Release Round-Up: Week of July 1

Bob Marley,  Legend: 30th Anniversary Edition (Tuff Gong/Island/UMe)

The best-selling reggae album of all time is back with two unreleased studio rarities and, on Blu-ray, a new 5.1 surround mix.

CD/BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Pink Floyd, The Division Bell: 20th Anniversary Edition (Parlophone)

The 20th anniversary of the last Pink Floyd album means an Immersion-level box set with a new 5.1 surround sound mix on Blu-ray and bonus vinyl pieces.

CD (2011 Discovery Edition): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
CD/BD/Vinyl box set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Bon Jovi, New Jersey: Deluxe Edition (Mercury/UMe)

The New Jersey rockers celebrate the 25th anniversary of their fourth album (and their 30th anniversary as a band) with an expanded edition of the record that gave us “Bad Medicine,” “I’ll Be There for You” and others. Rarities include a bonus disc of demos and a DVD of rare video content.

1CD remaster: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2CD Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2CD/1DVD Super Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, The Classic Albums Box / Frankie Valli, Selected Solo Works / Various Artists, Audio with a G: Sounds of a Jersey Boy – The Music of Bob Gaudio (Rhino)

Following up the release of the soundtrack to the Jersey Boys film last week, Rhino is releasing two box sets of The Four Seasons’ complete albums and most of Valli’s solo efforts (his Motown works are omitted), plus a compilation of the best of Four Seasons member/co-writer Bob Gaudio’s lengthy discography.

The Four Seasons: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Frankie Valli: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Bob Gaudio: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

The Jayhawks, Sound of Lies / Smile / Rainy Day Music: Expanded Editions (American Recordings/UMe)

The alt-country group’s full studio discography from 1997 to 2003 is remastered and expanded on CD with rare and unreleased bonus tracks.

Sound of Lies: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Smile: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Rainy Day Music: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Jethro Tull, A Passion Play: An Extended Performance (Chrysalis/Rhino)

Jethro Tull’s sixth album, released in 1973, get the deluxe treatment with new stereo and surround mixes from Steven Wilson plus unreleased sessions and video content.

2CD/2DVD box set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
LP (Wilson stereo mix of original album): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Spanky & Our Gang, The Complete Mercury Singles / Lulu, The Atco Sessions 1969-1972 / Gal Costa, Gal Costa / Ronnie Dove, The Complete Original Chart Hits 1964-1969 / X, More Fun in the New World: Expanded & Remastered Edition / The New York Community Choir, Make Every Day Count: Expanded Edition / Grateful Dead, Dick’s Picks Vol. 17 — Boston Garden 9/25/91 (Real Gone Music)

The latest Real Gone slate features a little something for everyone, from harmonic ’60s pop (Spanky & Our Gang) to ’70s R&B (The New York Community Choir) to ’80s punk (X) – and some Grateful Dead, for good measure.

Spanky & Our Gang: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Lulu: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Gal Costa: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Ronnie Dove: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
X: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
The New York Community Choir: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
The Grateful Dead: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

The The, Soul Mining: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Legacy)

The The’s breakthrough 1983 album plus seven bonus tracks, pressed on 180-gram vinyl. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery: 40th Anniversary Edition (U.S. Release) (Razor and Tie)

Reissued some time ago in the U.K., ELP’s show that never ends is a three-disc affair featuring the remastered album in stereo, and alternate album assembly plus a DVD of old and new stereo mixes. (Amazon U.S.)

Smile! Three Expanded Reissues Coming From The Jayhawks

Years after their early major label discography was expanded on CD by Legacy Recordings, the remainder of the alt-country band’s output for the American Recordings label will be remastered and expanded by Universal this summer.

The band’s last three albums for American – Sound of Lies (1997), Smile (2000) and Rainy Day Music (2003) – caught the band in an interesting time of transition. Marc Olson, who with Gary Louris formed the band’s primary singer/songwriter/guitarist unit, unexpectedly left the band after the release of 1995’s Tomorrow the Green Grass, leaving Louris, bassist Marc Perlman and keyboardist Karen Grotberg to continue without him. The lineup was greatly expanded on the somewhat darker Sound of Lies, adding guitarist Kraig Johnson, drummer Tim O’Reagan and violinist Jessy Greene. The band, sans Greene, worked with producer Bob Ezrin (KISS, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd) toward a brighter, pop-oriented sound on Smile and, following the exit of Johnson and Grotberg (and subsequent addition of Stephen McCarthy on guitar), returned to their roots on Rainy Day Music, in fact their highest charting album.

The Jayhawks went on hiatus in 2005, after which Louris and Olson reunited as a duo; the band reunited in 2009, releasing the album Mockingbird Time with the Tomorrow the Green Grass-era lineup in 2011. To promote these new reissues, the band’s Sound of Lies-era lineup of Louris, Perlman, Grotberg, O’Reagan and Johnson will tour this summer.

Each CD is remastered and expanded with a handful of bonus tracks, many of them previously unreleased. (Rainy Day Music does not feature the six-track bonus EP More Rain included with certain original copies, though all six of its bonus tracks are being released for the first time. Additionally, American will release all three as deluxe double-vinyl titles on August 5 (this will be Smile‘s first release on the format in the U.S.).

The vinyl titles are not yet available for pre-order, but the CDs, which hit stores July 1, can be found on Amazon after the jump!

Tuesday Tidbits: Incubus Teams with Best Buy on Exclusive “HQ,” Bert Jansch’s “Heartbreak” Is Expanded, and Musicians Fight Epilepsy with “Joey’s Song”

Today is the day for a 2-CD/1-DVD set of previously unissued live performances from the band Incubus. Celebrating their twentieth year together, Incubus is launching a 4-week, 18-city tour co-headlining with Linkin Park. The tour kicks off tonight in Boston, Massachusetts, but the performances on Incubus HQ Live date from one year ago, recorded in West Hollywood, California.  That was when the band set up shop at a storefront on La Brea Avenue for seven special nights of performances.   HQ Live preserves performances from the six nights that were broadcast live online between June 30 and July 6, 2011, all featuring the line-up of Brandon Boyd (lead vocals/guitar), Mike Einziger (lead guitar/keys), Jose Pasillas II (drums), Ben Kenney (bass) and DJ Kilmore (DJ/keys).  The shows led up to the release of the band’s album If Not Now, When?, released on July 12, 2011.

The release is truly a celebration of a career that’s encompassed, in Brandon Boyd’s words, “twenty years, seven albums, multiple live albums, EPs, DVDs, somewhere in the ballpark of 1,500 live shows and an etcetera stint that would go on for a paragraph.”  All have been rendered in a style that’s often hard to describe, blending alternative rock, metal, funk, rap, hip-hop, techno and even jazz (and everything in between).  Four of Incubus’ songs have topped the top spot on the U.S. Alternative Songs chart, and all four are heard in live versions on HQ Live: “Drive,” “Megalomaniac,” “Anna Molly” and “Love Hurts.”  (The latter two songs first appeared on the band’s No. 1 album Light Grenades, from 2006.)

Incubus HQ Live is available in a variety of formats, as we reported back on June 28: a standard edition (16-track CD + DVD), a Special Edition (28-track double-CD + DVD); and a Limited Edition Box Set (4 LPs + 6 CDs + 2 DVD/Blu-ray, plus autographed swag). The Limited Edition box is exclusive to Incubus’ website, and was scheduled to ship on July 6. The other two configurations arrive today at retail. The DVD content is the same for all three versions, but the DVD contains a significantly different song sequence than the CDs. Lead singer Brandon Boyd supplies new, detailed liner notes for all three releases. Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering has mastered the CDs, and the DVD – running at a whopping 130 minutes – is presented in 5.1 surround sound, mixed and mastered by Darren LaGroe at Sonic Frequencies.  The DVD concert was directed by Marc Scarpa.

The standard 1-CD/1-DVD edition can be ordered here, and the 2-CD/DVD edition here.   But that’s not all.  Retail giant Best Buy is also offering five exclusive CD bonus tracks on both versions sold at their stores: “Rebel Girls,” “Hold Me Down,” “Surface to Air,” “Defiance (Live)” and “The Original (Live).”  These tracks appear to be available with both the 1-CD/1-DVD and 2-CD/1-DVD configurations and can be ordered here or reserved in store!

After the jump: some of your favorite artists have teamed with Omnivore Recordings for a very special CD to benefit a terrific cause, and a folk classic is revisited.  Hit the jump, won’t you?

Review: The Jayhawks, “Hollywood Town Hall” and “Tomorrow the Green Grass”

“Please don’t call it ‘alt-country!’,” pleads The Jayhawks’ archivist P.D. Larson in the liner notes to the new Legacy Edition of the band’s fourth album, 1995’s Tomorrow the Green Grass. But whatever you call it, the uniquely American music of the Jayhawks has endured, and is currently being celebrated by American Recordings and Sony/Legacy with two deluxe reissues produced by Larson and John Jackson. The band’s major label debut from 1992, Hollywood Town Hall, has been expanded with a clutch of promotional and foreign-issued singles (American/Legacy 88697 72731-2), while its follow-up Tomorrow receives the full two-CD Legacy Edition treatment (American/Legacy 88697 72732-2).  Five B-sides and unreleased songs bolster Disc One while a full complement of eighteen previously-unreleased demos comprises Disc Two.

Producer George Drakoulias recalled first hearing the vocal blend of Mark Olson (also acoustic guitar and harmonica) and Gary Louris (also electric, acoustic and fuzz guitars) while on hold with a friend at Twin/Tone Records. Twin/Tone had released The Jayhawks’ Blue Earth in 1989, and once Drakoulias got a hold of it, he was determined to sign the band for its next release. A trip to Minneapolis found Drakoulias bonding with Gary Louris over Carol Hunter’s guitar parts on Neil Diamond’s most rock-oriented live album, 1971’s Gold, and then with Mark Olson over the records of Porter Wagoner and The Louvin Brothers. Soon, with the rest of the band brought in – Marc Perlman on bass and Ken Callahan on drums – Hollywood Town Hall was born. While The Jayhawks’ style was redolent of what Gram Parsons called “Cosmic American Music,” one could also hear a dash of Eagles here, a pinch of Roger McGuinn there. But the sound was far from simply derivative, and it was a breath of fresh air in a music business seeking to capitalize on the grunge craze.

Hollywood’s leadoff track “Waiting for the Sun” established The Jayhawks’ melodic sound, a deft blend of guitars with piano (studio stalwarts Benmont Tench and Nicky Hopkins were among those brought in to contribute musically) and prominent harmonies. If not all of the album is overtly “country,” certain tracks such as “Two Angels” and “Clouds” certainly are in that rustic vein. But even the yearning “Take Me with You” is toughened by a strong rock guitar solo. Drakoulias’ clean, timeless production and the songs of Olson and Louris still sound fresh and vibrant today, and the bonus tracks show that The Jayhawks (not the most prolific band, but one that valued quality over quantity) had a wealth of material from which to choose.  “Leave No Gold,” with a blistering guitar and feedback-laden attack, is a standout, but may not have fit with the prevailing mood of the album. The original ten songs on Hollywood Town Hall are largely of a similar character, tempo and sound, leading to a sameness that may be this stellar album’s only drawback. The band rectified that for its next long-player, Tomorrow the Green Grass.

Release Round-Up: Week of January 18

The Jayhawks, Hollywood Town Hall: Expanded Edition / Tomorrow the Green Grass: Legacy Edition (Columbia/Legacy)

After months of waiting, alt-country fans get expanded versions of two Jayhawks LPs, including a deluxe set of Tomorrow the Green Grass with a host of previously unreleased demos. (Official site)

Pearl Jam, Live on Ten Legs (Monkeywrench)

The first volley in the iconic band’s PJ20 campaign honoring their 20th anniversary is a self-released chronicle of their live tours from 2003 to 2010. (Official site)

Legacy Bumps Jayhawks Reissues to Next Year

We may have only fleetingly mentioned these before, but Legacy has prepped expanded reissues of Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass, the first two records that alt-country rockers The Jayhawks recorded for the American Recordings label in the early 1990s. Hollywood Town Hall, released in 1992, will feature five bonus tracks (two of which are unreleased) while Tomorrow the Green Grass (1995) will be presented as a double-disc Legacy Edition with a heap of bonus cuts, 20 of them previously unreleased.

The discs have recently been rescheduled for reissue on January 18, 2011 – possibly one of the first notable catalogue reissues of next year – so mark your calendars accordingly. Also, hit the jump to see the track lists, which we hadn’t posted before either.

Weekend Release Round-Up: SRV, Jayhawks, Sum 41 and More

This was a busy week for catalogue fans, what with the Elvis revelation from the other day and reactions to the new Exile on Main St. sets. Here, to close out the week, are a few announcements that fell through the cracks.

• The long-planned Legacy Edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s 1985 sophomore LP Couldn’t Stand the Weather now has a release date: July 27. The set will feature bonus tracks from the original recording sessions and a previously-unreleased live show on Disc 2. (No word on the tracks themselves, or if there are any repeats from the 1999 remaster. Also, Amazon’s got a June 22 listing for a deluxe reissue of the SRV/Albert King live collaboration In Session, originally released on the Stax label. Looks like it comes with a DVD of the performance.)
• Legacy’s also announced some reissues for alt-country band The Jayhawks, hot off last year’s hits-and-rarities compilation Music from the North Country. Hollywood Town Hall, their 1992 LP (and first on Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label), will see a reissue expanded by five tracks, while 1995’s Tomorrow the Green Grass, one of their most successful records, will be expanded in a Legacy Edition that includes 24 bonus cuts, largely comprised of the fabled “Mystery Demos” the band recorded at the time. Both titles are due August 24.
• Punk-pop band Sum 41 will see their debut LP, All Killer No Filler, get a 10th anniversary reissue from Island Records and UMe on August 3. Amazon has a pre-order link, but that’s the extent of it for now.
• Finally, Hip-o Select has announced a limited reissue of two Verve LPs from soul organist Jimmy Smith. Respect (1967) and Livin’ It Up (1968) are getting their premiere release on CD with a bonus track, non-LP single “Mickey Mouse.” That track list can be found after the jump.