Release Round-Up: Week of May 22

Chubby Checker, It’s Pony Time/Let’s Twist Again/Durocs, Durocs/Terry Knight and the Pack, Terry Knight and the Pack/Reflections/The Orlons, The Wah Watusi/South Street/Various Artists, Remember Me Baby: Cameo Parkway Vocal Groups Vol. 1 (Real Gone Music)

The latest group from Real Gone Music includes classics from the vaults of Philadelphia’s Cameo-Parkway label plus power-pop from San Francisco’s Durocs!

Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick, A Man and A Woman/Cissy Houston, Presenting Cissy Houston (Expanded Edition)/Dee Dee Warwick, Foolish Fool (Expanded Edition) (SoulMusic Records)

Dionne Warwick and Isaac Hayes’ long-unavailable 1977 live concert LP makes its CD debut alongside two other titles from members of the Warwick family: Dionne’s aunt Cissy Houston’s 1970 solo collection Presenting Cissy Houston, and sister Dee Dee’s 1969 Mercury LP Foolish Fool!  Watch for reviews later this week!

The Knack, Havin’ a Rave-Up!  Live in Los Angeles, 1978 (Zen/Omnivore)

The New Wave quartet is at its most powerful on this live album drawn from pre-fame performances on the Sunset Strip!  Joe’s review is at the link above!

Dean Martin, The Dean Martin Variety Show Uncut (Time Life)

Time Life releases the first-ever DVD set of complete and uncut episodes of The Dean Martin Show!  Dino’s guests include Cyd Charisse, Joey Heatherton, Barbara McNair, Zero Mostel, Leslie Uggams, Abbe Lane, Buck Owens and The Lettermen!

Paul and Linda McCartney, Ram (Hear Music)

It’s finally here!  Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 album has been remastered and reissued in a variety of formats with loads of bonus content!  Our review arrives tomorrow!

Neil Sedaka, The Tra-La Days Are Over/Overnight Success (BGO)

Neil Sedaka’s 1973 and 1975 albums are paired by BGO.  The combined collection features guest stars Elton John and 10cc, and includes such favorites as “Love Will Keep Us Together,” “The Hungry Years” and “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”

Three Degrees, Standing Up for Love (Funky Town Grooves)

Funky Town Grooves reissues and expands The Three Degrees’ post-Philadelphia International album recorded in 1977 for CBS/Epic!

Various Artists, The Philadelphia International 40^th Box Set (Harmless/Demon)

The long-delayed 10-CD box set celebrating Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International label finally arrives in the U.K. courtesy Harmless Records!

Review: The Knack, “Havin’ a Rave-Up! Live in Los Angeles, 1978”

Not every album lives up to its title, but The Knack’s Havin’ a Rave-Up! certainly does!  The group – Doug Fieger on vocals and rhythm guitar, Berton Averre on lead guitar, keyboards and vocals, Prescott Niles on bass, and Bruce Gary on drums – had quite a number of rave-ups on Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Strip in 1978, and made quite a big noise.  The quartet was suddenly being deemed the American answer to The Beatles.  Musicians the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Ray Manzarek were taking turns sitting in with The Knack.  (Manzarek could have been said to be passing the torch, as The Doors made quite a splash at the Whisky a Go-Go themselves!)  The Beatles comparisons continued when the band signed to Capitol Records.  In fact, 1979’s Get the Knack became the fastest-selling debut album since Meet the Beatles.  When “My Sharona” became the biggest-selling single of 1979, the rest of the U.S. caught wind of what denizens of Los Angeles already knew: The Knack had the goods.  Those pre-fame days are vividly captured on Omnivore Recordings’ new Havin’ a Rave-Up!  Live in Los Angeles, 1978 (Zen/Omnivore OVCD-18, 2012).

If you’re looking for pristine sound quality, you might have to look elsewhere.  These performances, culled from the late Doug Fieger’s own archives, aim for “authorized bootleg quality,” according to a booklet note.  Though there aren’t specific recording dates included, all tracks come from The Whisky a Go-Go and Doug Weston’s Troubadour circa 1978 when The Knack was filling the clubs of the Sunset Strip with stardom just around the corner.  Six songs would be introduced to a wide audience when Get the Knack spent five weeks atop the Billboard chart, and are performed here at their highest possible energy levels.  That energy came from punk; the songs, though, were firmly in the pop tradition.  The “New Wave” label has often been hung on The Knack, perhaps to differentiate them from the harder-edged, more outré acts we think of as “post-punk.”  But whatever you call their music, it was insistently catchy, played with a primal urgency and just a hell of a lot of fun.  It was a respite from both punk and disco, and made it clear that there was still a place for pure pop, before that word had a pejorative connotation.

Hit the jump for a trip to the Whisky!

You Can Dance: New ABBA CD/DVD Compilation Due This Fall

While there are more than enough deluxe reissues, compilations and box sets to satiate ABBA novices and experts alike, Universal’s European arm is throwing their hat into the ring once more this fall with the release of The Essential Collection, a two-CD/one-DVD singles and videos compilation.

While there’s no new audio material to be had in The Essential Collection (we can’t be too spoiled after the unreleased track on the deluxe reissue of The Visitors), the set may be the most comprehensive singles collection the band has ever released. Familiar tracks like “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia,” “Waterloo,” “Take a Chance on Me,” and “Super Trouper” take equal footing with lesser-known cuts like “Ring Ring” and “He is Your Brother” from the band’s 1973 debut and international-only single tracks like “Bang-a-Boomerang,” “Eagle” and “Angeleyes.”

The DVD includes 34 of the iconic band’s promo videos, including several of their hits as re-recorded in Spanish. In traditional ABBA fashion, two of those clips – the Spanish versions of “Knowing Me, Knowing You” and “Thank You for the Music” – have been unearthed from the vaults and are making their debut on home video.

Initially due for a release this month, ABBA’s The Essential Collection will be released in Europe on September 3. (Separate packages containing just the CDs or the DVD will be available on the same day.) (Props to Super Deluxe Edition for breaking this story wide!)

Hit the jump to preview the track list!

Mould vs. Mould: Sugar Catalogue to Be Expanded in U.S., Too

First it was The English Beat – now, Bob Mould’s power-pop outfit Sugar, whose discography is getting the expanded treatment starting next week, is seeing a dueling reissue campaign in both England and the United States.

While Copper Blue, Beaster and File Under: Easy Listening are getting expanded CD/DVD issues from Edsel, Merge Records – for whom Mould will release a new album in the fall – will handle expansions of the albums a bit differently. All the DVD content on the U.S. reissues has been dropped, along with the BBC session tracks that featured on Copper Blue. All the other audio content will be retained, however, and over two packages; Copper Blue and the Beaster EP will be released in one three-disc package, and FU:EL in another on two discs.

For audiophiles, vinyl reissues of the original albums, featuring the extra audio content as additional downloads, will also be available. All these titles are due out July 24. Hit the jump to order your copies and check out the modified track lists.

Beam Me Up: La-La Land Boldly Expands “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” Score

You’ve heard all of the clichés before, but La-La Land records truly will go where no man has gone before with the June 5 release of the 3-CD set Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Complete Score.  Though Jerry Goldsmith’s score to the science-fiction classic has been released on CD before, this joint project of La-La Land, Sony Music and Paramount Pictures offers a luxurious view of every aspect of the film’s music.

Released in December, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture reunited the cast of the 1960s Star Trek television show, including William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and DeForest Kelley (McCoy).  The development road for the movie was complicated as it was first envisioned as a film in 1975, then became a second television series entitled Star Trek: Phase II before returning to its originally intended form on the big screen.  The Motion Picture grossed $139 million worldwide and was deemed successful enough to warrant a sequel, 1982’s Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.  Eventually, due to the reinvigoration began with The Motion Picture, the Star Trek franchise produced 11 additional movies, four more television series and numerous books, comics, video games, toys and other collectibles over the last 30+ years.

Hit the jump for more on ST: TMP, including details on what to expect from this deluxe expanded score reissue!  Hint: the scope of this project is so wide that even Bob James and Shaun Cassidy are involved!