Release Round-Up: Week of July 22

The Beatles, The Japan Box (Apple/UMe)

Stereo remasters, mono remasters, U.S. albums…and now, the first five albums from Japan on CD! What will they think of next? (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Herbie Hancock, The Warner Bros. Years: 1969-1972 (Rhino)

UPDATE: This title has been delayed to August 5.  Three Warner Bros. albums (released before Herbie prolifically joined Columbia), each expanded with rare and unreleased promo single versions. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Jim Croce, Lost Time in a Bottle (Cleopatra)

A compilation of rare and unreleased demos and live performances from the celebrated singer, including two sets from 1964 and 1973. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Gentle Giant, The Power and the Glory (Alucard)

Steven Wilson remixes Gentle Giant’s 1974 album in stereo and 5.1 on a variety of formats!

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
DVD-Audio/CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Blu-ray Audio/CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Roslyn Kind, Give Me You/This is Roslyn Kind (Masterworks Broadway)

Masterworks brings together the 1969 and 1968 RCA albums from Barbra Streisand’s talented half-sister, Roslyn Kind, on one CD-R or DD – including songs by Harry Nilsson, Jimmy Webb, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and more!

Steve Lawrence with Eydie Gorme, Walking Proud: The Teen Pop Sides 1959-1966 (Teensville/Rare Rockin’ Records)

The Australian Teensville label compiles 33 sides from Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, individually and collectively, concentrating on the Brill Building-style pop songs they recorded for the ABC-Paramount, United Artists and Columbia labels! (Amazon U.S.)

Duran Duran, Rio (Expanded Vinyl) (Parlophone)

This 180-gram, 2LP version of the classic New Wave album (possibly available when the album was expanded in 2009) features the original U.K. album master of Rio with a bonus 12″ featuring five remixes by David Kershenbaum for the original U.S. pressing. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Release Round-Up: Week of July 8

Crosby Stills Nash and Young, CSNY 1974 (Rhino)

The legendary supergroup documents the so-called “Doom Tour” for its 40th anniversary in an absolutely stunning package containing 40 songs, over 3 hours of music (on CD or Blu-ray Audio), a nearly 200-page book and a bonus video DVD with eight additional performances.

3 CD/1 DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Blu-ray Audio/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Highlights Disc: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Jackson Browne, Late for the Sky (Inside Recordings/Rhino)

The SoCal troubadour goes bare-bones to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his seminal Late for the Sky. The album has been freshly remastered by Doug Sax, Robert Hadley and Eric Boulanger, but there’s no additional content and the disc is housed in a simple fold-out digipak with full lyrics. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Neil Diamond, All-Time Greatest Hits (Capitol/UMe)

Diamond’s move to Capitol, taking all of his masters with him under one roof, necessitates a new single-disc compilation with most of the hits you desire, plus the rarer solo version of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Loleatta Holloway, Dreamin’ – The Loleatta Holloway Anthology (1976-1982) / Skyy, Skyyhigh – The Skyy Anthology (1979-1992) / Yarbrough & Peoples, The Two Of Us (Expanded) / Jesse Green, Nice & Slow (Expanded) (Big Break Records)

Big Break Records kicks off July with a quartet of amazing R&B titles including lavish and definitive anthologies from Salsoul queen Loleatta Holloway – featuring Dan Hartman and Loleatta’s smash “Relight My Fire” for the first time ever on a Loleatta album – and the band Skyy, with hits from Capitol, Atlantic and Salsoul! As always, Joe will have a full rundown on these titles soon!

Loleatta: Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.
Skyy: Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.
Yarbrough & Peoples: Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.
Jesse Green: Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.

Climax, The Best of Climax featuring Sonny Geraci: Precious and Few (Fuel 2000)

The one-hit wonders behind 1972’s romantic “Precious and Few” get the anthology treatment with 25 original tracks (including some rarities) and a new essay by Bill Dahl. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Steve Lawrence, Steve Lawrence Conquers Broadway (Sepia)

The U.K.-based Sepia label has a slew of classic showtunes as sung by the incomparable Steve Lawrence on this new compilation drawing on his pre-1962 recordings! (Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.)

And One More For The Road: Frank Sinatra’s “Duets” Goes Super Deluxe In November

The way he wore his hat…the way he sipped his tea (or likely, something stronger)…the memory of all that…no, they can’t take that away from us.  Frank Sinatra’s influence is still felt every day – in style, in attitude, especially in song.  Though 2013 has been a quiet year for the Chairman’s catalogue, that’s about to change on November 19 when Capitol and UMe celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Sinatra’s triple-platinum Duets album with a variety of commemorative reissues including a 2-CD/1-DVD Super Deluxe Edition, 2-CD Deluxe Edition and 2-LP vinyl set.  All iterations will include Duets II, the 1994 Grammy-winning follow-up, and both CD editions will include bonus duets with Tom Scott, Tanya Tucker, Willie Nelson, Luciano Pavarotti and George Strait.

Duets, originally released on November 2, 1993, marked Sinatra’s return to Capitol Records after a more than thirty-year absence.  His first studio album for the label since 1962’s Point of No Return, Duets teamed the celebrated icon with producer Phil Ramone, co-producer Hank Cattaneo, and a host of performers from various musical styles.  Some of Sinatra’s choices for duet partners were naturals, such as his friends Tony Bennett (his self-professed “favorite singer”) and Liza Minnelli, or Barbra Streisand.  Others came from the worlds of R&B (Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin), and rock (Bono).  Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat, had a deep connection to the standards created by the likes of Sinatra and her dad, while Carly Simon had ventured into the Great American Songbook on her 1981 collection Torch.  Gloria Estefan, Julio Iglesias and Charles Aznavour all added international flavor to the album.

Phil Ramone was able to deftly blend Sinatra’s classic style of recording with modern technological advances allowing for virtual duets.  He chose to record Sinatra in Capitol’s Studio A, the same room Sinatra had inaugurated in 1956.  Sinatra would sing an array of his most famous songs in front of a live orchestra, as always, with musical director Patrick Williams conducting his own charts as well as those by Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, Billy Byers and Quincy Jones.  Ramone told The Independent just before the album’s release, “We had separated him from the band in the beginning – not extremely, but with enough separators and bits of plexiglass and stuff and he was very uncomfortable.  He said, ‘I wanna be with the guys.’ The only thing to do was to put him out in the middle of the room…We put [his longtime accompanist] Bill Miller in front of him, so he could tease him, bust him. Bill’s been with him 40 years…Ordinarily, I would use two mikes on him – one above, one below. But he wasn’t comfortable, so I got him a stool and a hand-mike. It’s a way in which I’ve recorded Jagger and Bono. It’s not going to win any audio awards. But he’s the most comfortable with that. He did nine songs one night, straight. Three of the tracks that made it to the album are Take Ones.”  As he recalled in his book Making Records, Ramone utilized the Entertainment Digital Network system, developed in part by George Lucas’ Skywalker Sound, to record the duet partners via long-distance: Aznavour in Paris, Minnelli in Brazil, Bono in Ireland, Estefan and Iglesias in Miami, and Franklin and Baker in Detroit.

Duets was an unqualified commercial success, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard album chart in the U.S. and No. 5 in the U.K., and selling over three million copies in the United States.  The following year, Capitol released Duets II, once again in time for the holidays.  This time, Ramone and Sinatra corralled an arguably even more diverse gallery of duet partners.  Sinatra’s pals Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme showed up, as did old friend Antonio Carlos Jobim and the legendary Lena Horne.  Willie Nelson, who successfully transformed standards into his own laconic style on Stardust, joined Sinatra, as did Linda Ronstadt, who shared with Sinatra a close collaboration with Nelson Riddle.  Neil Diamond, Jimmy Buffett, Chrissie Hynde, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder all brought their instantly recognizable styles to Duets II.  Frank Sinatra, Jr. even joined his pop on a swinging “My Kind of Town.”  Duets II also made the Billboard Top 10, though it fared less well abroad with a No. 29 peak in the United Kingdom.  It went on to sell over one million copies and netted Sinatra the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.

What will you find on Capitol’s various anniversary editions of Duets?  Hit the jump!