PLEASE VISIT THE ALL-NEW SECOND DISC!

If you’re reading this, you’re in the right place, wrong time – as Dr. John might have put it!

This morning, January 14, we launched The (new) Second Disc, loaded with a new design, new features and new announcements, including the launch of Second Disc Records!

Please bookmark http://theseconddisc.com and head over there to visit our remastered site – and please let us know what you think! We’re all ears.

Enjoy the music!

Stage Door Revisits Anthony Newley’s “Good Old Bad Old Days” With Previously Unreleased Demo Recordings

Stage Door Records is taking another dip into the archives of the late, beloved entertainer Anthony Newley with its first release of 2015: an entire disc of Newley’s previously unreleased recordings of his own score to the 1973 musical The Good Old Bad Old Days!  The January 26 release, produced in conjunction with the Anthony Newley Society, features  never-before-issued 20 recordings, almost all of which were made during the development of the musical co-written by Newley and his longtime collaborator Leslie Bricusse.

The partnership of Newley and Bricusse dated back to 1961 and the premiere of Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, co-written by the pair, directed by and starring Newley.  Yielding the instant standard “What Kind of Fool Am I?,” Stop the World completed Newley’s transformation into an international star of stage, screen and records.  Newley and Bricusse followed Stop the World with The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd, another allegorical musical with an infectious score, this time introducing “Who Can I Turn To?” and “Feeling Good” to the standard repertoire.  Newley and Bricusse also found time to co-write “Goldfinger” with John Barry and work individually, although when Bricusse alone wrote the score to 20th Century Fox’s Doctor Dolittle, Newley was on hand as an actor in the film!  Following their Academy Award-nominated work on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Newley and Bricusse returned to the stage with The Good Old Bad Old Days.

Bricusse described it as “a modest little saga about Man, Life, Death, God and The Devil, with the history of the world thrown in.”  It tells of Bubba (Newley), who tries to persuade God not to destroy the world, and makes the case for humanity by presenting a pageant of mankind through the ages (including scenes of The Mayflower, The French Revolution, The American Civil War, etc.).  When New York producer James Nederlander declined to continue his participation with the musical, it looked like it might never get off the ground, but reigning West End impresario Bernard Delfont stepped in and booked The Good Old Bad Old Days for a tour to culminate with a London opening in December 1972.  Though it only ran for 309 performances at Delfont’s Prince of Wales Theatre, it left behind a memorable and enjoyable score highlighted by “The People Tree,” also recorded by Sammy Davis Jr. on the heels of his success with “The Candy Man” from Willy Wonka!  Davis – always the most prolific interpreter of Newley and Bricusse’s work – covered a number of songs from the score, including “I Do Not Love You,” “Tomorrow” and “It’s a Musical World. “  Tony Bennett, Petula Clark and Frankie Vaughan all took their turns performing songs from the score, as well.

After the jump: more details on this exciting new release!

Seeing Is Believing: Deluxe Edition of Mike + The Mechanics’ “Living Years” Coming Soon to U.S.

Way back in the fall of 2013, our very own Mike Duquette reported on the release of Mike + the Mechanics’ The Singles 1985-2014, a two-disc compendium for the band founded by Genesis’ Mike Rutherford.  He teased, “This set has been pushed back to January 20, 2014…to better coincide with some more Mike + The Mechanics events in the coming year, including a U.K. tour in the winter of 2014, a forthcoming memoir from Rutherford and a planned reissue of Living Years for its 25th anniversary.”  Well, that year-old anniversary reissue of Living Years is finally receiving a U.S. pressing to coincide with a new tour.

Featuring guitarist/bassist Rutherford, vocalists Paul Carrack and Paul Young, keyboardist Adrian Lee and drummer Peter Van Hooke, Living Years marked an impressive sophomore release for the band. It was, of course, bolstered by the strength of the U.S. No. 1/U.K. No. 2 title track written by Rutherford and B.A. Robertson. No less than Burt Bacharach hailed the track as featuring “one of the finest lyrics of the last ten years,” and the song picked up the prestigious Ivor Novello Award in the United Kingdom. Paul Carrack sang lead vocals on the song, one of his six leads on the album. Bandmate Paul Young (not to be confused with the solo singer of “Everytime You Go Away”) handled the other four tracks’ leads. The album’s two other singles, “Nobody’s Perfect” and “Seeing is Believing,” reached No. 63 and No. 62, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100.

The original Mechanics line-up remained intact for one more album, 1991’s Word of Mouth. By 1995’s Beggar on a Beach of Gold, Lee had departed the band, though he played on the album as a session musician. That album would also be Van Hooke’s farewell. 1999’s self-titled Mike + the Mechanics, also known as M6, was the last of the group’s records to feature Paul Young, who died the following year. Carrack and Rutherford soldiered on for 2004’s Rewired, but Rutherford alone put together a new line-up of Mechanics for 2011’s The Road.  Click the jump to keep reading!

The Cryan’ Shames’ “Sugar and Spice” Goes Mono In Now Sounds’ Expanded Reissue

When the venerable Goddard Lieberson, President of Columbia Records, announced the ascendancy of Clive Davis to a veep position at the label in 1965, the promotion of the younger man heralded for a new sound at Columbia. Lieberson had made Columbia the leader in the fields of classical and Broadway cast recordings, and was looking to position the label at the vanguard of rock, too. A number of new signings followed. Among those acts signed to the industry leader was The Cryan’ Shames, favorites on the Chicago live scene. The Shames – Tom “Toad” Doody on lead vocals, Jim “J.C. Hooke” Pilster on percussion, Dennis Conroy on drums, Jerry “Stonehenge” Stone on rhythm guitar, Jim Fairs on lead guitar and Dave “Grape” Purple on bass – released their Columbia debut, Sugar and Spice, in October 1966. It’s recently been reissued by Now Sounds in an edition which premieres the album’s original mono mix on CD. Now Sounds’ Sugar and Spice (CRNOW51) follows the label’s 2014 mono reissue of the Shames’ sophomore effort, A Scratch in the Sky.

Whereas A Scratch in the Sky was in large part inspired by the sunshine pop sounds emanating from California, Sugar and Spice was straight-ahead rock and roll with a decidedly British Invasion-esque bent. The LP was named after its straightforward revival of Tony Hatch’s “Sugar and Spice,” a hit for The Searchers three years earlier. “Sugar,” a local Chicago hit which reached the top 50 of the national Billboard pop chart, was one of seven covers to populate the album. Both it and its B-side, Jim Fairs’ original “Ben Franklin’s Almanac,” were initially released on the small Destination label and picked up by Columbia for inclusion on the band’s first long-player. Another cover from the Destination sessions was the band’s rendition of George Harrison’s “If I Needed Someone.” The Shames had heard the Beatle tune on the U.K. release of Rubber Soul and planned to give it a U.S. debut, but someone in Harrison’s camp got wind of it, and the single was scotched. Columbia rescued it for inclusion on Sugar. (Another Fab track here is The Shames’ rendition of Lennon and McCartney’s “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” first released on the 1970 various-artists compilation Early Chicago released on the Happy Tiger label and included as a bonus track.)

The Fabs, like the Shames, found inspiration in the music of Motown, and so a brisk, muscular run through Martha and the Vandellas’ hit “Heat Wave” also was included on Sugar and Spice. The rave-up “Hey Joe” shows the band’s garage-rock roots. Dame Vera Lynn’s 1939 anthem “We’ll Meet Again,” on first blush appears to be an odd choice from the Great British Songbook, but it had gained popularity among the younger set thanks to its inclusion in director Stanley Kubrick’s bitingly satirical 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The Shames recorded it with a spot-on Byrds-style arrangement; of course, Roger McGuinn and co. recorded it on their own Columbia debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man. (The Turtles were another notable pop act to record the standard.) The Shames never hid their affection for their Columbia label mates, hence the equally strong cover of Gene Clark’s “She Don’t Care About Time,” the B-side to The Byrds’ hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

There’s more after the jump!

Return To The “Freedom Highway”: Staple Singers Classic Is Reissued and Expanded

For almost 50 years, between 1948 and 1994, The Staple Singers stood at the crossroads of gospel and soul, preaching messages of peace and positivity through music. In April 1965, The Staples – “Pops,” Mavis, Yvonne and Pervis – were joined by drummer Al Duncan and bassist Phil Upchurch at Chicago’s New Nazareth Church to record the album that became Freedom Highway. The LP, originally released on Epic Records, recognized that year’s historic civil rights marches from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama. Now, some fifty years later, Legacy Recordings has remixed, remastered and expanded this landmark recording as Freedom Highway Complete – Recorded Live at Chicago’s New Nazareth Church. On Tuesday, March 3, the reissue will be available as a single CD, a 2-LP set or a digital download.

The recording of Freedom Highway followed a tumultuous, important month in American civil rights history. Three landmark marches were held in March 1965 along the 54 miles connecting Selma, Alabama with the state capital of Montgomery. The March 7 march became known as “Bloody Sunday” when 600 marchers were violently confronted by state and local police forces. The March 9 event, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., likewise reached a standoff between police and protesters. The climactic March 21 protest found the marchers protected by a staggering 2,000 U.S. Army troops, 1,900 Alabama National Guard members, and other law enforcement personnel. In the years since, the marchers’ route has been proclaimed the “Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail” and deemed a U.S. National Historic Trail. The acclaimed, new motion picture Selma, which opens nationwide tomorrow, January 9, dramatizes these dramatic events which led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Preacher, guitarist and singer Roebuck “Pops” Staples, along with his children Pervis, Cleotha, Yvonne and Mavis, was inspired by Dr. King and the actions of the protesters. On April 9, 1965, his group took the opportunity afforded by its status on the Epic Records roster to record a service inspired by the actions of the marchers. The set preserved on Freedom Highway features familiar civil rights anthems (“We Shall Overcome”), traditional gospel melodies (“When the Saint Go Marching In”) and religious pleas (“Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” “Help Me, Jesus”) along with the Staples’ newly-written “Freedom Highway.” Pops plays his six-string guitar throughout the service – the same sound that made the passionate preacher an unlikely soul music star. The original album was produced by country music superstar producer Billy Sherrill, who signed the Staples to Epic.

After the jump: we have more details including the full track listing and pre-order links!

Johnny Mathis’ “Magic” Conjured By Funky Town Grooves On New Reissues

Funky Town Grooves is kicking off January with some magic…some Mathis magic, to be precise.  The label is tapping three albums from legendary vocalist Johnny Mathis for CD release, one of which will be making its debut in the format. On January 27, FTG will reissue 1978’s You Light Up My Life and 1979’s new-to-CD Mathis Magic on one two-for-one disc, while 1979’s The Best Days of My Life will receive standalone release as an expanded edition.

You Light Up My Life was the prolific artist’s first album of 1978 following a busy 1977 in which he released both Mathis Is, his second, exhilarating collaboration with Philly soul architect Thom Bell, and Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, a collection produced by Jack Gold and arranged by Gene Page.  You Light Up My Life again teamed Mathis with Gold and Page.  It propelled Mathis back into the Top 10 of the Billboard Top LPs and Tapes chart (now the Billboard 200) for the first time since 1966, driven by his No. 1 smash duet with Deniece Williams, “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late.”  In addition to that chart-topper, the album also features a duet with Williams on the Bee Gees-penned “Emotion” and a wide range of silky solo tracks including the Bee Gees hit “How Deep is Your Love,” Charlie Smalls’ Wiz showstopper “If You Believe,” Rodgers and Hart’s standard “Where or When,” and the Oscar- and Grammy-winning title song written by Joe Brooks.   That’s What Friends are For, an entire album of duets with Williams, followed next for Mathis, scoring a Top 20 Pop berth later in 1978.

After the jump: details on The Best Days of My Life and Mathis Magic, plus track listings and pre-order links for both CDs!

Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely: SoulMusic Reissues, Expands Ronnie Dyson’s Debut

SoulMusic Records has certainly shown a lot of love for Ronnie Dyson (1950-1990) this year. Following its U.S. release in conjunction with Real Gone Music of the late soul man’s two final albums for Cotillion Records, the label is turning back the clock to Dyson’s very first recordings for Columbia Records. Lady In Red: The Columbia Sides Plus, from SoulMusic and the U.K.’s Cherry Red Group, is in actuality an expanded edition of Dyson’s 1970 debut album (If You Let Me Make Love to You Then) Why Can’t I Touch You? This 23-track anthology collects that LP’s eleven tracks on CD for the first time, and adds twelve bonuses (many never before on CD) drawn from a selection of Dyson’s single releases issued between 1969 and 1974.

Dyson’s name first became familiar as a member of the Broadway cast of Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s groundbreaking Broadway musical Hair. Appropriately, SoulMusic kicks off Lady in Red with the single version of “Aquarius” from the RCA cast recording of Hair. The 18-year old Washington, DC native introduced “Aquarius” in the musical, the song which would later go to the top of the charts for The 5th Dimension in a medley with another highlight of the score, “Let the Sunshine In.” Dyson’s distinctive tenor complemented the gospel fervor in his beyond-his-years voice, a quality which surely brought him to the attention of Columbia Records, then under the auspices of Clive Davis. Columbia signed Dyson, assigning him to producer Billy Jackson (The Tymes). His first single with the label – “God Bless the Children” b/w “Are We Ready for Love” – arrived in 1969; both sides are included here. Jackson also helmed the full Why Can’t I Touch You LP, named for a song from Dyson’s second theatre triumph, Salvation. Though the rock musical by Peter Link and C.C. Courtney only lasted 239 performances off-Broadway, it was another stepping stone for Dyson. Though the cast recording was on rival Capitol Records, Dyson recorded his showstopping “(If You Let Me Make Love to You Then) Why Can’t I Touch You?” as a single on Columbia. It scored him a Top 10 hit on both the Pop and R&B charts.

In addition to the Salvation tune – later recorded by artists as diverse as Johnny Mathis and Billy Paul – Dyson’s debut LP contained familiar covers rendered in pop-soul style overseen by Jackson and arranger-conductor Jimmy “Wiz” Wisner. Dyson brought his smooth but passionate sound to songs associated with B.J. Thomas (Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s “I Just Can’t Help Believin’”), Freda Payne (a rare male spin on “Band of Gold”), Laura Nyro (“Emmie”), Peggy Lee (“Fever”), Bread (David Gates’ “Make It with You”) and Simon and Garfunkel (the newly-minted Columbia hit “Bridge Over Troubled Water”). Another album track, Chuck Jackson’s “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” was selected as the follow-up to “Why Can’t I Touch You?” and also went Top 10 R&B. For the B-side of “Touch You,” Columbia picked an arrangement by a man who would figure prominently in Dyson’s later career: the on-the-rise Thom Bell. Billed as “Tommy Bell,” he arranged another male version of a song written for a female: the dramatic “Girl Don’t Come,” written by Chris Andrews for British pop starlet Sandie Shaw. Bell likely recognized the potential of Dyson as a male answer to Dionne Warwick, with a similar cool yet versatile quality to his voice. Bell’s work can also be heard on the frenetically funky version of “Fever.” Dyson’s debut LP may have been too stylistically eclectic – from MOR to spirited R&B with a dash of musical theatre panache – to attract a major audience. His next long-player would be somewhat more consistent.

But first, Columbia brought in producer Stan Vincent (The Five Stairsteps) to record a number of tracks. Five Vincent productions circa 1971-1972 are heard on Lady in Red: Dyson’s R&B hit version of Barry Mann’s oft-recorded “When You Get Right Down to It” and its B-side, Vincent’s own “Sleeping Sun;” Tony Davillo’s hard-driving “Abelene” (B-side of “A Wednesday in Your Garden,” not included here but available on the One Man Band album), and both sides of “Jesus Is Just Alright” b/w Dyson original “Love is Slipping Away.”

We have more after the jump, including the full track listing and order links!

Closing Time: Morello Reissues Lacy J. Dalton’s Final Two Columbia Albums

Continuing its reissue series drawn from her catalogue, Cherry Red’s Morello Records has recently released a twofer collecting Lacy J. Dalton’s Highway Diner and Blue Eyed Blues.  Dalton’s tenure at Columbia spanned eight albums and two greatest hits compilation between 1980 and 1987.  Morello has previously collected Dalton’s middle period at the label with twofer of Takin’ It Easy and 16th Avenue (Morello Records CD MRLL33).  This release closes out her time at the label with her final two albums under the Columbia banner.

Lacy J. Dalton was born as Jill Byrem in 1948 in Pennsylvania.   Following her musical muse, she eventually ended up in San Francisco in the latter part of the 1960s performing psychedelic rock with a band known as Office.  She married the band’s manager, becoming Jill Croston, but he sadly died in an accident.  Deciding to reinvent herself as a country singer, Croston adopted the name Lacy J. Dalton.  Her demo was heard by Billy Sherrill, the influential country producer who had worked with George Jones and Tammy Wynette.  He liked what he heard and Dalton was signed to Columbia Records in 1979.

Dalton’s first single was “Crazy Blue Eyes” which hit No. 17 on the U.S. Country charts.  The song was included on her eponymous debut which also featured two additional Top 20 Country hits:  “The Tennessee Waltz” and “Losing Kind of Love.”  Adding to her strong start at Columbia, she was also named “Best New Female Vocalist” at the 1979 Country Music Association Awards.  Dalton hit the country Top 10 for the first time with the No. 7 placing title track off of Hard Times from 1980 and achieved her highest charting Country single at No. 2 with 1982’s “Takin’ It Easy” off the album of the same name.

By the time of 1986’s Highway Diner, Dalton had decided to go back to her roots and add more rock and R&B to her music, similar to Bonnie Raitt.  The album was produced by Walt Aldridge (writer of Ronnie Milsap’s “(There’s) No Getting Over Me” and Earl Thomas Conley’s “Holding Her and Loving You”) and recoded at the venerable Fame Recording Studio in Alabama.   “Working Class Man” and “This Ol’ Town” were released as singles and peaked at No. 16 and No. 33 on the Country charts.  The album itself got to No. 32 on the Country LP charts.

Dalton’s last album for Columbia was 1987’s Blue Eyed Blues.  Following a pattern for many end-of- contract affairs, the album mixed new tracks with previously released material.  The new material consisted of the two songs “Have I Got a Heart For You” and “I’ll Love Them Whatever They Are.”  Four tracks were included from her previous albums (“Blue Eyed Blues,” Hillbilly Girl With the Blues,” “16th Avenue” and “My Old Yellow Car”). Duets with Bobby Bare, George Jones, David Allan Coe and Earl Scruggs rounded out the LP.  These songs had originally appeared on albums and singles by the duet partners.

Continue Lacy’s story after the jump!  Plus: the track listing with discography and order links!

Let’s Pretend: Edsel Unveils Deluxe Multi-Disc Reissues For Pretenders’ Catalogue

Edsel isn’t just playing pretend.  On February 16, 2015, the Demon Music Group label will reissue all eight albums from The Pretenders as originally released by the Warner Bros. family of labels between 1979 and 1999 as deluxe editions.  (Or: that’s to say 8/10, or 4/5, of the entire Pretenders discography!  Only two albums have arrived since 1999, in 2002 and 2008.)  Every one of the eight titles is housed in a digipak, with six of the titles as 2-CD/1-DVD sets and two as 1-CD/1-DVD sets.

These “everything but the kitchen sink” reissues will bring together B-sides, live tracks, soundtrack one-off recordings (for films including The Living Daylights, Fever Pitch, G.I. Jane, Indecent Proposal and Boys on the Side), demos, promotional videos and BBC-TV appearances (most of which have never been commercially released) for the English-American band founded in 1978 by Chrissie Hynde, James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers.  The DVDs feature 30 rare BBC performances, 21 promo videos and the complete 18-track Isle of View concert. The material first issued on Rhino’s expanded reissues of the group’s first four albums has been included, as have rare tracks from the Pirate Radio box set.  The Pretenders made their first splash in February 1979 with their debut single, a cover of Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” produced by Nick Lowe. By the time their Chris Thomas-helmed debut LP arrived in January 1980, the band’s third single “Brass in Pocket” was on its way to No. 1 in the United Kingdom.  The album would reach that plateau as well.  (It reached the Top 15 of the U.S. Pop chart, and the album made the Top 10.)

After the jump, we have more details including the complete track listings for all eight multi-disc sets and pre-order links!

Happy Holidays From The Second Disc

It’s that time of the year again.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…not even The Second Disc.  This Christmas Eve, we hope you’ll be heading home for the holidays, spending time with family and friends, enjoying a bounty of food and love, and reflecting on the good times you shared in 2014.

This was a very special year for us, especially when it came to the holiday season.  I had the great pleasure of revisiting favorite Christmas recordings of the past for Real Gone Music, as I compiled and annotated Robert Goulet’s Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings and wrote the liner notes for the label’s reissue of (Andy Williams and) The Williams Brothers Christmas Album.  Mike made magic under the Christmas tree as co-producer of one of this year’s most coveted gifts, Legacy Recordings’ ultra-cool Ghostbusters: Stay Puft Edition super deluxe vinyl set. We couldn’t have brought these projects to life without you, our readers.  We’re grateful to all of you for your support, day in and day out.

We’ll be back on a regular posting schedule in the first full week of the New Year with even more news, reviews and special features just for you!  And with The Second Disc’s fifth birthday coming up in January, we’re on the cusp of sharing with you our biggest and most exciting news yet.  Trust us – we have some major plans ahead to make 2015 our best year yet.

In the meantime, Mike and I would like to wish you and yours a merry and music-filled holiday and a very Happy New Year!  Cheers!