Real Gone Is “In Tune” With September Slate Featuring Grateful Dead, Ides of March, Willie Hutch, More

September 1 marks Labor Day, but Real Gone Music isn’t taking much time off! The very next day, the label launches a new crop of eight titles emphasizing soul, funk and R&B but also encompassing country, classic rock and a touch of prog!

At Motown, Willie Hutch gifted The Jackson 5 with his song “I’ll Be There,” saw his songs recorded by the label’s elite including Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, and penned funky soundtracks including The Mack. In 1977, he departed Berry Gordy’s empire for Whitfield Records, headed (of course) by Motown expatriate Norman Whitfield. Hutch’s two Whitfield albums In Tune and Midnight Dancer are arriving on U.S. CD for the first time anywhere. Hutch is joined by R&B great Esther Phillips on the Real Gone roster, as the label has a reissue of Phillips’ 1973 CTI/Kudu platter Alone Again Naturally. The former Little Esther tears into not only Gilbert O’Sullivan’s title track but gives her all to the likes of Bill Withers’ “Use Me” and Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham’s “Do Right Man, Do Right Woman,” popularized by Aretha Franklin. Real Gone’s edition is based upon the out-of-print edition by Reel Music including its two live bonus tracks and A. Scott Galloway’s essay. Alone Again has resulted from the partnership of Real Gone and SoulMusic Records; the labels’ affiliation is also yielding two rare albums by the soulful Ullanda McCullough for the Atlantic label on one CD, including a set written and produced for the singer by Ashford and Simpson!

Not in an R&B mood? Real Gone has country fans covered with the first-ever compendium of the chart hits of Ray Griff, the country singer-songwriter known to his fans as The Entertainer! Griff’s The Entertainer – Greatest U.S. and Canadian Hits collects 24 tracks from seven (yes, seven) record labels spanning the period of 1967-1986!

If classic rock is your bag, you might want to hop a ride on an expanded edition of Vehicle from the other Chicago horn band, The Ides of March! This reissue adds four bonus singles and new liner notes by Richie Unterberger (including new quotes from Ides of March/Survivor man Jim Peterik) to the original 1970 album and celebrates the band’s 50th anniversary. You might say “Yes!” to Rick Wakeman’s Criminal Record, recorded shortly after the keyboard great rejoined Yes for the Going for the One album in 1977. Last but not least, Real Gone returns to Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks series for a key 1969 show on the band’s home turf at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium!

Hit the jump for Real Gone’s press release with more details on all eight titles, plus pre-order links! All releases are due from the label on September 2.

Release Round-Up: Week of April 29

Grace Jones, Nightclubbing: Deluxe Edition (Island/UMe)

Pull back up to the bumper with a generously expanded version of the almighty Jones’ most beloved album.

2CD: Amazon U.K.
1CD: Amazon U.S.
2LP:  Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.
Blu-Ray Audio: Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.

Diana Ross & The Supremes, Sing and Perform Funny Girl: Expanded Edition (Motown Select)

A digital-only expansion of The Supremes’ 1968 album of the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill musical, featuring the original LP alongside a brand-new remix and a pair of live cuts. (Amazon U.S.)

Funny Girl: Original Broadway Cast Recording – 50th Anniversary Edition (Capitol/UMe)

Speaking of which, the original cast album – featuring the one and only Barbra Streisand – is also reissued today as a CD/LP set with a deluxe book! (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Riding Your Way — The Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Music, 1946-1947 / Vanilla Fudge, The Complete ATCO Singles / Rick Wakeman, White Rock / X, Under the Big Black Sun: Expanded & Remastered Edition / Cannonball Adderley, The Black Messiah

The latest Real Gone slate is quite the eclectic one! Read all about it here.

Bob Wills: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Vanilla Fudge: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Rick Wakeman: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
X: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. (TBD)
Cannonball Adderley: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Rush, Rush: ReDISCovered Box Set (Mercury/UMe)

A deluxe recreation of the Canadian legends’ first album on vinyl. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Cassandra Wilson, Blue Light ‘Til Dawn: 20th Anniversary Edition (Blue Note/UMe)

The neo-blues vocalist’s breakthrough album, featuring stirring interpretations of tracks by Robert Johnson, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and others, is reissued with three unreleased live tracks. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Taylor Dayne, Can’t Fight Fate / Soul Dancing: Deluxe Editions (Cherry Pop)

The ’80s dance diva’s second and third albums are expanded as two-disc sets with plenty of rare and unreleased remixes and B-sides, plus an all-new remastering for each original album.

Can’t Fight Fate: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Soul Dancing: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

The Cryan Shames, A Scratch in the Sky: Deluxe Expanded Mono Edition (Now Sounds)

Now Sounds presents the Chicago band’s 1967 sunshine pop-flavored album for the first time on CD in mono, adding a plethora of bonus tracks! Joe’s full review is coming soon! (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Silver Convention, Save Me / The Salsoul Orchestra, Up the Yellow Brick Road / How High (Big Break Records)

Joe’s full writes-ups on three more Salsoul/BBR reissues are coming soon!

Save Me: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Up the Yellow Brick Road: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
How High: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Real Gone Unearths 5th Dimension, Vanilla Fudge and More for Late April

Real Gone Music isn’t letting up, with six heavy-hitting reissues announced for an April 29 release, including compilations for Vanilla Fudge and The 5th Dimension, long-lost recordings by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and more!

We’ve already told you about RGM’s plans to release 10 tracks from the band’s famed radio-only “Tiffany Transcriptions” – four of which won’t be available on any other release – as a Record Store Day exclusive. A two-disc, 50-track set of those recordings from 1946-1947 will be available in the label’s latest release batch. So, too, will a single-disc set of Vanilla Fudge’s complete single sides for Atco Records, Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman’s soundtrack for the 1976 Olympics documentary White Rock, an expansion of punk titans X’s 1982 album Under the Big Black Sun and jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s long-out-of-print live double album Black Messiah from 1970.

If we can allow our biases to show for just a second, our most anticipated release of this batch is handily The 5th Dimension’s Earthbound: The Complete ABC Recordings. The psychedelic group was best known for their works on Soul City and Bell, of course, but this final album of the original band’s from 1975 is ripe for rediscovery. And what better way to help rediscover this period than with new liner notes from The Second Disc’s own Joe Marchese? These liners, a perfect sequel to Joe’s work for Real Gone’s reissued soundtracks to Together? and Toomorrow and Keith Allison’s forthcoming In Action: The Complete Columbia Sides Plus, include brand-new interviews he conducted with Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. – and I’ll say it again: in this writer’s humble opinion, there are fewer writers who’d approach this project with as much professionalism and unencumbered enthusiasm.  This title is now scheduled for June 3, 2014 release.

So make sure you keep your eyes peeled for these new sets, all of which – save Earthbound – are due on April 29. Hit the jump for the full press release and Amazon links!

Release Round-Up: Week of February 12

Merle Haggard, The Complete ’60s Capitol Singles / Wanda Jackson, The Best of the Classic Capitol Singles / George Jones, The Complete United Artists Solo Singles (Omnivore)

Joe’s review of all three of these new country/rock singles anthologies from Omnivore speaks for each of them pretty well!

Merle: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Wanda: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
George: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Borderline, Sweet Dreams and Quiet Desires/The Second Album / Sam Dees, The Show Must Go On / Kenny O’Dell, Beautiful People / Pozo Seco, Shades of Time / Sam Samudio, Hard and Heavy / Billy Joe Shaver, The Complete Columbia Recordings /Rick Wakeman, No Earthly Connection (Real Gone Music)

The latest from Real Gone (some of which is on tap in the preceding link), including a solo LP from Sam The Sham, all of Billy Joe Shaver’s Columbia work and a solo disc from Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman.

R.E.M., Original Album Series / Yes, Original Album Series (Rhino U.K.)

Two new entries in Rhino’s “Original Album Series” sets, budget boxes packaging five albums by the same artist together, with a minimum of frills. R.E.M.’s set includes their final five albums, all recorded as a trio after drummer Bill Berry retired (Up (1998), Reveal (2001), Around the Sun (2004), Accelerate (2008) and Collapse Into Now (2011)), while Yes’ box includes their final works for Atlantic/Atco (Going for the One (1977), Tormato (1978), Drama (1980), 90125 (1983) and Big Generator (1987)).

R.E.M. Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Yes: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Joni Mitchell, The Studio Albums 1968-1979 (Rhino)

Already available in the U.K., this domestic new release features the iconic singer-songwriter’s first ten albums in one box. Nothing new in the way of packaging or remastering, just a quick way to snag ’em all at once. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

INXS, Shabooh Shoobah/The Swing (Friday Music)

From Friday Music comes the Australian band’s third and fourth albums on one compact disc. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Aretha Franklin, In the Beginning: The World of Aretha Franklin 1960-1967 (Wounded Bird)

A 1972 compilation of Aretha’s oft-overlooked early days on Columbia gets reissued by Wounded Bird. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Pat Boone, I’ll See You in My Dreams/This and That / Jane Morgan, What Now My Love/At the Cocoanut Grove / Tony Mottola, Roman Guitar 2/Spanish Guitar / Original Soundtrack Recordings, The Road to Hong Kong/Say One for Me (Sepia)

Some special two-for-one albums, many with bonus tracks, making their CD debuts from this British reissue label.

Don’t Just Stand There: Real Gone Readies January Slate with Patty Duke, Rick Wakeman, Billy Joe Shaver, and More

2012 isn’t yet over, but it’s not too soon to look forward to all of the amazing releases already slated for 2013!  Real Gone Music is doing its part with a whopping nine-title slate due January 29 from a plethora of pop, rock, country and soul artists.

One of the sixties’ most unexpected hits might have been Patty Duke’s “Don’t Just Stand There,” a 1965 Top 10 hit that sounded more than a little like Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me.”  By the time the actress recorded her first album for United Artists Records, she had already conquered both television and film, with an Academy Award under her belt for her work in 1962’s The Miracle Worker.  Duke recorded four albums for the UA label between 1965 and 1968, and all four are getting the Real Gone treatment.  Don’t Just Stand There and Patty came out in 1965 and 1966, respectively, and are being joined on one CD.  In addition to the first album’s No. 8 title track, this album duo included songs by Bacharach and David and Tony Hatch, and the hits “Say Something Funny” and “Whenever She Holds You.”  Another hit, the single “Funny Little Butterflies,” has been included as a bonus track. 1967’s Sings Songs from Valley of the Dolls tied into Duke’s role as Neely O’Hara in the controversial film adaptation of the Jacqueline Susann novel, and features Duke’s renditions of the Andre Previn/Dory Previn theme song and “I’ll Plant My Own Tree.”  Duke finished her UA tenure with 1968’s Sings Folk Songs, but the LP was never released.  Real Gone rectifies this, pairing it with Valley of the Dolls.  These two releases mark the first legitimate release of these four albums on CD, and are taken from the original master tapes.  Ms. Duke herself has contributed quotes to the liner notes.

Also from the sixties, Real Gone excavates two more gems.  The Pozo Seco Singers’ third album for Columbia Records, 1968’s Shades of Time, was the first album from the group following the departure of Lofton Klein, leaving just Don Williams and Susan Taylor to soldier on with the Pozo Seco blend of pop, country and rock.    For Shades of Time, Williams and Taylor dropped “Singers” from their moniker and teamed with producers Elliot Mazer and Bob Johnston.  The album, however, wasn’t a commercial success, and Pozo Seco disbanded in 1970, setting Don Williams on his way to solo country stardom.  Real Gone has added eleven single sides (nine in mono, two in stereo) to this reissue.  Vic Anesini has remastered the entire album, while Tom Pickles has contributed liner notes with new quotes from Susan Taylor, a.k.a. Taylor Pie.

One year before Shades of Time, country songwriter Kenny O’Dell recorded Beautiful People for the Vegas label.  Though O’Dell would later gain fame writing for artists including Charlie Rich and The Judds, Beautiful People was less country and more pop-psych, even yielding a Top 40 hit with the title track.  Real Gone’s reissue adds seven bonus tracks from O’Dell’s brief tenure with the Vegas and White Whale labels, and also includes O’Dell’s only other Top 40 hit, “Springfield Plane.”  Ed Osborne has written the new liner notes and Steve Massie has remastered.

After the jump: a prog-rock legend, a soul man, an outlaw and a Sham!