Monthly Archives: February 2023

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The most comprehensive and definitive new collection of every A and B side single Dionne cut for the Scepter label featuring the legendary songwriting/production team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

Very, very few artists have reached the heights attained by Dionne Warwick and the songwriting/production team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David on their historic string of hit singles for the Scepter label. Over the course of a little over ten years, Dionne scored no less than 40 charting pop hits and 29 charting R&B hits for Scepter, propelling Dionne to a ranking second only to Aretha Franklin among female singers with the most chart hits in the rock era, not to mention five Grammy nods.

More importantly, Warwick, Bacharach, and David brought a new level of sophistication to popular music, and by doing so, created some of the most indelible recordings of all time. However, despite its brilliance and lasting influence, there has never been a collection at music retail that truly captured this incredible body of work until now.

The Complete Scepter Singles 1962-1973 offers the A and B-side of every single Dionne cut for the Scepter label (with the bonus inclusion of her single for Musicor featuring the hit “Only Love Can Break a Heart”), all original, (mostly) mono single versions remastered by Mike Milchner of Sonic Vision from original tape sources and annotated by veteran music journalist and Billboard contributor Paul Grein.

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Oakland’s Blues Lawyer unveil All in Good Time on February 17, the band’s third full-length and first for the Dark Entries label. With vocalist-guitarist Rob I. Miller and drummer-vocalist Elyse Schrock joined by guitarist Ellen Matthews and bassist-backing vocalist Alejandra Alcala, their latest finds them moving from a sideline band to a high priority. It also captures the outfit’s embracement of a ’90s Alt rock sound, and with a heavy emphasis on melody that borders on indie pop classique.

Guess Work, Blues Lawyer’s first album, came out in April of 2018 on Emotional Response Records, with its follow-up Something Different released in November of the following year on the Mt. St. Mtn. imprint. In 2021 they issued the song “Scenic Route” on a 33⅓ rpm single-sided fully playable postcard flexi disc in a limited edition of 250 copies on Vacant Stare Records (copies are still available on Bandcamp).

For All in Good Time, the band has been described as moving on from an ’80s Flying Nun jangle approach, but to these ears, Guess Work sported a Wire-y art-punk template that fomented a suspicion the band owned at least one copy of Cali-classic Keats Rides a Harley, and with touches of Dan Treacy folded into the mix. Of its ten songs, “Real Cool Guy” is the highpoint, but the whole record’s short sharp and sweet bite is like taking a big swig of cherry cough syrup.

Some of the angles get sanded down a bit for Something Different (vinyl copies are currently available) but the ten songs still land closer to art-punk than the sounds heard on the Flying Nun Dunedin Double or Tuatara comps. “Scenic Route” falls into a decidedly indie pop neighborhood, as does its digital bonus cut “Crystal Ball.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Kinks, one of the greatest ever British rock groups, celebrate their 60th Anniversary in 2023. Formed in 1963 in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies with their friend Pete Quaife, and joined by Mick Avory in early 1964, the band quickly established themselves as one of the epoch-defining groups of the ’60s, with their impact still being felt around the world today.

The stats speak for themselves: The Kinks have sold over 50 million records worldwide and have been streamed over a billion times; they have achieved five US Top 10 singles, nine US Top 40 albums, seventeen UK Top 20 singles and five UK Top 10 albums, with four albums certified Gold. Among numerous honors, they have received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Service To British Music and have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and the UK Music Hall of Fame. Multi-award winning, legendary frontman Sir Ray Davies is widely recognized as one of the greatest British songwriters of all time.

The Kinks 60 campaign will be a two-year-long celebration of their illustrious musical journey career, confirming their place as one of the greatest and most influential rock groups of all time. As a key part of the campaign, and to mark this milestone, a career-defining anthology, The Journey, will be released on BMG in two parts, with The Journey – Part 1 released on 24 March 2023.

The songs on The Journey – Part 1 (1964-1975) have been handpicked for the first time by Ray, Dave and Mick, curated according to themes inspired by the trials and tribulations of their journey through life together as a band since 1963.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | This past fall Tame Impala’s landmark album Lonerism turned 10. To mark the occasion the band performed the album in full at the California festival, Desert Daze. Today, the Lonerism 10 Year Anniversary Box Set has been announced for release on May 26 with pre-orders available beginning today here. The 3 LP box set features a 24 page booklet, unreleased Lonerism demos and never before heard demo sessions. Anniversary edition artwork was designed by Erin Knutson and Immanuel Yang, with additional photography by Matt Sav and Kevin Parker.

In a recent Instagram post, Parker said it’s “difficult to sum up what the album means to me at this point. It was a pretty special time making the music for me. In a way, it’s when I truly discovered myself as an artist. Coming off the back of Innerspeaker I had this new sense of purpose…calling…whatever you want to call it. I had finally given myself permission to let music take over my being completely…to become totally immersed in my own world of recording music. So I had this new sense of creative freedom. I felt free to be ambitious, weird, pop, experimental, whatever, and didn’t feel judged because I was finally just doing it for myself and believed in myself. For the most part anyway…”

Lonerism, Tame Impala’s second studio full length was recorded both at Kevin Parker’s home studio in Perth and in Paris. The album received a 9.0 ‘Best New Music’ on Pitchfork saying “Lonerism is portable and joyous, a soundtrack for the times when you’re walking downtown and look up at a collection of skyscrapers, or driving through a mountain pass on an interstate…embodying and advocating a wakeful and passive state of psychedelia.”

The album birthed the singles “Elephant” and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” which received worldwide commercial radio play and endless film and TV sync licensing respectively, catapulting Tame Impala into the mainstream. The album topped 2012 year-end lists and was nominated for Best Alternative Album at the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards and won multiple ARIA Awards in Parker’s home country of Australia. Since its release Lonerism has gone on to be RIAA certified gold and platinum in multiple territories and has reached nearly 2 Billion lifetime streams.

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Experience Hendrix, the estate of Jimi Hendrix, continues to reissue music from the late guitarist and new, previously unreleased projects. There have not been many musical artists from the past with more posthumous releases than Hendrix. Fortunately, the quality of these releases has mostly been quite good.

The reissues have also been reflective of the many format changes of music since his death in 1970. While very soon after his death, many Hendrix reissues came out, the CD age, beginning in the early ’80s, offered an opportunity to put out previously released recordings, but also a plethora of unreleased live and studio works. With the advent of the more recent vinyl revival, releases of music from Hendrix have brought about reissues and new releases that reflect the way his music was meant to be experienced, on vinyl.

This latest, new release is yet another previously unreleased live concert recording, this one from The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Hendrix, Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell). The vinyl set is a two-LP, gatefold package with archival inner sleeves and a 12-page color booklet, and it includes essays by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and former Los Angeles Times pop music writer Randy Lewis. It is also available on CD.

It is from a key year in Hendrix history: 1969. The show is from April 26th and it was recorded at the Los Angeles Forum, a still relatively new venue and one that had only been presenting concerts for a short time. This was in an era when arena concerts were becoming more common and the Experience was peaking in terms of its fame. It was also during a period though, when the group was beginning to slowly drift apart.

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Dividing his time between Los Angeles, Mexico City, and land that he recently bought in the high Mojave Desert, Cesar Saez is a true Bohemian spirit with a predilection for the black and white films of The Golden Age of Mexican cinema, vintage clothing, and vinyl. Regarding his vinyl rituals, Saez explains “Once the needle drops, you’re in for the journey and not just one song; and that’s how I like to do it.” It’s that level of regard for the journey and not just the destination that drives the narrative of his latest release, El Esplendor de la Tristeza aka The Splendor of Sadness in English. 

Ebbing with the highs and lows of love and heartbreak, The Splendor of Sadness is a dramatic continuum influenced by ’70s Mexican pop legends such as Juan Gabriel and José José and other international artists of high drama like Serge Gainsbourg and Scott Walker. Modern boleros are interwoven with rock ‘n’ roll and traces of Britpop on this 11-song pilgrimage in English/Spanish, casting light on all of Saez’s influences. With the languid conversational stage presence of Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, his album and persona are a new musical framework.

After the breakup of his last band The Wallburds, the former Bixby Knolls member found himself writing songs in Spanish for the first time despite English being his first language. A latent direction with roots in his childhood in Mexico City, Saez was introduced to The Rolling Stones and The Beatles by his father who listened to the CDMX radio station that steadily played classic rock hits. But it was his mother’s boyfriend who taught him his first chords on the guitar. He would show up every week on his mother’s doorstep with flowers and a mariachi band to serenade her, and then take the whole family out to dinner. It’s the duality of these experiences that have led Saez to the multi-lingual approach he’s taking as a solo artist now.

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Texas-born singer-songwriter Laurie Styvers cut a pair of records in the early 1970s, major-label efforts that failed to catch fire and in turn effectively encapsulate her recording career. Gemini Girl: The Complete Hush Recordings, a 2CD and digital set that releases on February 17 through High Moon Records, gathers both albums and adds unreleased material, in the process revealing that had the chips fallen a little differently, Styvers could’ve persevered and ended up a far more well-known figure.

Laurie Styvers could really sing, her voice pretty but substantial. She fit the early ’70s singer-songwriter mold well, perhaps a little too well. Although in Alec Palao’s extensive notes for this collection, it’s Joni Mitchell that’s described as one of Styvers’ prime influences, the songs on both of her LPs are most reminiscent of Carole King, in large part due to the piano foundation.

Both Spilt Milk (Warner Brothers/Chrysalis ’71) and The Colorado Kid (Chrysalis ’73) were cut in the UK, where Styvers had traveled with family as a teen. Prior to her solo work she was part of the psych-folk group Justine, who cut a single on the Dot label in ’69 and a pretty likeable self-titled album for Uni the following year. During this period, she returned to the US to attend college in Colorado and then moved back to the UK, reuniting with Justine.

Upon Justine’s breakup (related to a drug bust), producers Hugh Murphy and Shel Talmy focused on Styvers as a solo artist for their fledgling Hush Productions (a “joint production, publishing and management venture”), to which Justine had briefly been signed. Spilt Milk came out when Styvers was just 20 years old, and to promote its release she was booked to play the Troubadour in Los Angeles opening for Emitt Rhodes.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Following best-in-class audiophile grade pressings of legendary jazz records from John Coltrane, Duke Ellington & Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Pharoah Sanders, and others in 2022, Verve/UMe’s acclaimed Acoustic Sounds series is kicking off their anticipated 2023 slate with three more classics: Oscar Peterson’s stately and sophisticated Night Train (released February 3), Alice Coltrane’s spiritual jazz masterpiece, Journey In Satchidananda (March 31), and Wes Montgomery and the Wynton Kelly Trio’s jazz-guitar opus, Smokin’ At The Half Note (April 28).

As with all Acoustic Sounds series titles, the LPs will be mastered in stereo from the original analog tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, and packaged in high-quality tip-on gatefold jackets, replicating the original packaging. As always, all releases are supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, the world’s largest source for audiophile recordings, and will utilize the unsurpassed production craft of Quality Record Pressings.

Throughout the year, the Acoustic Sounds series will feature one new release monthly from the Verve Label Group’s vaunted catalog. May 26th will see Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd’s immortal bosa nova album, Jazz Samba, which includes “Desafinado,” “Samba Triste,” and “Sama De Uma Nota So,” followed by Billie Holiday’s Songs For Distingué Lovers, featuring her imitable take on six standards of the Great American Songbook, on June 23rd. Cannonball Adderley’s tour de force where Adderley goes toe-to-toe with fellow saxophonist John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley Quintet In Chicago, will arrive on July 28th.

Nina Simone’s genre-crossing Wild Is The Wind, with the standouts “Four Women,” “Lilac Wine,” and “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair” will bow on August 25th.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Releasing an astonishing 10 albums, all impressively strong and equally infused by soul, funk, disco, and reggae, The Free Music created a distinctly infectious groove that unfortunately didn’t make an impact outside of Libya due to the complex political situation at the time. Their releases have been off the radar outside of Libya—nine of their albums are not even listed on Discogs and seasoned collectors tend to have never even heard of them. Free Music (Part 1) is due March 17 on Habibi Funk. The tracks on the album were originally recorded between 1975-1976.

Avid Habibi Funk listeners may be familiar with Libyan composer / producer Najib Alhoush, who’s track “Ya Aen Daly” (a cover of the Bee Gee’s “Stayin Alive”) was included in the label’s second compilation. Najib’s version managed to strip it from its pop approach that had taken over disco during the genre’s peak. At that time disco tracks mostly aimed to appeal to the widest audience possible. Najib had turned the original track into something different and very unique. Upon further research we found that Najib was actually the singer and founder of The Free Music band alongside Fakhreddin, Salim Jibreel, Abdulrazzak “Kit-Kat,” Mukhtar Wanis, and Mohameed Al Rakibi

Initially, Habibi Funk only licensed Najib Alhoush’s “Ya Aen Daly” from Yousef Alhoush, (Najib’s son) who was pleased to hear that there was interest in his father’s music form someone abroad. In the process of exchanging and learning about Najib’s music and career our understanding was that The Free Music only recorded that one album. This couldn’t be further from the truth, in fact there were ten albums produced by the group, all impressively coherent with a clear influence from disco, soul, funk, and reggae.

The Free Music album was probably the longest it ever took us to gather information, photos, and musical source material in a good enough quality to be reissued. This is largely due to the complicated political situation in Libya, compounded by the fact that Libya is still largely cut off from international payment systems, so getting an advance payment to the right person can be a process that takes weeks. The same goes for getting master tapes to a studio abroad and afterwards back to Libya.

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For a taste of the unique from the 1950s Modern Jazz scene, look no further than In a Minor Groove, the 1958 album from harpist Dorothy Ashby and flautist Frank Wess. And one needn’t look very far, as the set, originally released by the Prestige Records subsidiary New Jazz, has been freshly reissued on vinyl by the Real Gone label. Going back to the original mono source, it’s available now.

Today, Alice Coltrane is likely the most well-known jazz harpist, but from the 1950s through the early ’70s that distinction belonged to Dorothy Ashby. She initially worked in a post-bop mode; in short, the sound of In a Minor Groove, but eventually, she stretched into the realms of soul jazz and spiritual jazz, overlapping territory where Afro Harping (today probably her highest-profile LP) resides. Like Coltrane, Ashby was also a multi-instrumentalist, though unlike Alice, on record Ashby stuck to the harp.

And while the harp has yet to grow into a widespread jazz axe, Ashby’s recordings easily sidestepped the shallowness of novelty. Instead, like Hip Harp, which was released by Prestige earlier in 1958, In a Minor Groove drives home that Ashby was fluent in the language of bop, an expertise illustrated by her song selections for the album.

There are two originals, both by Ashby, the up-tempo cookers “Rascality” and “It’s a Minor Thing,” plus a handful of standards, including “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” (played at an appealingly brisk pace), “Yesterdays,” and closer “Alone Together” (both slower but effective showcases for Ashby’s string cascades).

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