The Year In Reissues: The 2014 Gold Bonus Disc Awards

Welcome to The Second Disc’s Fifth Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards!

As with every year’s awards, our goals are simple: to recognize as many of the year’s most essential reissues and catalogue titles as possible, and to celebrate as many of those labels, producers and artists who make these releases happen in an increasingly-challenging retail landscape.  The labels you’ll read about below have, by and large, bucked the trends to prove that there’s still a demand for physical catalogue music that you can purchase in brick-and-mortar stores.  And from our vantage point, there’s still great strength and health in our corner of the music industry.  By my estimate, The Second Disc covered roughly 500 compact disc releases in 2014 – and we have no reason to believe that number will decrease in the year ahead.  We dedicate The Gold Bonus Disc Awards to the creators of the music and releases we cover, to the dedicated retailers who continue to support catalogue titles, and most importantly, to you, our readers.  After all, your interest is ultimately what keeps great music of the past – this site’s raison d’etre – alive and well.

Which releases take home the gold this year? Hit the jump below to find out!

Release Round-Up: Week of October 27

 

Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (Atlantic/Swan Song)

Jimmy Page has assembled an entire alternate version of Led Zeppelin IV as the bonus content for this new reissue, including the “Sunset Sound” mix of “Stairway to Heaven” and an alternate U.K. mix of “When the Levee Breaks.”

1-CD Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

2-CD Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Super Deluxe Box Set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1-LP Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

2-LP Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Digital Download: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy (Atlantic/Swan Song)

The new Houses of the Holy boasts seven bonus cuts including rough and working mixes of such tracks as “No Quarter” and “The Song Remains the Same.”

1-CD Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

2-CD Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Super Deluxe Box Set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1-LP Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

2-LP Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Digital Download: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Chuck Berry, Rock and Roll Music: Any Old Way You Choose It (Bear Family) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Bear Family’s massive 16-CD survey of the complete career of the rock and roll pioneer includes every single and LP track recorded in the studio by Chuck Berry plus special bonus material!

Judy Garland, The Garland Variations: Songs She Recorded More Than Once (JSP)  (Amazon U.S. TBD /Amazon U.K.)

This exciting set rounds up, on five CDs and 115 tracks, songs the immortal Judy Garland recorded in the studio on multiple occasions between 1937 and 1962!

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The Complete Epic Recordings Collection (Epic/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. )

Epic and Legacy have a true “Texas flood” with twelve discs from guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble!  Look for Joe’s review tomorrow!

The Who, Hits 50! (Geffen/UMe)

The Who celebrate 50 years of heavy rocking with this new collection, available in multiple formats!

Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1-CD Highlights: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Blu-ray Pure Audio: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. TBD

KISS, Love Gun: Expanded Edition (Casablanca/Mercury/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

KISS expands its 1977 classic with an 11-track bonus CD of mostly new-to-CD music!

Paul McCartney, New: Deluxe Edition (Hear Music)  (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Macca expands his 2013 hit album in a DVD-sized hardcover book format including a bonus disc of audio material and a lengthy DVD compendium of live performances and more!

Silver Convention – Madhouse (1976) / Anita Pointer – Love For What It Is (1987) / 5000 Volts – 5000 Volts (1976) / Rinder & Lewis – Seven Deadly Sins (1978) (Big Break/Hot Shot)

Big Break Records has a quartet of releases in stores today!  As always, a full rundown is coming up from Joe!

Silver Convention: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Anita Pointer: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
5000 Volts: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Rinder & Lewis: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Leonard Bernstein, Edition: Concertos and Orchestral Works  (Masterworks) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Masterworks has an 80-CD (!) box set drawn from the label’s vast catalogue of CBS/Columbia recordings by the legendary maestro, Leonard Bernstein.  The label promises “every concerto, symphonic poem, overture, ballet, dance, march etc. that Bernstein recorded in New York between 1950 and 1976 (plus some in London, Paris and Israel) by nearly every composer in the standard repertoire” in this follow-up to 2010’s The Symphony Edition.

Yusuf, Tell ‘Em I’m Gone (Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The artist formerly known as Cat Stevens returns with his latest studio album.  On this soulful and bluesy collection, the recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee blends originals with eclectic favorites including “You Are My Sunshine” and “Dying to Live.”

Barry Manilow, My Dream Duets (Verve) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

When Verve Records asked the newly-signed veteran entertainer to record a duets album, Manilow responded with a hearty “Yes!” – but only if he could record with his dearly departed favorite artists.  And so we have this collection on which Manilow has composed new duet arrangements for classic vocalists including Whitney Houston (“I Believe in You and Me”), Cass Elliot (“Dream a Little Dream of Me”), Andy Williams (“Moon River”) and Sammy Davis, Jr. (“The Candy Man”) plus some off-the-beaten-path choices like Jimmy Durante (“The Song’s Gotta Come from the Heart”) and Marilyn Monroe (“I Wanna Be Loved by You”)!

Dionne Warwick, Feels So Good (Caroline) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The pop legend returns with her latest studio album.  Produced by her son Damon Elliott, it’s heavy on “modernized,” new duet covers of Bacharach/David classics (“A House is Not a Home” with Ne-Yo, “You’ll Never Get to Heaven” with Ruben Studdard, “This Girl’s in Love with You” with Phil Driscoll) plus a couple of recycled tracks (“Message to Michael” with Cyndi Lauper and “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” with Gladys Knight) and some new songs including the title track featuring Cee-Lo Green.

Jerry Lee Lewis, Rock and Roll Time (Vanguard) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!  The veteran rock-and-roller is still pounding his piano on this new 11-track album featuring such friends as Keith Richards, Robbie Robertson, Ron Wood, Neil Young, Shelby Lynne, Nils Lofgren, and Daniel Lanois.

It’s Gotta Be Rock and Roll Music: Bear Family Unveils Ultimate 16-CD Chuck Berry Box Set

This fall, Bear Family Records is releasing the ultimate tribute to perhaps the ultimate rock and roll artist. On October 17, the label will unveil Chuck Berry’s Rock and Roll Music – Any Old Way You Choose It – The Complete Studio Recordings Plus! –and its title isn’t the only mammoth thing about it. The 16-CD box set is even lavish by Bear Family’s gold standard, containing within its 28 x 28 x 6 cm clothbound box every single and LP track recorded in the studio by Chuck Berry, starting with a rare pre-Chess single with Joe Alexander from 1954 and continuing with:

• All of Berry’s Chess singles and album cuts from 1955 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1974;
• All of his Mercury recordings from 1966-1969, and lone Atco album from 1979;
• Every surviving alternate take;
• Bonus live recordings from 1956 to 1972 including BBC performances;
• Two hardcover books totaling 356 pages and including an exclusive introduction by Sir Paul McCartney!

All of Berry’s classics, needless to say, are here – some in multiple versions – on this set containing over 21 hours of music and 20 full studio albums. When assessing the single-disc anthology The Great Twenty-Eight back in 2011, I wrote, “’Maybellene,’ ‘Roll Over Beethoven,’ ‘Rock and Roll Music,’ ‘Sweet Little Sixteen,’ ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘No Particular Place to Go.’ If you ever have to explain rock and roll to an alien, you might as well hand the little green man a copy of The Great Twenty-Eight and go to town. The otherworldly creature would get it right away!” Indeed, Berry played an almost incalculable role in developing rock-and-roll, from its sound to its lyrical content to its style. Ironically, his sole No. 1 hit was “My Ding-a-Ling” – a double entendre-laden Dave Bartholomew novelty that’s hardly worthy of his legend.

This massive box goes even further than Hip-o Select’s acclaimed three-volume series which presented Berry’s complete Chess recordings by continuing the Kennedy Center Honoree and first class Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s story with his Mercury and Atco recordings. 1979’s Rock It, for Atco, remains Berry’s last studio album to date, but the 87-years young rocker still performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar in St. Louis, Missouri.

Bear Family’s Rock and Roll Music tells the Chuck Berry story in words and music. The label explains, “Expatriate British photographer Bill Greensmith lives in St. Louis and a few years back he found the photo archive of Chuck Berry’s uncle, Harry Davis. Included are many previously unseen images of Chuck performing in St. Louis and hanging out with friends and family. In these images, Chuck is unguarded and relaxed. We also see him performing at blues nightspots in and around St. Louis before he was famous. These photos, included with this set in a high quality 104-page hardbound book, will open your eyes to Chuck Berry as you’ve never seen him.” The Bear team adds, “Plus, there’s a second 252-page hardbound book with a definitive essay from Chuck’s biographer, Bruce Pegg, additional texts by Mike Snow and Roger Fairhurst, a comprehensive discography by Fred Rothwell, [and] hundreds of published and unpublished photos, including several images made by respected French photographer Jean-Marie Perrier in 1964.”

We have more details, including the full track listing, after the jump!

“Pin Ups” In Reverse: Ace Explores The Roots of Ziggy Stardust With “Bowie Heard Them Here First”

David Bowie did the unthinkable in this media-obsessed age when, on the date of his sixty-sixth birthday (January 8, 2013), he managed to catch the world off-guard to announce his first new album in a decade.  Bowie and his cohorts had kept The Next Day a secret, proving that the iconoclastic artist could still do things his way.  In six decades, from the 1960s through the present, David Bowie has kept his fans guessing what might come next.  And while Bowie’s sound is one of the most distinctive in popular music, it was shaped from a myriad of influences.  Many of those artists are represented on Ace Records’ recent release Bowie Heard Them Here First.  Following similar volumes for Ramones, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, The New York Dolls, and Dusty Springfield, this compilation features the original versions of songs recorded by Bowie over the years.

Bowie’s status as a songwriter par excellence has rarely been in doubt, so it’s no surprise that he’s felt comfortable enough to pay tribute to his colleagues over the years.  The songs on Bowie Heard Them Here First are presented in the sequence which Bowie recorded them.  The earliest pair of songs on the compilation, however, date from the period before Bowie had blossomed as a songwriter.  The opening cut, Paul Revere and the Raiders’ honking garage rocker “Louie, Go Home,” appeared on the B-side of Bowie’s very first record with his R&B group Davie Jones and The King Bees.  It’s followed by Bobby Bland’s torrid original recording of “I Pity the Fool,” which he had recorded with his second band, The Manish Boys – named, like The Rolling Stones, after a Muddy Waters song.

From there, Bowie Heard Them Here First surprises by addressing just how many of Bowie’s albums have featured cover songs in integral roles.  Though his first three albums – the 1967 self-titled Deram debut, 1969’s David Bowie a.k.a. Space Oddity and 1970’s The Man Who Sold the World – all eschewed others’ songs, Bowie surprisingly opened the second side of his 1971 LP Hunky Dory with a song by Biff Rose and Paul Williams.  The latter had already achieved major fame with smash hits like “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays” (both via The Carpenters) when Bowie interpreted “Fill Your Heart” which co-writer Rose had recorded in 1968.  Rose’s recording is included here, but Tiny Tim also recorded the sweetly twee ballad in 1968 for his debut album and the B-side of “Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips.”

Bowie’s glam breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars had one choice cover version, too, closing its first side with singer-songwriter Ron Davies’ ‘It Ain’t Easy” (also covered by Three Dog Night, Shelby Lynne and Dave Edmunds.)  Davies’ A&M single from 1969 is featured here.  The cover tradition continued on the Ziggy follow-up Aladdin Sane with The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” which likely was unavailable for licensing to Ace.  Hence, Bowie Heard Them Here First continues with a brace of five tracks representing Bowie’s first and only all-covers album, 1973’s Pin Ups.  Bowie intended the album to celebrate the period of 1964-1967 in London when pop, rock and roll and R&B all merged into a whole thanks to groups like The Kinks (“Where Have All the Good Times Gone”), The Mojos (“Everything’s Alright”), The Pretty Things (“Rosalyn”), The Easybeats (“Friday on My Mind”) and The Merseys (“Sorrow”).  The B-side of Bowie’s single release of the catchy “Sorrow” was from the same period but in a very different style: Jacques Brel’s 1964 chanson “Port of Amsterdam.”  Brel’s French original is included by Ace.  Brel’s louche story-songs also inspired another prime influence on Bowie, the romantic balladeer-turned-avant garde hero Scott Walker.  It took Bowie until 1993 to get around to recording one of Walker’s songs; the dark disco-styled “Nite Flights” from The Walker Brothers’ final album in 1978 is reprised on this collection.

Don’t miss a thing – hit the jump for more including the complete track listing with discography!

Personality Crisis: “Lipstick, Powder and Paint” Reveals New York Dolls’ Inspirations

“While I was layin’ in a hospital bed/A rock ‘n’ roll nurse went to my head/She says, ‘Hold out your arm, stick out yo’ tongue/I got some pills, boy, I’m ‘a give you one!”  It was no surprise that The New York Dolls – crown princes of debauchery, seventies-style – would include a cover of Bo Diddley’s oddly jaunty 1961 single “Pills” on their 1973 debut album.  While The Dolls – lead vocalist David Johansen, rhythm guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, lead guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan (who replaced the late Billy Murcia) – might have emerged as a response to the studied musicianship of so-called progressive rock and the bright, sanitized sounds of bubblegum pop, their primal, savage and uninhibited style was descended from any number of influences.  Motown, Blues, doo wop, soul, rockabilly, and especially Brill Building-era girl groups all figured into the Dolls’ heady, deliciously trashy rock-and-roll punk brew.  On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of that seismic debut New York Dolls, Ace has anthologized the music that inspired the flamboyant band with Lipstick, Powder and Paint!  The New York Dolls Heard Them Here First.

The 24-track anthology compiled by Ian Johnston and Mick Patrick brings together the original versions of songs covered by the Dolls and the solo Johansen and Thunders.  These range from expected choices such as “Pills” or The Jayhawks’ “Stranded in the Jungle,” to tracks that might surprise a casual fan like Erma Franklin’s “Piece of My Heart” or Gary U.S. Bonds’ “Seven Day Weekend.”  The latter, recorded by The Dolls on a 1973 demo released in 1992, has the raucous, hedonistic spirit that The Dolls so admired.  Bonds’ throaty vocal brings grit to the infectious Doc Pomus/Mort Shuman tune with its doo-wop backing vocals and honking saxophone solo.  It’s far from the only track here from that early rock-and-roll era.  The Coasters, those supreme R&B jokesters, are heard with 1963’s “Bad Detective,” recorded in primitive style by Johansen and co. on 1974’s Too Much Too Soon.  It has the bop-shoo-bops, boogedy-boogedy-shoos and rama-lama-ding-dongs lampooned in the musical Grease, and it’s at least a spiritual cousin in comedy to another song also covered for that same album, The Jayhawks’ goofy, spoken/sung “Stranded in the Jungle” (1956).

The blues is a less obvious inspiration on debut New York Dolls and Too Much Too Soon, the second and final album by the original iteration of the group.  But in addition to Bo Diddley’s “Pills,” the group also demoed Otis Redding’s Stax burner “Don’t Mess with Cupid” and Muddy Waters’ immortal “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man.”  Similarly, one might not think to draw a line between The New York Dolls and the smooth Philadelphia soul from the team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, but Ace does just that by selecting Archie Bell and the Drells’ “(There’s Gonna Be a) Showdown” and Wilson Pickett’s Memphis-by-way-of-Philly “International Playboy.”  The Dolls brought a slow, menacing feel to the former on Too Much Too Soon, while David Johansen’s lounge-singin’, novelty-slingin’ alter ego Buster Poindexter recorded the rough-hewn (by Philly standards, at least!) “Playboy” for 1989’s Buster Goes Berzerk.

There’s much more after the jump, including the complete track listing with discographical annotation, and order links!

Rip It Up! “The London American Label: 1956” Spotlights Rock and Roll from Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, More

Did any label impact the taste of record-buyers in the United Kingdom in the early rock-and-roll era than that of London?  Ace Records has been chronicling the activities of the London American label on a series of definitive releases culling the best of the label’s 45s from one given year.  Previous volumes have covered every year between 1957 and 1963, and for the most recent addition to the series, Ace has turned the clock back to 1956.  In that year, London’s output included American singles first issued on Dot, Atlantic, Liberty, Imperial, Cadence, Sun, ABC-Paramount, Chess and Specialty, meaning that one label alone introduced the U.K. to classics from Little Richard, The Drifters, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and Andy Williams.  All of those artists and many more are represented on The London American Label: Year by Year 1956.

Compilers Peter Gibbon and Tony Rounce have taken pains throughout this ongoing series to showcase every facet of the London American label.  For those readers not yet up-to-date on its story, The London label first appeared in America in 1934 representing British Decca’s operations in America. Back in Britain, the London logo made its debut in 1949 releasing material from its American counterpart, but also from early U.S. independent labels. It was in 1954 that a new prefix (HL) and numbering system (8001) was introduced, and it’s this series that is the focus of the Ace compilations. Some American hit records appeared on EMI’s Columbia, Parlophone and HMV labels, but the cream of the crop was usually on London.

In 1956, London American issued 139 singles, which the fine liner notes inform us was 33 more than in 1955 but far short of the 242 in 1958.  Of those 139 releases, 23 made the U.K. Top 40 and 10 made the Top 10, not a bad percentage at all!  Rock and roll and R&B were starting to take hold in 1956, and this volume opens with Little Richard’s searing admonishment to “Rip It Up.”  Then there’s Chuck Berry’s atypically haunting “Down Bound Train,” Carl Perkins’ Beatle-influencing “Honey Don’t,” and Bobby Charles’ original version of his rockin’ New Orleans sing-along, “See You Later, Alligator,” more famously recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets.  The “white R&B” of Pat Boone, later to prove controversial, was still going strong in 1956.  The compilers here have chosen a comparative rarity: Boone’s recording of the Five Keys’ “Gee, Whittakers.”  Boone actually scored London its very first chart-topper of the rock-and-roll age with his 45 of The Flamingos’ “I’ll Be Home,” also the best-selling record in the U.K. in all of 1956.  Both The Drifters and original lead singer Clyde McPhatter received their first U.K. releases in 1956 on London; the group is included here via “Soldier of Fortune” and McPhatter with “Seven Days,” both originally on Atlantic in the United States.  Blues great “Big” Joe Turner appears here with another Atlantic platter, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “The Chicken and the Hawk,” a song also covered by artists as unlikely as Steve Lawrence!

There’s plenty more after the jump, including a full track-listing and order link!

Aces High! “The London American Label: 1957,” “Mod Jazz Forever” and “Smash Boom Bang: Feldman-Goldstein-Gotteher” Available Now

Smash!  Boom!  Bang! 

The ace compilation experts at, well, Ace Records are offering up plenty of Smash, Boom and Bang (both in impact and in label name!) for your buck with their diverse slate of February releases.  You’ll find top-drawer pop, rock and soul for connoisseurs and beginners alike among the label’s latest.  Perhaps the most unexpected is the new entry in the label’s long-running Songwriters and Producers series.  Smash Boom Bang!  The Songs and Productions of Feldman-Goldstein-Gotteher (Ace CDCHD 1317) turns the spotlight on those three named gentlemen who supplied hits for The Strangeloves, The McCoys and The Angels, not to mention the young Ronnie James Dio.

Although the surnames of Bob, Jerry and Richard didn’t have the easy ring of “Mann and Weil” or “Goffin and King,” they travelled the same New York streets.  Encouraged early on by Snuff Garrett and Wes Farrell, the F-G-G team hustled songs to a wide variety of artists across genre lines.  If you don’t know the names of Messrs. Feldman, Goldstein and Gotteher, you’ll undoubtedly know “My Boyfriend’s Back,” “Hang On, Sloopy” and “I Want Candy,” and you just might be surprised to find that all three songs were the work (either in songwriting, production or both) of the same team.  Smash Boom Bang takes its name from three prominent labels, the last of which was founded by Bert Berns.  As Berns’ tragically short-lived career has already been anthologized by Ace, this collection makes the perfect companion to those earlier two volumes.

Producers Rob Finnis and Mick Patrick have curated the set to include the most famous recordings by the team, but there are expectedly delicious rarities blended in, as well, including Dion DiMucci’s demo of “Swingin’ Street,” a F-G-G song with a barroom sing-along feel.  Even “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Hang On, Sloopy” appear in their original, unedited versions, adding value for the collector.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are plenty of choice “sixties girls” sounds.  Patty Lace and the Petticoats’ “Girl, Don’t Trust That Boy” is a quintessential, if largely unknown, girl group record from 1964, but it’s no surprise that the team had mastered the girl group genre, having written “My Boyfriend’s Back” the previous year.  The story behind that masterwork is still one shrouded in mystery, but Finnis goes a long way in explaining the brouhaha in his copious notes.    When The Angels fell out with F-G-G, they attempted to replicate the group’s sound on a variety of records such as The Pin-Ups’ delightful “Lookin’ for Boys,” though their mileage varied.  One standout track is Debra Swisher’s 1965 take on The Beach Boys’ “You’re So Good to Me,” with Swisher’s recording tougher than the original.  Her piercing lead vocals lend the song an entirely new dimension.  The track was arranged by one “Bassett Hand,” proving that the F-G-G team couldn’t resist a good pun!  F-G-G tried to combine the best of both worlds with The Powderpuffs’ rather humorous “You Can’t Take My Boyfriend’s Woody” (“It don’t look like much, but when he pops that clutch/You’ll think you’re in reverse!”) slyly aping the early Beach Boys style.

We continue with this hitmaking trio, plus lots more – including track listings and order links for Smash Boom Bang, Mod Jazz Forever and The London American Label 1957 – after the jump!

The Second Disc Buyers Guide: The 100 Greatest Reissues of All Time, Part 16 (#25-21)

We’re nearing the Top 20 of our 100 Greatest Reissues list, taking Rolling Stone‘s list of the greatest albums of all time and investigating their many pressings and expansions as the catalogue industry has grown. Today, journey to the past with a quintet of California rock heroes, one of rock-and-roll’s early pioneers and the once-and-always Mr. Dynamite!  Plus: a Beatle and a star of the Motown stable make intensely personal statements on their own!

25. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (Warner Bros., 1977)

If any one record could be said to encapsulate an entire era, it might be Fleetwood Mac’s towering 1977 Rumours.  This is the album that turned a solid blues-rock band into the biggest pop giant of the decade, immortalizing the group’s internal strife and romantic intrigues in one made-for-radio package.  Rumours established Lindsey Buckingham as a writing and production force, although Rumours was very much a group effort for Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, as well.  Its four singles (Nicks’ “Dreams,” Christine McVie’s “Don’t Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun,” Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way”) are as immortal today as the album itself, which sold over 40 million copies.  Taking in sex, drugs, and rock and roll with the idyllic California sun as the backdrop, Rumours remains one of the most successful LPs of all time.

Rumours was, of course, issued early in the CD age, arriving in 1984 (Warner Bros. 3010-2).  The label’s 2001 DVD-Audio issue “(9 48083-9) featured the album in advanced resolution surround sound as well as stereo, and added one track to the original 11-song line-up.  “Silver Springs,” a B-side of “Go Your Own Way,” replaced “Songbird” as the album’s sixth track, and “Songbird” was relegated to the 12^th slot.  In 2004, Warner Bros. and Rhino reissued Rumours as a remastered 2-CD set (R2 73882).  Disc 1 was dedicated to the album, with “Silver Springs” again added, this time in the slot between the reinstated “Songbird” (Track 6) and “The Chain” (Track 8).  Disc 2 premiered 11 roughs and outtakes, five demos and two jam sessions, making the most comprehensive edition yet of the album.  After a 2008 SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) edition from Warner Japan (WPCR-13249), that country’s label issued Rumours as an SHM-SACD in 2011 (WPCR-14171), making the long out-of-print surround mix available once again.

24. James Brown, Live at the Apollo (King, 1963)

Nobody could accuse James Brown of not having faith in himself.  When Brown approached King Records’ Syd Nathan about recording his upcoming October 1962 stand at the Apollo, Nathan balked.  Brown went ahead anyway, funding the record out of his own pocket.  Mr. Dynamite intuitively knew that his live performances transcended anything he was capable of turning out in the studio, thanks to the unbreakable, palpable rapport between performers and audience.  The vocal interplay is part and parcel of the magic of Live at the Apollo, as exciting a document of musical pandemonium as you’ll ever hear.  And Brown’s faith paid off; his performance with the Famous Flames was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2004.

Live at the Apollo didn’t arrive on CD until 1990 (Polydor 843-479-2), and three years later it arrived as a Mobile Fidelity gold disc (UDCD 583, 1993).  In 2004, Universal revisited the album as B0001715-02, expanding it with four additional single alternates (“Think,” a shortened medley of “I Found Someone/Why Do You Do Me/I Want You So Bad,” “Lost Someone” and “I’ll Go Crazy”) and a deluxe 20-page booklet with new essays and photos.  For Brown and the Flames at their frenetic, electrifying best, this is the place to start.

Hit the jump for three shots of raw rock and soul!

Springsteen, U2, Queen, Joel, McCartney, Taylor Featured On “Rock Hall of Fame” Live Box Set

Since its formation on April 20, 1983, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has inducted a slate of accomplished musicians into its ranks on a yearly basis, causing excitement, consternation and everything in between.  Though the worthiness of nominees and inductees is hotly debated with each “class” and a number of distinguished artists continue to be ignored year after year, one thing can be agreed upon: a lot of great music has been played for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  It continues to host performances at its Cleveland home, which opened its doors in 1995.  Each year, inducted musicians take the stage in Cleveland and at a New York induction ceremony, often with old colleagues or young musicians whom they have influenced.  Hence, Eddie Vedder joined the remaining Doors for “Break On Through,” Bruce Springsteen teamed with Mick Jagger on “Satisfaction,” Dhani Harrison accompanied two Wilburys, Steve Winwood and Prince for his late father George’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and the Allman Brothers partnered with Sheryl Crow for “Midnight Rider.”

In past years, only one major album came from The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s vast archives, a 1996 release collecting performances from the 1995 concert that inaugurated the actual museum.  In 2009 and 2010, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame teamed with Time-Life for a series of DVDs (available as a box set and individually) bringing together highlights from those often-controversial induction ceremonies, as well as CD and DVD releases of 2010’s 25^th Anniversary concerts, held at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The Time-Life association will continue this fall with the release of Best of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum Live, a 3-disc box set bringing many of these blazing performances to CD for the very first time.  Longtime Hall supporter Bruce Springsteen appears no fewer than six times on the box, joined by performers like Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett, Mick Jagger and U2.  It’s a guitar-lover’s dream when a team of axemen including Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Joe Perry, Flea and Metallica take on “The Train Kept A-Rollin’,” and when Cream reunites on “Sunshine of Your Love” for the first time in over two decades.  Other highlights include James Taylor’s solo performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” the Dave Clark Five’s “Glad All Over” as interpreted by the supergroup of Billy Joel, Joan Jett, John Fogerty and John Mellencamp, and Green Day paying homage to the Ramones with “Blitzkrieg Bop.”  The Righteous Brothers and The Ronettes celebrate the heyday of Philles Records, and the definitive line-up of rock legends also includes Paul McCartney (“Let It Be”) and The Who (“Won’t Get Fooled Again”).

Hit the jump for more, including the full track listing!

Release Round-Up: Week of March 1

James Brown, The Singles Vol. 10 1975-1979 (Polydor/Hip-o Select)

The Godfather of Soul’s penultimate complete singles compilation from Select. One more to follow! (Hip-o Select)

Carole King and James Taylor, Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter (Hear Music)

A new documentary on the California singer/songwriter scene of the 1970s, coupled with a bonus disc of some of the best songs from that period. (Amazon)

Various Artists, Icon (UMe)

Budget compilations from artists across the Universal spectrum, from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly to War and The Four Tops. (Original post with Amazon links)

Metallica, Garage Inc. (Vinyl) (Warner Bros./Rhino)

A three or six-LP audiophile reissue of the band’s covers compilation, featuring newly recorded takes on Metallica’s favorite bands and previously released B-side covers from the ’80s and ’90s. (Official site)