Archive for May 2nd, 2012
Short Takes, Bonus Tracks Edition: Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Carole King Offer Exclusives
In recent years, the retailer-exclusive bonus track has become an important if controversial part of music sales. Today’s Short Takes, then, is your public service announcement and guide to the bonus tracks available with three recent and upcoming titles from some of music’s most legendary artists. Chances are you might want to own these previously-unreleased rarities!
Last week saw the release of Carole King’s The Legendary Demos from Rockingale Records and Hear Music. Its thirteen tracks, recorded between 1961 and 1970, offer King at her stripped-down best, pounding the piano and passionately singing newly-minted compositions written for artists such as The Everly Brothers, The Monkees and ultimately, Carole King herself. Two additional demos have surfaced as iTunes exclusive downloads. “Every Breath I Take,” written by King with Gerry Goffin, was a 1961 hit for Gene Pitney as produced by the young Phil Spector, and the demo shows off King’s sure arranging sense as she vocalizes all of the dip dip doo bop bop bops plus the background harmonies! It’s joined by “Oh No, Not My Baby,” a Goffin/King tune introduced by Maxine Brown in 1964 after an abortive attempt by The Shirelles; it was later covered by Manfred Mann, Cher, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart and others. This demo is less revelatory as King already released solo versions of the song in 1980 and 2001, but offers a worthwhile comparison to those two familiar recordings. King is achingly vulnerable on one of her most beautiful songs. These tracks are available individually on iTunes.
Hit the jump to see what Paul Simon and Paul McCartney have in store, bonus track-wise! Read the rest of this entry »
Beggars Archive Tellin’ Charlatans’ “Stories” Once More
Madchester band The Charlatans (known in America with the redundant appellation “The Charlatans UK”) will reissue their 1997 album Tellin’ Stories through Beggars Archive this month, for the album’s 15th anniversary.
The enduring alt-rock band – who made humorous headlines earlier this year when a joking tweet from frontman Jim Burgess turned into a limited-edition cereal in England – suffered major tragedy during the recording of Stories, with the death of keyboardist Rob Collins in a car crash midway through production. The band pressed on, though, and the results were bountiful: Tellin’ Stories was the band’s third U.K. chart-topping album, and spun off the band’s highest charting singles, Top 5 hits “One to Another” and “North Country Boy” and Top 10 hit “How High.”
As the band preps a series of live dates in June to commemorate the album, and with Burgess having named his recent autobiography after the record, Beggars Archive will release limited double-vinyl and double-CD sets (limted to 1,000 and 2,000 copies, respectively), featuring the remastered album with a bonus disc of B-sides, including an unreleased outtake, “Rainbow Chasing.” (It would morph into B-side “Don’t Need a Gun.”)
This set is available May 28, and is yours to preview after the jump.
Another Quarter, Another “ICON” Batch
Made for You and Me: American Legend Woody Guthrie Chronicled in New Box Set
Fewer figures cast a larger shadow in American folk music than Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. The Oklahoman singer/songwriter’s contribution to the fabric of our nation’s sound is innumerable; from Dylan to Springsteen, any songwriter worth their salt in depicting the life, livelihood and dreams of our country owes Woody Guthrie a strong debt.
With this in mind, Smithsonian Folkways will release a new career-spanning Guthrie box set this summer, in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday.
Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection compiles three discs of Guthrie’s greatest compositions – “This Land is Your Land,” “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You,” “Do Re Mi” and more – and includes about a whole disc’s worth of material being released for the first time. These include, tantalizingly, four songs recorded for KFVD-FM in Los Angeles in 1939; these recently discovered tracks are believed to be the earliest surviving recordings Guthrie committed to tape.
The discs are housed in a beautiful hardbound case with 150 pages of liner notes bound inside. The whole thing is yours to buy on July 10, four days before the singer’s centennial. You can preorder the set on its own or as a bundle with a poster, T-shirt and instant download of the box’s contents, right here, where you can also enter your e-mail to receive a free download of unreleased tune “Big City Ways.”
As always, the track list is after the jump!
An Omnivore’s Appetite: Tasty Treats From Jellyfish, The Knack, Buck Owens and Ernie Kovacs Coming Soon
Nobody could accuse the fine folks at Omnivore Recordings of not living up to the label’s name! After all, “omnivore” is derived from the Latin for “all” and “everything.” And Omnivore’s recently announced slate of upcoming releases certainly qualifies as encompassing music from an incredibly wide variety of genres and eras. The label’s packed line-up for May, June and July takes in legends from the world of comedy and country-and-western plus new wave and power pop pioneers!
Two releases were previewed on Record Store Day and are now arriving in complete form. A RSD-exclusive vinyl EP from The Knack sampled two live songs from the archive of late Knack frontman Doug Fieger, and now comes the full release, Havin’ a Rave-Up! Live in Los Angeles, 1978. Recorded at two of Los Angeles’ most renowned music spots, the Whisky a Go-Go and Doug Weston’s Troubadour, Havin’ A Rave-Up! Live In Los Angeles, 1978 captures The Knack on the cusp of stardom. Indeed, shortly after these 1978 sets were recorded, Capitol Records signed The Knack and “My Sharona” (the album’s closing track) took the country by storm.
Bassist Prescott Niles remembered, “Midway through our first show at the Whisky a Go-Go I felt a tingling sense that I was finally in that dream band. And it was called The Knack. We had been together as a band for a mere two weeks and this was our first public performance . . . we blew the roof off the place . . . We all knew on that night in 1978 that we had found our collective dreams, our boyhood fantasies, and a ticket to ‘the toppermost of the poppermost’ (as Doug would often quote).” The date for Havin’ a Rave-Up! is May 22 in both CD and digital formats.
Hee-haw! There’s more Buck Owens on the way. A fantastically whimsical coloring book from the Bakersfield legend and television host was another highlight of Omnivore’s Record Store Day releases, and a flexi disc included with that vintage coloring book featured tracks recorded by Owen and his Buckaroos at the White House of President Lyndon B. Johnson. On June 19, Buck Owens’ Live at the White House will arrive for the first time on CD and digitally, and as a bonus will also include The Apollo 16 Program. The core White House set documented Washington, DC performance of Owens, Buddy Alan, Doyle Holly, Don Rich and The Buckaroos on September 9, 1968 and includes the hit single “You Ain’t Gonna Have Ol’ Buck to Kick Around No More.” Four years later in 1972 (coincidentally the same year Capitol released the Live at the White House album on vinyl), Owens recorded a unique half-hour program intended for the astronauts aboard Apollo 16. Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke recalled that the crew “played those tapes a lot during our flight to and from the Moon.” Omnivore has included this true rarity on Live at the White House, which is set for release on June 19!
After the jump: previously-unreleased treasures from Ernie Kovacs and Jellyfish – when was the last time those two names appeared in the same sentence? Read the rest of this entry »
The Second Disc 