Road Studios.

Items on Pearl Jam and Jefferson Starship are waiting for you after the jump!

Johnny Mathis, Alfred Newman and Basil Poledouris Coming Soon From La-La Land

Let’s hope all of you film score fans out there have been saving your pennies!  On Monday, Kritzerland will unveil its latest classic soundtrack release (watch this very space for that news!) and the very next day, La-La Land continues the musical bonanza with two unique offerings.

Jean Neguelsco’s 1958 film A Certain Smile starred Rosanno Brazzi (South Pacific) and Joan Fontaine (Rebecca).  Adding to the luster, the soundtrack to the 20^th Century Fox drama about a middle-aged man’s affair with a young student was composed by the dean of film scoring, Alfred Newman.  La-La Land’s 2-CD restoration of A Certain Smile marks the label’s first major foray into the Golden Age in quite a while, and the folks there are promising future offerings from Dmitri Tiomkin and Franz Waxman, among others, will follow.  A Certain Smile has been issued with the cooperation of both 20^th Century Fox and Sony Music; Disc 1 features the expanded film score derived, and restored, from 35mm film at Fox. Disc 2 is the original LP master, remastered from the original 1/2 tapes stored in New York at Sony Music.  It includes the memorable, Academy Award-nominated title track written by Paul Francis Webster and Sammy Fain, and performed in the film by the one and only Mr. Johnny Mathis. Nick Redman (who provided the notes for Kritzerland’s astounding reissue of Hugo Friedhofer’s score to One-Eyed Jacks) has produced the first disc while Didier C. Deutsch and Mark Wilder produced Disc 2.  Wilder (currently doing an exceptional job remastering the CTI catalogue) also handled the remastering chores for that disc, while Dan Hersch (a name familiar to Rhino aficionados) tackled Disc 1.   Julie Kirgo provides in depth notes on the score and the film itself in a 20-page booklet.  A Certain Smile is a limited edition of 2,500 units.

Hit the jump and you’ll find yourself spellbound…