Thu, 05/07/2015 - 2:37 pm

Nothing says Summer like surf and hot rod music, and on June 30 Real Gone Music is paying tribute to one of the greatest bands ever to come down the (turn)pike, Ronny and the Daytonas, with a 2-CD, 48-track set featuring four unreleased tracks and notes from “Ronny” himself! Being from Nashville, Ronny and the Daytonas tossed a little country twang into their surfin’ sound; our next artist, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, also turned country on its head by injecting an unapologetic hippie ethos into their country-rock sound. On July 10, we are reissuing their classic The Adventures of Panama Red album on limited edition (of 1000) purple vinyl with the fantastic gatefold album artwork intact.

Real Gone Music is also preparing a couple of other long-lost, limited-edition releases on CD, both in mini LP sleeves that exactly replicate the original album artwork. The first, The Viscounts’ Harlem Nocturne, features the definitive hit version of the oft-covered title track along with 11 other tracks of noir-inflected R&B and jazz. The second, Banana and the Bunch’s Mid-Mountain Ranch, is essentially a Youngbloods album without Jesse Colin Young, and is an early alt-country classic.

Finally, Real Gone returns to two artists whose catalogs the label has repeatedly mined with great results. The label is reissuing the Fanny Hill album from the groundbreaking female rockers Fanny in an expanded edition offering six bonus tracks and notes from three of the four band members. And, on June 30, right smack dab in between the band’s reunion shows in Santa Clara and Chicago, the label is releasing another essential live Grateful Dead show from the hallowed Dick’s Picks series of archival concerts.

Ready for a little more octane into your car stereo? Here come 48 tracks from Nashville’s greatest contribution to surf and hot rod music, Ronny and the Daytonas! “Ronny” was singer-songwriter-guitarist John “Bucky” Wilkin, who wrote their first hit, “G.T.O.,” while attending physics class as a senior in high school; his mom, country songwriter Marijohn Wilkin, then landed him a session with producer and former Sun session saxophonist Bill Justis that yielded the #4 chart smash. Justis became the group’s producer for their recordings on the Amy label imprint Mala, which featured Wilkin and a rotating cast of characters, the most prominent of which was frequent co-writer Buzz Cason. Though Ronny and the Daytonas never notched another hit as big as “G.T.O.,” their infusion of country twang put a unique spin on mid-‘60s surf ‘n’ drag music, and their use of strings and willingness to cut ballads alongside the requisite uptempo fare showed that Wilkin refused to be pigeonholed. His move towards a more personal style accelerated with the band’s move to the RCA label, where Wilkin assumed producer duties, culminating in the 1966 solo “Delta Day”/”I Wanna Be Free” single (included here as bonus tracks), which reflected Wilkin’s eagerness to embrace the folk-rock sounds that were in the air at the time. Now, Real Gone Music has assembled a 2-CD set that includes every single A and B-side (many of which have never appeared on CD) and unique album track recorded by Ronny and the Daytonas—just like the title says, The Complete Recordings! But even that title doesn’t really do the set justice; in addition to all the group sides we’ve included Bucky’s solo sides, two tracks (“Tiger-A-Go-Go” and “Bay City”) recorded under the moniker Buzz & Bucky, and four UNRELEASED tracks, all but two taken from the original mono tapes and remastered by Vic Anesini at Sony’s own Battery Studios. Notes authored by Bucky himself plus previously unseen photos drawn from his private collection round out the set. The ultimate look at one of the all-time great surf combos.

If there was ever any doubt that the New Riders of the Purple Sage were the ultimate hippie country rock band—and having had Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead as early members meant that there wasn’t much—The Adventures of Panama Red put them to rest. This 1973 album’s loosely connected tall tales of drug culture, complete with the album’s underground comic book graphics, ensured that this gatefold record was a long-time dorm room favorite for separating out those stems and seeds. But Panama Red (their only gold record) had a lot more going for it than just countercultural kicks—the band, by now consisting of John Dawson, David Nelson, Dave Torbert, pedal steel ace Buddy Cage and Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden—was much tighter than any outfit this stoned had a right to be, and with songwriting contributions from Peter Rowan (the hit “Panama Red” and “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy”) and Robert Hunter (“Kick in the Head”) as well as from the band’s own fine tunesmiths in Dawson and Torbert, the songs were of a uniformly high quality.  Production by multi-instrumentalist Norbert Putnam, charts by the Memphis Horns and vocal contributions by Buffy Sainte-Marie and Donna Godchaux helped enshrine this record as one of the finest country-rock outings of the ‘70s. Now, Real Gone Music is reissuing this classic album for the first time on vinyl, remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in NYC and lacquer cut by Kevin Gray, with a limited edition pressing of 1000 in—what else?—purple vinyl, with the original gatefold album and inner sleeve graphics (with lyrics) intact. Time to add to your stash of essential ‘70s vinyl.

A lot of folks covered Earle Hagen and Dick Rogers’ classic composition “Harlem Nocturne”—there are over 500 recorded versions by some estimates—but the definitive take was laid down by a little-known R&B combo out of New Jersey named The Viscounts, who had a hit with the song for two different labels, for Madison in 1959 and for Amy in 1965. The latter release, which cracked the Top 40, spawned an entire album—also named Harlem Nocturne—to go with it, and if you are looking for the perfect soundtrack to set a bleary, late-night mood straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel (or a film by David Lynch or Quentin Tarantino—you can bet both of those guys have listened to this record), look no further—guitar dripping with reverb and tremolo, minor-key Hammond organ fills and sleazy saxophone create a mutant musical love-child of the Ventures, Link Wray and Earl Bostic. The original Amy album makes its worldwide CD debut on this Real Gone Music release, and we’re putting it out exactly as it was originally issued, in a limited-edition mini LP sleeve that re-creates the original album art to the T. Remastered from the original mono tapes at Sony’s own Battery Studios and LIMITED TO 1200 COPIES.

Recorded right after the Youngbloods broke up, and released on their own Raccoon label, 1972’s Mid-Mountain Ranch was the sole solo album from the band’s multi-instrumentalist Banana a.k.a. Lowell Levinger. Except that it wasn’t really a solo album, because the Bunch included Joe Bauer and Michael Kane from Banana’s former outfit! So, Mid-Mountain Ranch really was a Youngbloods album sans Jesse Colin Young; and the absence of their former front man allows Banana and the Bunch to stretch out with some bluegrass and jazz licks alongside their patented folk rock sound. It’s something of an early alt-country cult classic, reissued here on CD for the first time ever in a limited-edition mini LP sleeve that re-creates the original packaging right down to the label on the CD. LIMITED EDITION OF 1000.

Fanny had already stepped into some big shoes by being the first all-female rock band signed to a major label, but with the release of 1972’s Fanny Hill, they took things to a new level, recording at Abbey Road with producer Richard Perry and famed Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick (the album includes a Beatles homage with a cover of “Hey Bulldog”). And the result was Fanny’s most varied and ambitious album, sporting a beautiful mix of ballads and rockers and a mature, socially conscious lyrical approach. Not coincidentally, it’s long been the most-requested reissue in the Fanny catalog, and we’re adding six bonus tracks to the original release along with new liner notes from the band and rare photos. Another essential, expanded Fanny album from Real Gone Music.

Taken, like Dick’s Picks Vol. 10, from one of the Grateful Dead’s annual year-end runs of Bay Area concerts, Dick’s Picks Vol. 5—Oakland Auditorium Arena 12/26/79 marked five straight volumes of ‘70s shows selected by archivist Dick Latvala to start the series, and as it was from one of the very last days of the decade, it was the perfect way for Dick to complete his own mini “tour” of the ‘70s (Vol. 6 would break the string by forging ahead to the ‘80s). But Vol. 5 has a lot more going for it than just a convenient spot on the calendar; this is one of the rawest and most energetic Picks, a complete show anchored by a second set that is in essence one big medley that begins with “Uncle John’s Band” and ends with it two hours later, with a supercharged “The Other One” and the first appearance of “Brokedown Palace” in two years among many high points in between. Set one is no slouch, either, with a great, Garcia-led rendition of “Alabama Getaway” four months before it appeared on record and a passionate vocal by Bob Weir on “Looks Like Rain” leading to a spirited, set-closing “The Promised Land.” And throughout it all you’ll hear Brent Mydland serving notice in one of his first shows with the band that he is fully up to the task of replacing Keith Godchaux. Out of print for years, and a perfectly timed release for the Dead reunion shows (the label is also pressing up a 300-unit limited-edition run of Dick’s Picks Vol. 29, the only 6-CD set in the series, consisting of two monster May 1977 shows with stellar bonus material).

JUNE 30 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Ronny and the Daytonas: The Complete Recordings (2-CD Set)

The Viscounts: Harlem Nocturne (Limited Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

Banana and the Bunch: Mid-Mountain Ranch (Limited Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

Fanny: Fanny Hill (Expanded Edition)

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 5—Oakland Auditorium Arena 12/26/79

Limited Edition 300-Unit Repress

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 29--5/19/77 Fox Theatre Atlanta, GA 5/21/77 Lakeland Civic Center Arena Lakeland, FL (6-CD Set)

JULY 10 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

New Riders of the Purple Sage: The Adventures of Panama Red (Limited Edition Purple Vinyl Release)

About Real Gone Music

Real Gone Music, formed and helmed by industry vets Gordon Anderson and Gabby Castellana, is an eclectic and prolific catalog and reissue label with distribution through Sony via Razor & Tie. Anderson and Castellana each started businesses in 1993 — Collectors’ Choice Music and Hep Cat Records & Distribution, respectively — that became two of the most important outlets for buyers and sellers of vintage music recordings. They joined forces in 2011 to launch Real Gone Music, which serves both the collector community and the casual music fan with a robust release schedule combining big-name artists with esoteric cult favorites. Real Gone Music is dedicated to combing the vaults for sounds that aren’t just gone — they’re REAL gone.

Tue, 06/16/2015 - 8:19 am

Real Gone Music is turning up the heat this Summer with a release schedule that just might be the most illustrious one in its proud history. Leading off is another one of the label’s patented singles collection, this time focusing on the long-lost single sides of Steppenwolf, 38 songs strong and assembled after a worldwide search for the best audio sources, with track-by-track commentary by band leader and vocalist John Kay. The label then stays in the singles groove with a two-CD, 50-track set featuring the Atco/Atlantic singles of the late, great Ben E. King.

Then, Real Gone pays homage to another recently departed legend with a reissue of Someplace Else Now, the lone album Lesley Gore cut for the MoWest label. It makes its worldwide CD debut. And the label continues its rehabilitation of Dusty Springfield’s catalog with a collection of the sides she cut in the U.K. from 1970-1971, 17 hard-to-find tracks never before collected in one place.

The label then delves into two rare soundtracks. Composed by Robbie Robertson of The Band and the great soundtrack composer Alex North, the score to Carny remains one of the best-kept secrets in Robertson’s career. And the countercultural cult classic Steelyard Blues finally gets a Stateside reissue of its soundtrack featuring music by Mike Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites, Maria Muldaur, Paul Butterfield and Merl Saunders. Finally, the label winds up its August slate with a limited-edition reissue of Brazilian legend Jorge Ben’s 1972 release, Ben.

What was the hardest-rocking band ever to notch three Top Ten hits? By most any yardstick, it’s Steppenwolf. Formed from the Canadian band The Sparrow (including Dennis Edmonton a.k.a. Mars Bonfire), and led by vocalist John Kay, Steppenwolf scored with “Born to Be Wild,” “Magic Carpet Ride” and “Rock Me” in the space of nine months back in 1968-1969, and hit the charts eleven more times up though the mid-‘70s. Often tagged as a biker band—mostly due to their prominent presence on the soundtrack to Easy RiderSteppenwolf was actually a socially-conscious, highly political outfit, never more so than on their controversial LP Monster, one of 14 charting albums released by the band over a 20-year period. This ability to enjoy commercial success on both the single and album fronts puts them in a very rare category in the annals of rock and roll; and, unsurprisingly, their albums have been well represented in the CD reissue era. Their singles, however, have largely been unavailable on CD in their original 45 mixes, as the tapes for the singles have long been missing (legend has it Dunhill label chief Jay Lasker discarded all the label’s multi-track tapes and mono masters after having deemed them too expensive to store). But, just like on our critically-acclaimed Grass Roots singles set, engineer Aaron Kannowski has, after a worldwide search, rounded up the best sources available and put together The ABC/Dunhill Singles Collection, a two-CD set that doesn’t just include the A and B-side of every Steppenwolf single on the ABC/Dunhill label (featuring, for the first time ever, a decent-sounding “Magic Carpet Ride”), but of every John Kay solo single as well! And, speaking of John Kay, he sat down with co-producer Ed Osborne for a thorough, track-by-track review for the liner notes (John also requested that we use the album version of “Monster” rather than the single version, because the single is such a pieced-together “Frankenstein” job…pun intended). At 38 tracks, and featuring photos by long-time band photographers Henry Diltz and Tom O’Neal nee Gundelfinger, this is the ultimate Steppenwolf collection—one long dreamed of by the band’s fans—and it’s finally here after years of preparation from Real Gone Music.

From his early days as a last-second replacement in the Drifters to his sterling solo career during which he scored a total of 31 pop and 24 R&B chart hits, the late, great Ben E. King was responsible for some of the most indelible recordings in pop music history. His big, beautiful baritone powered such Hall of Fame songs as “There Goes My Baby,” “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Spanish Harlem” and, of course, “Stand by Me,” and—almost alone among R&B singers of his era—he successfully transitioned into the disco era of the ‘70s with hits like “Supernatural Thing” and his acclaimed collaboration with the Average White Band. Now, Real Gone Music, in tandem with SoulMusic Records, is planning to release two of the most ambitious collections ever devoted to Ben E. King’s work, a pair of 2-CD sets containing the A and B-side of every single the man released during his storied career recording for the Atco and Atlantic labels. The first, The Complete Atco/Atlantic Singles Vol. 1—1960-1966, features 50 tracks that cover the years 1960 to 1966; many of these songs (especially the B-sides) never came out domestically on CD, and most never came out at all on CD in the original mono single versions found here, all from original tape sources. These are the recordings—and the correct versions of the recordings—that went out over the radio airwaves and made Ben E. King a legend, including “Spanish Harlem,” “Stand by Me,” “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” and “”Amor,” remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision and annotated by British soul music expert/DJ Clive Richardson. With Ben’s recent passing, a timely release and a major addition to his catalog.

It’s hard to overestimate the role Lesley Gore played in charting the course of popular music. Not only was she probably the biggest female teen idol of her era—with four Top Five hits before she was of legal age—but she broke out of the “girl singer” mold with “You Don’t Own Me,” the proto-feminist #2 hit that inspired generations of female singers to come, and served notice that she was much more than just a pretty face with a pretty voice (indeed; Gore ultimately became a pioneering LGBT performer). However, despite Lesley’s lofty place in the pop music pantheon, there remain some pretty major gaps in the reissue of her repertoire on CD, notably the lone album she cut for Berry Gordy’s Motown subsidiary MoWest, Someplace Else Now. Produced by Joe Porter, this 1972 release marked Lesley’s move into a singer-songwriter mode; Gore wrote or co-wrote (with Ellen Weston or her brother Michael, with whom Lesley would later gain renewed acclaim for collaborating on the score to the hit film Fame) every song on the album. Though it failed to make a significant commercial impact at the time, Someplace Else Now has come to be regarded as a lost, blue-eyed soul gem, and it makes its worldwide CD debut on this Real Gone reissue, complete with liner notes by Joe Marchese and remastering by Mike Milchner at SonicVision. With Lesley’s recent passing, a most timely release and one long requested by her legion of fans.

During her 1968-1971 period with Atlantic Records in the United States, Dusty Springfield also continued to record material in England, where her Atlantic repertoire was released on Philips Records. In turn, Atlantic received rights to issue Dusty's British recordings from the era, but chose to focus entirely on her American sessions. In fact, it wasn’t until the ‘90s that some of these masters (many of which originally came out on the Philips See All Her Faces album overseas) were available Stateside, but they were scattered across several compilations and were never comprehensively assembled. Now, with the release of Come For A Dream—The U.K. Sessions 1970-1971, all of Dusty’s “orphaned” British recordings from her 1970-1971 Atlantic period have been gathered together for the first time. These 17 sides document what was intended to be a complete album plus some extra single sides and outtakes. Dusty was singing at her absolute best during this time, covering pop, rock and soul with equal power and sensitivity; thus, Come For A Dream represents a major addition and clarification to the legendary singer’s discography. Notes by Joe Marchese shed further light on this tumultuous period in Dusty Springfield’s career, with rare photos to boot. A perfect companion piece to Real Gone Music’s recent Faithful release, which presented Dusty’s missing third album for Atlantic from the same era in proper fashion for the first time.

Though he was one of the three acting leads (along with Jodie Foster and Gary Busey) in the 1980 film Carny, it’s debatable how many fans of Robbie Robertson and his work with and without The Band are aware of this key release in his discography. That’s because, despite the pedigree of its cast and the colorful setting of a traveling carnival, the film bombed at the box office, weighed down by a weak script and questionable directorial choices. But the score—half composed by Robertson and half by the great Alex North (Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf et al.) remains a wonderful oddity. Robertson had himself spent two years working at a carnival in his teens, so it was a subject near and dear to his heart (witness The Band’s “Life Is a Carnival”); he also reached out to friends like Dr. John and Randall Bramlett to create sonic settings alternately sleazy, strutting and funky (and don’t miss his guitar solo on “Garden of Earthly Delights”). North, for his part, seemed affected by what Robertson in Rob Bowman’s liner notes to this Real Gone reissue terms the “insane” nature of the film shoot, particularly on the closing “Carny Theme,” which Robertson calls “like Nina Rota on acid.” Right after the film wrapped, Robertson went to New York to serve as musical supervisor for Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, which began a long string of collaborations with Scorsese and other film directors; thus, as his first involvement with dramatic film, Carny really heralded a new artistic avenue in Robertson’s career. Worldwide debut on CD, with liner notes featuring copious quotes from the actor/composer himself!

With a killer leading couple of Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland—fresh from their box office triumph co-starring in Klute—and a soundtrack by the Electric Flag’s Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites—with performances by Paul Butterfield and Maria Muldaur—you would think that the 1972 film Steelyard Blues would be better known than it is. Alas, the film was one of those only-in-the-early-‘70s countercultural romps that died at the box office; Fonda plays a call girl (again) who hooks up with Sutherland’s bumbling ex-con to restore a seaplane and attempt an escape from The Man breathing down their collective necks. Poorly reviewed and largely forgotten by film audiences, it has remained a cult classic because of its soundtrack, which marked Mike Bloomfield’s first release of any kind in three years, and reunited him with Gravenites, with whom he’d composed music in the Electric Flag for the soundtrack to Roger Corman’s B-movie classic The Trip. Here, the emphasis was less on psychedelia than on a jaunty mix of blues, rock and country to match the shambolic goings-on on screen; there’s no mistaking Bloomfield’s stinging blues-rock licks for those of any other guitarist, and a pre-“Midnight at the Oasis” Muldaur serves notice of her impending superstardom. Completing the musical cast was Paul Butterfield, in whose band Bloomfield first broke into prominence, keyboardist Merl Saunders, later of course to collaborate with the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, and Annie Sampson of the Bay Area group Stoneground. This Real Gone release of the Steelyard Blues soundtrack marks its first domestic reissue—new copies of the now out-of-print Japanese release go for hundreds of bucks—and it sports new liner notes by Richie Unterberger. A long-lost underground soundtrack gem.

If there was one thing that all the movements that swept Brazilian popular music during the ‘60s and ‘70s—bossa nova, Jovem Guarda, Tropicalia, Música Popular Brasileira, samba soul, Black Rio—had in common, it was that they all revered Jorge Ben. That’s because Ben incorporated aspects of all their styles without compromising his own; as Caetano Veloso put it, “Jorge Ben, without attempting an artificial or homogenizing ‘fusion,’ came through with a strong, original sound, confronting a body of issues from the opposite end, that of the finished treatment, while we were groping and coming up with varied and incomplete solutions.” Now, Real Gone Music and Dusty Groove are embarking on a long-awaited tour through Ben’s catalog, starting with his 1972 masterpiece, Ben. This is the album that made Jorge Ben a superstar in Brazil, a lean marvel of rhythmic and melodic concision that contains some of his most indelible, durable songs, like the first version of “Taj Mahal” and his ode to his favorite soccer player, “Fio Maravilha.” Peerless Brazilian pop, out on CD for the first time outside of Brazil, and packaged inside a mini LP sleeve that exactly replicates the original vinyl release. Limited edition of 2000.

AUGUST 7 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Ben E. King: The Complete Atco/Atlantic Singles Vol. 1—1960-1966 (2-CD Set)

Lesley Gore: Someplace Else Now

Dusty Springfield: Come for a Dream—The U.K. Sessions 1970-1971

Robbie Robertson/Alex North: Carny—Sound Track from the Motion Picture

Mike Bloomfield & Nick Gravenites: Steelyard Blues—Original Sound Track from the Motion Picture

Jorge Ben: Ben (Limited Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

Wed, 07/22/2015 - 11:40 am

Real Gone Music is blowing up a storm with its early September release schedule. First up is a long-awaited, years-in-the-making Texas Tornados collection, a 2-CD, 39-track set that features key tracks from all of their albums and six unreleased tracks. And Real Gone stays down in Texas for the first-ever compilation of Tornados member and conjunto legend Flaco Jiménez’s Arista recordings. 

Then, the label makes a major contribution to the 4 Seasons catalog by reissuing their first two albums, Sherry & 11 Others and Big Girls Don’t Cry and Twelve others, for the first time ever on CD in their original mono mix. Both releases are limited editions inside a mini LP sleeve, too. One of the greatest soul singers of all time, Wilson Pickett, receives a long-overdue look at his criminally neglected 1973-1975 RCA recordings with a 2-CD set containing his complete studio sessions for the label. And Dean Martin’s son, Ricci Martin, enlisted the aid of everybody from Carl and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys to Peter Cetera of Chicago to Gerry Beckley of America on Beached, his solo record from 1977. Real Gone is issuing an expanded edition of this lost classic of California rock.

Finally, Real Gone Music is teaming with GL Music, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé’s own label, to release a 3-CD set of Eydie’s finest and rarest recordings, including an entire unreleased album session. The set is compiled and annotated by Steve Lawrence himself.

Pop music has seen its share of supergroups, but none of them were (and are) as infectious, buoyant and plain ol’ fun as the Texas Tornados. And make no mistake—the Tornados were a supergroup; in fact, when it comes to roots and ethnic music, the pedigree of the band was unmatched. Accordionist Flaco Jiménez is The King of Conjunto Music, and has played with everybody from the Rolling Stones to Buck Owens, while keyboardist Augie Meyers basically is the Vox organ, having played it with the Sir Douglas Quintet and on countless other releases by Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, John Hammond…the list goes on. Freddy Fender was the rare Chicano artist to achieve crossover pop success with a style that blended swamp pop, rockabilly, country, and Tejano influences together with a beautiful, crooning vocal style, and Doug Sahm—well, Doug Sahm was Doug Sahm, an American original if there ever was one, a one-man melting pot of country, soul, Tejano and rock and roll. Together, these four legends cut four albums (or five, if you count the Spanish-language version of their debut) for the Reprise label during the ‘90s that were among the greatest roots-rock records ever made, a rollicking, utterly irresistible body of music made for dancing, drinking, laughing, loving and living. Now, Real Gone Music has gone deep into the vaults to present the ultimate Texas Tornados collection, A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada—Prime Cuts 1990-1996, a 2-CD, 39-track set that includes prime cuts from all of their albums—the Spanish and English versions of their self-titled debut, plus Zone of Our Own, Hangin’ On by a Thread and 4 Aces—together with rarities and six unreleased sides including four instrumentals and a Miller Lite beer spot! Among the non-album tracks are such Tornados touchstones as “Una Mas Cerveza” and the Fender favorite “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” while the album sides are highlighted by “(Hey Baby) Que Paso,” “Little Bit Is Better Than Nada,” “Who Were You Thinking Of,” the Doug Sahm anthem “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” and many more. Friend of the band Randy Poe has penned the notes based on a fresh interview with Doug Sahm’s son Shawn, latter-day leader of the Tornados and authority on all things to do with his dad, while the photos come from the dim recesses of the Reprise label archives. Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision and assembled with love by compiler Mike Johnson, A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada—Prime Cuts 1990-1996 is the roots music anthology of the year, and a long-overdue look at a band that has never stopped going strong. 

King of Conjunto Music and sideman to the stars, Flaco Jiménez is responsible for taking the humble, much-maligned accordion and making it hip. His early regional recordings for a multitude of labels including Corona, D.L.B., Norteño, Dina and Joey made him a local music legend in the San Antonio area. But, after being tapped by fellow Texas icon Doug Sahm to play on the landmark album Doug Sahm and Band (the beginning of a long artistic partnership with Sahm that wound up with the Texas Tornados), Flaco quickly became the accordionist of choice for everybody from Ry Cooder to Buck Owens to the Rolling Stones. His celebrated status among fellow musicians did not escape notice from the major labels. Warner Bros. signed him for 1992’s Partners, and Arista signed him shortly thereafter, at first attempting to make a crossover country star out of the conjunto master. Flaco Jiménez, his 1994 self-titled debut for the label, featured such guest stars as Raul Malo of the Mavericks (singing lead on “Seguro Que Hell Yes”) and RadneyFoster (singing a duet with Flaco on “Jealous Heart”), supplementing Flaco’s core band of Oscar Tellez on bajo sexto and vocals, Fred Ojeda on vocals, Max Baca on bass and Flaco’s son David on drums. Perhaps due to its mix of country and conjunto styles, the album didn’t chart, but it did win a Grammy for Best Mexican-American/Tejano Performance. It’s also prime Flaco, as the tension between the country and conjunto stylings actually makes for a very engaging and intriguing album. When it came time to make 1996’s Buena Suerte Señorita, however, all thoughts of building a bridge between Nashville and San Antonio were out the window, and Flaco and his core band settled in to make, as co-producer Cameron Randle put it, “a 100% turbo conjunto record.” (Another choice quote from Randle: “How long does it take to listen to this record? To paraphrase Flaco, about a six-pack and a half.”) Fan favorite “Borracho #1” leads off the album, followed by one propulsive, kick-ass conjunto song after another, highlighted by the title tune that features a rare solo vocal turn by Flaco. Both of these albums that comprise Real Gone’s new collection, The Complete Arista Recordings, have long been out of print, and for this release (remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios), we’ve added liner notes by Randy Poe that feature quotes from Flaco taken from Poe’s fresh interview with the legend. Essential stuff, and a key, missing part of the Flaco Jiménez discography.

The 4 Seasons were and are one of the greatest vocal groups in the history of pop music, and their music has been plentifully available since the “dawn” (pun intended) of the CD reissue era. But there remains a very large gap in their catalog: their original albums have NEVER been available on CD in their original mono mixes! Which really makes no sense; not only were most consumers buying and listening to mono albums during the early and mid ‘60s, when the bulk of the 4 Seasons’ albums were released, but also the mono mixes were what the group and its producer Bob Crewe concentrated on and approved. Now, Real Gone Music is embarking on a monorail, er, monaural ride through the 4 Seasons’ album catalog, releasing the original mono album mixes on CD in chronological order, all taken from tape, and housed inside mini LP sleeves with old-style, “tip on” printing that replicates the original album art all the way down to the original Vee Jay logos. And handling the sound for us? The one and only Bill Inglot, who has been working with the 4 Seasons’ catalog for years (and each master has been approved by The 4 Season’s Bob Gaudio)! Each release is a strictly limited edition of 2000 units, and we’re starting with the two albums that made them stars and introduced their legendary harmonies to the masses, 1962’s Sherry & 11 Others and Big Girls Don’t Cry and 1963’s Big Girls Don’t Cry and 12 others.

Between 1964 and 1972, Wilson Pickett established himself as one of the greatest soul men of all time with a string of incendiary pop and R&B smashes like “In the Midnight Hour,” “Land of 1,000 Dances,” “Mustang Sally” and “Funky Broadway.”    But the Wicked Pickett’s scorching career didn’t stop when he left Atlantic Records.  Beginning with 1973’s Mr. Magic Man, Pickett recorded four soulful studio albums for RCA Records, where, in an extremely productive two years, he notched his final Hot 100 hits as well as a string of R&B chart successes.  Yet, Pickett’s RCA discography has been all but ignored in the compact disc era.  Now, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are proud to present the first-ever appearance on CD of all four of Wilson Pickett’s sizzling, funky RCA studio platters on Mr. Magic Man: The Complete RCA Studio Recordings.  This 2-CD package includes Mr. Magic Man (1973), Miz Lena’s Boy (1973), Pickett in the Pocket (1974) and Join Me and Let’s Be Free (1975) plus four rare, never-on-CD bonus singles to paint a full portrait of this exciting era.  For these sessions, Pickett teamed with producers including Brad Shapiro, Dave Crawford and Yusuf Rahman, and recorded at legendary venues including Muscle Shoals Sound and Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios, where Pickett had recorded some of his most indelible Atlantic sides.  The collection takes its title from the hit single written by the team of Bobby Eli (“Sideshow,” “Love Won’t Let Me Wait”) and Carl Fisher, which captured Pickett in a smooth Philly groove.  Vic Anesini at Sony’s Battery Studios has remastered this first-of-its-kind collection, while Joe Marchese has penned the liner notes. Mr. Magic Man: The Complete RCA Studio Albums adds up to 42 tracks and 148 minutes of wicked good—and wickedly rare—soul from the iconic voice of Wilson Pickett.

What if key members of The Beach Boys, Chicago, America, and Wings had teamed up to create one of the greatest California rock albums you’ve never heard?  Well, they actually did!  Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author and director Ricci Martin, the sixth child of legendary “King of Cool” Dean Martin (and younger brother of Dino, Desi and Billy’s Dean-Paul Martin!), got a little help from his friends to craft 1977’s Epic Records release Beached.  And the all-star cast was, indeed, epic.  Recording at The Beach Boys’ own Brother Studios in Santa Monica, Ricci assembled his core team from the band’s axis (Ricci’s history with the Boys went way back; he even took the famous photograph adorning the group’s Sunflower album)!  Carl Wilson co-produced, played and sang on Beached alongside longtime sideman Billy Hinsche (the Billy of “Dino, Desi and…”), while Dennis Wilson, making a rare appearance outside of The Beach Boys, shared drumming duties with Ricky Fataar, a member of The Beach Boys’ most adventurous 1970s line-up.  From Chicago, Ricci invited Peter Cetera along with the entire horn section of Lee Loughnane, James Pankow and Walter Parazaider.  America’s Gerry Beckley and Wings’ Jimmy McCulloch dropped into the sessions, too, along with Van Dyke Parks.  Other names on the album sleeve, such as Bobby Figueroa, Carli Muñoz and Ed Carter, will be familiar to Beach Boys aficionados, not to mention fans of Dennis Wilson’s cult classics Pacific Ocean Blue and Bambu. This very special album of sun-flecked SoCal pop-rock was entirely composed by Ricci Martin, with one song co-written by Carl Wilson.  While Beached made a brief appearance on CD in Japan roughly a decade ago before quickly going out-of-print, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are thrilled to keep the summer alive with its first-ever American reissue.  This expanded edition adds four rare bonus tracks including the mono and stereo single mixes of “Stop, Look Around” and “Moonbeams” (the mono mixes make their worldwide CD debuts).  It’s all been freshly remasteredby Vic Anesini at Sony’s Battery Studios, and features new liner notes by Joe Marchese featuring quotes from. Ricci himself. Martin’s Beached can now finally take its rightful place in the canon of Beach Boys lore as well as in the illustrious musical legacy of the Martin family.

The title of GL Music’s new 3-CD Eydie Gormé collection is An American Treasure, and the late, great singer was that indeed, so much so that the job of anthologizing her long, legendary career looms as a formidable task for any compiler. In fact, there is only one man who is really qualified for the job: Steve Lawrence himself! The long-time husband (for 56 years!) and singing partner of Eydie has drawn upon his intimate knowledge of her catalog and reached deep into the vaults for some rarities in putting together this 3-CD set on their own GL Music label, which Real Gone Music is distributing to retail. The first disc, “The Hits,” presents Eydie’s most famous recordings, including such gems as “Blame It on the Bossa Nova,” “If He Walked into My Life,” “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have” and “Yes. My Darling Daughter,” while disc two, “Steve’s Favorites,” offers the songs he most loved hearing Eydie sing, like “Don’t Go to Strangers, “The Friendliest Thing,” “Softly As I Leave You” and “Hello Young Lovers.” But it’s disc three that is pure catnip for Eydie fans: a recently discovered, completely unreleased album session that she cut during the ‘60s! Steve’s heartfelt, nakedly personal liner notes inside digipak packaging complete the experience. An American Treasure is a love letter from Steve to his dear, departed wife, and a beautiful summation of a one-of-a-kind career and artist. (Note: all of GL’s proceeds will go to benefit The Lawrence Foundation).

SEPTEMBER 4 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Wilson Pickett: Mr. Magic Man—The Complete RCA Studio Recordings (2-CD Set)

SEPTEMBER 4 RELEASES FROM GL MUSIC (Distributed by Real Gone Music)

Eydie Gormé: An American Treasure (3-CD Set)

SEPTEMBER 11 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Texas Tornados: A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada—Prime Cuts 1990-1996 (2-CD Set)

Flaco Jiménez: The Complete Arista Recordings

The 4 Seasons: Sherry & 11 Others (Limited Mono Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

The 4 Seasons: Big Girls Don’t Cry and 12 others (Limited Mono Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

Ricci Martin: Beached (Expanded Edition)

Thu, 08/13/2015 - 8:17 am

In four short years, Real Gone Music has established itself as THE go-to imprint for Christmas reissues, and, with its first of two slates of holiday titles for 2015, the label only tightens its grip on the Christmas crown. First, The 4 Seasons’ classic Christmas album, The 4 Seasons Greetings (later reissued as The 4 Seasons’ Christmas Album), appears in its original mono form for the first time ever on compact disc inside a limited edition mini LP sleeve package. Then, the label turns to one of the hippest Christmas records ever, the 1965 release from the legendary Soulful Strings, the outfit made up of members of the Chess/Cadet house band including guitarist Phil Upchurch, flautist Lennie Druss, bassist/cellist Cleveland Eaton and harpist Dorothy Ashby. One of the biggest vocal stars of the ‘60s, John Gary, finally sees his Christmas album released on CD with its original artwork and liner notes by John’s widow Lee Gary. And two orchestral/instrumental classics from RCA’s beloved Living Stereo series receive worldwide CD debuts with releases from The Three Suns and George Melachrino and His Orchestra.

But Real Gone has also managed to dig up some gems for those not yet in the holiday spirit. Leading the way is the long-awaited CD debut of the sole album by The Beckies, the power pop group led by Michael Brown of Left Banke/Montage/Stories fame. For R&B fans, the label has dug up the one-off record from Jay Dee a.k.a. Earl Nelson featuring production and songwriting by Barry White himself. And one of the most coveted Dick’s Picks of them all, the fourth volume featuring excerpts from the band’s hallowed stand at the Fillmore East in February 1970, comes back into print on the heels of the band’s glorious farewell.

The 4 Seasons were and are one of the greatest vocal groups in the history of pop music, and their music has been plentifully available since the “dawn” (pun intended) of the CD reissue era. But there remains a very large gap in their catalog: their original albums have NEVER been available on CD in their original mono mixes! Which really makes no sense; not only were most consumers buying and listening to mono albums during the early and mid ‘60s, when the bulk of The 4 Seasons’ album catalog was released, but also the mono mixes were what the group and its producer Bob Crewe concentrated on and approved. Now, Real Gone Music is embarking on a monorail, er, monaural ride through the 4 Seasons album catalog, releasing the original mono album mixes on CD in chronological order, all taken from tape, and housed inside mini LP sleeves with old-style, “tip on” printing that replicates the original album art all the way down to the original Vee Jay logos. And wrangling the album session tapes for us? The one and only Bill Inglot, who has been working with the 4 Seasons catalog for years (and the masters are approved by Bob Gaudio himself)! Next up is their legendary Christmas album, which hit the charts three times, once in 1963 when it came out as The 4 Seasons Greetings and again in 1966 and 1967 when it was reissued as The 4 Seasons’ Christmas Album. This one’s the original through and through, from the art to the track list. Limited edition of 2000.

The Soulful Strings were without a doubt the hippest project ever to emerge from the ‘60s with the word “Strings” in its name. Brainchild of producer/arranger/bassist/songwriter (and genius) Richard Evans, the group was a far cry from the interchangeable outfits that flourished during the “beautiful music” era; instead, The Soulful Strings were actually composed of members of the Chess/Cadet label house band, including flautist Lennie Druss, guitarist Phil Upchurch, bassist/cellist Cleveland Eaton and harpist Dorothy Ashby, who laid down a tasty electric groove into which Evans stirred lush strings and unusual instrumentation like the kalimba and sitar.  The result was a sound that resided at the crossroads of easy listening, jazz, R&B and exotica—and, as one might expect from that description, every Soulful Strings release (they made seven albums) is treasured by cratediggers worldwide. 1968’s The Magic of Christmas was their highest-charting record at #35 on the charts, and appears on CD for the first time anywhere in the world, with liner notes by Gene Sculatti. The soundtrack to many a swingin’ ‘60s Christmas party.

With 15 charting albums to his credit during the ‘60s, one would think John Gary would get a lot more recognition than he does these days as one of the leading pop male vocalists of the decade. He certainly was one of the most gifted; his tonal and breath control were pretty much unmatched by his peers, and he had an amazing 3 ½ octave range, often ascending from a meaty baritone to a high, sweet tenor within a single song. There remains one record, however, that has never really faded from the public eye, and that is 1964’s The John Gary Christmas Album, which went to #3 the year it came out and hit the Christmas charts for four straight years after that. Finally, we at Real Gone Music are bringing this holiday classic with its original album artwork to compact disc, and we’re doing it with assistance from a very special Christmas elf: John’s widow Lee Gary, who has contributed liner notes and photos from the family archive for this release! Arranged and conducted by the great Peter Matz of Barbra Streisand fame, and remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios.

The instrumental trio The Three Suns had been around for about two decades, capturing fans as far-ranging as First Lady Mamie Eisenhower and the Platters (who took their “Twilight Time” to the top of the charts), when they cut A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas for RCA’s famed Living Stereo series in 1959. And, no doubt inspired by the new-fangled recording technology in RCA’s Studio A, they turned in one of the most wacky and entertaining Christmas albums of the era, adding rock and roll guitar and instrumentation as varied as chimes, bells, oboes and two (!) tubas to create a Space Age stereophonic spectacular suitable for the Jetsons’ next holiday party. This record’s long been cherished by Christmas music devotees, and our Real Gone worldwide CD debut reissue features a sparkling remastering job by Maria Triana at Sony’s Battery Studios and liner notes by Joe Marchese.  Every bit as fizzy as the champagne you’re going to open to toast the season!

English-born conductor/arranger George Melachrino was the RCA label’s answer to the Decca label’s Mantovani. Along with his famed Music for Moods series, which provided sumptuous soundtracks for every occasion, from dining to daydreaming to studying to sleeping, his most beloved recordings were his two Christmas albums. The first, 1954’s mono release Christmas in High Fidelity, became a perennial best seller and has been reissued in the compact disc era. However, the second, 1959’s Christmas Joy, which took full advantage of the stereo recording techniques pioneered by RCA’s “Living Stereo” series, makes its worldwide CD debut here. It’s hard to conceive of a musical genre more suited for the freedom stereo afforded in the studio than the orchestral easy listening that was Melachrino’s métier, and here the maestro offers widescreen interpretations of 12 songs from the original Christmas in High Fidelity album and adds four more tunes from the lighthearted side of the holiday songbook, including “Christmas Alphabet,” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” This symphonic seasonal classic receives a pristine remastering from Maria Triana at Battery Studios in New York, with liner notes by Joe Marchese and added photos.

Real Gone Music answers the pleas of power pop fans worldwide with the first-ever CD release of this classic one-off album from The Beckies, the group led by Michael Brown of Left Banke, Montage, and Stories fame. Brown made a career out of melding classical motifs with rock, but here—on what would turn out to be the last project to which he made a significant contribution—the focus is definitely more on the latter. The Beckies fits right on the shelf with your Badfinger and Raspberries records, full of catchy tunes that in another era would have had a chance at significant radio play, but 1976 was the height of the disco craze, and therefore it sunk without a commercial trace. A quick search online, however—there are about four solid pages of blog posts about the album—quickly confirms cult classic status for The Beckies, here reissued with notes by Jeremy Cargill and lyrics. Long overdue reissue and worth the wait.

With production by Barry White, and seven of its nine songs written or co-written by the Walrus of Love, you’d think that this one-off release from Jay Dee was in reality all but a solo album from White. And you know what? You’d be right…almost. For while Come On In Love sports the trademark lush orchestration (with arrangements by Gene Page) and funky rhythms that made Barry White a superstar during the ‘70s, the artist Jay Dee was, if not an equal partner, a worthy front man. Born Earl Nelson, he first surfaced in 1963 as half of Bob & Earl on the hit “Harlem Shuffle” (which was arranged by—you guessed it—a young Barry White)! Then, as Jackie Lee he scored a huge novelty hit two years later with “The Duck,” which again had Barry in the background (the two co-composed the single’s flip, “Ooh Honey Baby”). So, this 1977 album was actually a collaboration between two seasoned pros, and it showed it with a number of slow-burning jams spearheaded by excellent soulful vocals from Jay/Earl/Jackie. Our Expanded Edition includes two bonus tracks, both sides of the “Strange Funky Games and Things” single featuring the single edit and a long instrumental version under the name “Games and Funky Things,” with liner notes by Gene Sculatti that explore the background behind this lost classic of ‘70s soul.

If Dick’s Picks Vol. 8 presented arguably the single most famous show in the Grateful Dead canon—5/2/70 at Harpur College in Binghamton—then Dick’s Picks Vol. 4 presents the most famous stand of shows in the band’s long history of touring, the 2/13/70-2/14/70 shows at the Fillmore East in New York. Just how good were the three sets that comprised each show? Well, when LSD chemist and band benefactor Owsley Stanley produced the official release History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear’s Choice), he lifted portions of each night’s first set and acoustic second set in assembling that record, yet there was enough (very) strong material left over to make Dick’s Picks Vol. 4 one of the greatest live albums in the Grateful Dead catalog. The biggest gem—some might say the crown jewel—of the entire set is the now legendary rendition of “Dark Star,” a version so potent, so telepathic that it formed the backbone of the recombinant “Dark Star” on the Grayfolded album, but there really isn’t a weak song on the album, and a rare live rendition of “Mason’s Children” even gives this one a collector kick. When Bob Weir says when he steps up to the mike at the beginning of disc one, “This ain’t a show, it’s a party,” he ain’t kidding—if you’re not on the bus yet, this one will save a seat for you.

 OCTOBER 2, 2015 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Jay Dee: Come On In Love (Expanded Edition)

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 4—Fillmore East 2/13-14/70

OCTOBER 9, 2015 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

The 4 Seasons: The 4 Seasons Greetings (Limited Mono Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

The Soulful Strings: The Magic of Christmas

John Gary: The John Gary Christmas Album

The Three Suns: A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas

George Melachrino and His Orchestra: Christmas Joy

The Beckies: The Beckies

Tue, 09/15/2015 - 8:23 pm

And you thought Real Gone’s first installment of 2015 Christmas releases was ambitious! Well, joining the five releases already announced for this year (from The 4 Seasons, John Gary, George Melachrino & His Orchestra, The Soulful Strings, and The Three Suns) are seven titles from perennial kings and queens of Christmas music. First, Real Gone proudly presents a 3-CD set from the vocalist who has probably sold more Christmas music than any other artist in pop music history, Johnny Mathis. The Complete Christmas Collection 1958-2010 is exactly what it says—every holiday recording Mathis recorded during the first 52 years of his career comprising five best-selling albums and a host of non-LP sides, with notes featuring a fresh interview with the man himself. Then, Real Gone turns a timely ear to the complete Christmas recordings by the great Glen Campbell, including his complete That Christmas Feeling album plus seven non-LP sides. A truly moving and uplifting listening experience.

Real Gone stays in a country vein with two more iconic figures. The late Lynn Anderson’s Christmas album finally returns to CD in an expanded edition featuring four rare bonus tracks she recorded for The Christmas Seals charity. And TV star, Bond villain and sausage seller extraordinaire Jimmy Dean sees his Christmas Card album expanded with three bonus tracks to encompass his complete Christmas recordings for the Columbia label. Speaking of complete Christmas recordings for the Columbia label, Real Gone also is presenting a 27-track, 79-minute collection from Jim Nabors featuring the two albums and non-LP sides that “Gomer Pyle” of TV fame recorded for Columbia. Real Gone then does the same thing for Bobby Vinton, compiling all the Christmas material that he recorded for the Epic label including an unreleased track. And Real Gone caps its early November schedule with the two Christmas records that The Living Voices recorded for RCA’s hallowed Living Stereo imprint.

Having released no less than six charting Christmas albums during his career including one of the Top Ten selling Christmas albums of all time (1958’s Merry Christmas, which hit the Christmas charts 16 times!), Johnny Mathis has probably sold more Christmas records than any other artist in pop music history. And, with a half dozen releases to date on our Real Gone Music label, he is also by far our biggest selling pop vocalist. Add to that the fact that Christmas music is such a big part of what we do here at Real Gone and you can see why the chance to do a truly comprehensive collection of his Christmas music has been a glimmer in our eye ever since we started the label back in 2011. Now, after years of preparation, we are finally ready to release such a collection…and it’s turned out even better than we’d hoped! Not only does The Complete Christmas Collection 1958-2010 contain all five Christmas albums Johnny recorded for Columbia and Mercury prior to his 2013 Christmas release—including Merry Christmas, 1963’s Sounds of Christmas, 1969’s Give Me Your Love for Christmas, 1986’s Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis, and 2002’s The Christmas Album, all of which charted—but it also includes many more non-LP tracks than we knew even existed before we started delving into the project. In fact, a full 16 of the 71 tracks—including duets with Bette Midler and Gladys Knight & the Pips—on this 3-CD set are rarities that did not appear on the albums, and two of them are newly discovered tracks! What’s more, the array of talent on these recordings is staggering (Johnny only worked with the best): among the producers, arrangers and conductors behind the scenes here are Mitch Miller, Percy Faith, Don Costa, Glenn Osser, Ernie Freeman, Gene Page, Jack Gold, Ray Ellis, and Henry Mancini. Little wonder, then, that Johnny’s Christmas music has been beloved for generations, and here it appears complete with fresh remastering by Mike Piacentini at Sony’s Battery Studios under the watchful eye of Sony producer Didier Deutsch, and packaged inside an eight-panel wallet sporting photos and notes by Joe Marchese drawn from an exclusive interview with Johnny Mathis himself. If there’s one indispensable Christmas release for this season and the seasons beyond, this is it.

The statistics concerning Glen Campbell’s career are staggering. Over 50-plus years in the music business, he has sold over 45 million records (and that’s not counting the tens of millions more he played on as part of the Wrecking Crew), accumulated 12 Gold albums, 4 Platinum albums and one Double Platinum album, and placed over 80 different songs on the Country, Pop and Adult Contemporary charts including such iconic recordings as “Gentle on My Mind,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” and “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Yet, among his massive body of work, it is his Christmas recordings that might just be his most beloved. Glen’s easygoing, conversational way with a song—and winning personality as seen by millions on CBS TV’s The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour—made him the perfect vehicle for Yuletide material both old and new, and thus his 1968 album That Christmas Feeling went to #1 on the Christmas charts and hit the charts three other times after that! But Glen (and his label, Capitol) weren’t done with seasonal fare; three more Christmas albums were issued under Glen’s name, each of which sprinkled new tracks in with songs taken from That Christmas Feeling. Now, for the first time ever, ALL of Glen’s Christmas recordings for the Capitol label have been gathered into one place on this Real Gone release, which includes the original 11 tracks from That Christmas Feeling plus seven more Christmas rarities for a total of 18 irresistible holiday favorites. Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision, and featuring liner notes by Joe Marchese festooned with rare photos, Glen Campbell: Complete Capitol Christmas Recordings will remind you of just how great an interpreter of songs Glen was, and of just how vibrant a performer he was, too. The man’s spirit and legacy remain undimmed.

With the phenomenal success of her 1970 single “Rose Garden,” Lynn Anderson was launched into the ranks of country and pop superstardom.  The Grammy Award-winning singer’s string of No. 1 hits made her a chart fixture in the 1970s, and, indeed, one of the most successful artists of all time.  Among her most beloved recordings is 1971’s The Christmas Album, which arrived on Columbia Records while Lynn was still riding high from the worldwide success of “Rose Garden.”  Christmas Album, produced in Nashville by her then-husband Glenn Sutton, featured Music City’s A-team of musicians on a festive collection of both familiar and original yuletide tunes.  In addition to her spirited revivals of “Frosty the Snowman,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” Lynn introduced “Ding-a-Ling the Christmas Bell” and “Mr. Mistletoe,” and in a classic three-hanky country weeper, insisted, “Don’t Wish Me Merry Christmas.”  The Christmas Album placed high on the Billboard Christmas chart in the year of its release, becoming a Yuletide perennial for her legions of fans.  However, the album has only seen a limited CD release that came and went, and fetches three-figure sums.  Now, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records have come to the rescue with the first-ever expanded CD reissue of this Christmas classic.  This new edition of The Christmas Album includes the original album as well as four super-rare bonus tracks, all of which make their debut on CD: the mono mixes of  “Ding-a-Ling the Christmas Bell,” “Frosty the Snowman, and “Don’t Wish Me Merry Christmas” (complete with spoken word sections) that appeared on the special Christmas Seals promotional singles Lynn recorded in 1971 and 1972 as the charity’s ambassador.  It’s all been beautifully remastered by Vic Anesini at Sony’s Battery Studios, and Joe Marchese has written the liner notes placing the album in context of Lynn’s groundbreaking career. Lynn Anderson was just 67 years old when she passed away earlier this year, but her original Christmas Album stands as a happy and spirited tribute to her enduring legacy.

The title of the late Jimmy Dean’s autobiography is 30 Years of Sausage, 50 Years of Ham, but a more appropriate summation of his life is etched on his tombstone epitaph: “Here Lies One Hell of a Man.” For Jimmy Dean really did do it all—Top Ten pop and country singer, pure pork sausage purveyor, James Bond villain, Tonight Show host, even patron saint to puppeteer Jim Henson (Henson got his break on Jimmy’s 1963-1966 TV show). But without question one of the highlights in a life full of ‘em was Jimmy’s 1965 holiday release, Jimmy Dean’s Christmas Card. Not only did the album hit #13 on the Christmas charts but it hit the charts for the next two years, and spawned a hit single, “Yes, Patricia, There Is a Santa Claus,” that remains one of the great Christmas novelty tunes of all time. We’re serving up a fresh remastering (by Maria Triana at Battery Studios) of this Christmas classic, and adding three non-LP sides (including the single version of “Yes, Patricia”) to comprise Jimmy Dean’s Christmas Card—The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings. Photos and liner notes by Joe Marchese complete one heartwarming Christmas package.

From his first appearances on The Andy Griffith Show, America fell in love with Jim Nabors’ portrayal of the sweetly bumbling gas station attendant Gomer Pyle.  But Gomer was just one part of Nabors’ persona.  Nabors also possessed a rich baritone that he used to great, and comic, effect on both Andy Griffith and then his own immensely popular spin-off, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., during its five-season run between 1964 and 1969.  Columbia Records signed the actor-singer in 1965, and after one album sung in Gomer’s southern drawl, the label let Nabors’ real voice soar.  His resonant tones were, of course, perfect for the sound of Christmas music.  Now, for the very first time, Jim Nabors’ complete Christmas recordings for Columbia Records have been collected on one very special new release by Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records.  The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings brings together 1967’s The Jim Nabors Christmas Album with 1972’s Merry Christmas, both of which have been long unavailable on compact disc.  Produced by Jack Gold and arranged by Alan Copeland, Christmas Album featured Nabors on both secular and sacred carols, including a rousing “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and an inventive “Jingle Bells.”  The Gold-selling album was so popular that it was the best-selling holiday album of 1969, and remained on the Billboard Christmas chart for an astounding seven years!  Merry Christmas teamed Nabors with producer Snuff Garrett (Cher, Vicki Lawrence) for a more contemporary set once again blending holiday spirituals and pop favorites including the much-requested “A Girl Named Noel.”  The collections’s 27 tracks also include the CD premiere of the rare single “I Was a King at Jesus’ Birth,” and adds three more seasonal selections culled from Nabors’ beloved gospel recordings including two distinctive renditions of “Ave Maria” and his heartfelt recording of “The Lord’s Prayer.”  The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese has written the liner notes for this nostalgic, 79 minute-plus new release, which has been sparklingly remastered by Maria Triana at Sony’s Battery Studios.  Jim Nabors’ timeless, joyful Christmas classics have never sounded so vivid…The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings just might have you and your whole family exclaiming, “Shazam!”

When The Beatles hit the top of the charts for the first time in 1964 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” do you know what single they displaced? Why, Bobby Vinton’s “There! I’ve Said It Again!” But, while the British Invasion spelled the end of chart appearances for just about every pop crooner of Bobby’s ilk, “The Polish Prince” just kept rolling along, racking up a total of 49 hits all the way through 1981, including such Top Ten smashes as “Mr. Lonely,” “Please Love Me Forever,” and “My Melody of Love.” Bobby was also a force on the Christmas charts, first with his 1963 EP Songs of Christmas and then with his 1964 full-length LP A Very Merry Christmas, both of which we have included in our new Real Gone release A Very Merry Christmas—The Complete Epic Christmas Collection, which also features the 1970 single “Christmas Eve in My Home Town,” two rare songs taken from various artists holiday packages released by Epic, and an unreleased track! Bobby offers an appealing mix of both traditional holiday favorites and contemporary ‘60s pop songs of the season, including Bobby’s Top Ten Christmas chart single of “Dearest Santa” paired with Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle.” Joe Marchese pens the liner notes, and we’ve included some nice shots of the ever photogenic Mr. Vinton. Remastered by Maria Triana at Sony’s Battery Studios—a very merry Real Gone release indeed!

RCA’s wildly successful Living Stereo series spawned a number of ensembles with “Living” in their titles; the two that folks remember these days are The Living Strings and The Living Voices. Both groups were the brainchild of RCA’s trailblazing female producer Ethel Gabriel, who assembled some of the finest studio musicians, arrangers and vocalists for lush, beautifully recorded albums aimed at a middle America eager to give their newly acquired stereo systems a spin. In particular, the two holiday albums, Sing Christmas Music/The Little Drummer Boy, featured on this twofer that she released with The Living Voices remain treasured among Christmas music aficionados for their ornate orchestration, innovative arrangements, and, most of all, sweeping stereo sound. The first, 1962’s Sing Christmas Music, had actually come out on the Living Stereo imprint in 1959 as Christmas Surprises from The Ralph Hunter Choir; choir director Hunter garnered two Grammy nominations that year for his album The Wild Wild West.  Among the surprises was the introduction of orchestra of toys including the Hunter family’s electric train and transformer to “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers,” and an intriguing rendition of “The Indian Christmas Carol,” which is credited as being the first North American Christmas song dating back to 1643! The second album, 1965’s The Little Drummer Boy, featured the legendary Anita Kerr Singers and production by Anita Kerr herself; the program varies from recent Broadway fare (“Be a Santa” from Subways Are for Sleeping; “Pine Cones and Holly Berries” from Here’s Love) to warhorses like “Jingle Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” to modern classics like “Blue Christmas” and the title tune. The Little Drummer Boy makes its first domestic CD appearance on this Real Gone reissue, while Sing Christmas Music has never been on CD anywhere; Joe Marchese pens the liner notes. A pair of easy listening Christmas classics!

OCTOBER 9, 2015 HOLIDAY RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

The Soulful Strings: The Magic of Christmas

John Gary: The John Gary Christmas Album

The Three Suns: A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas

George Melachrino and His Orchestra: Christmas Joy

NOVEMBER 6, 2015 HOLIDAY RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Johnny Mathis: The Complete Christmas Collection 1958-2010 (3-CD Set)

Glen Campbell: Complete Capitol Christmas Recordings

Lynn Anderson: The Christmas Album (Expanded Edition)

Jimmy Dean: Jimmy Dean’s Christmas Card—The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings

Jim Nabors: The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings

Bobby Vinton: A Very Merry Christmas—The Complete Epic Christmas Collection

The Living Voices: Sing Christmas Music/The Little Drummer Boy

MOVED FROM OCTOBER 9: The 4 Seasons: The 4 Seasons Greetings (Limited Mono Mini LP Sleeve Edition)

Sat, 11/07/2015 - 2:30 pm

Real Gone Music has long had the well-deserved reputation for being the most prolific reissue label on the planet, often releasing 8-10 titles at a time. But for its January 8, 2016 street date, the label has come up with a release so unique, so special, that it is clearing out its schedule for that release alone. The title in question? The Mamas and the Papas: The Complete Singles—50th Anniversary Collection.

With the debut of their first hit, “California Dreamin’,” on the charts, The Mamas and the Papas proclaimed themselves to be a potent new force in the burgeoning West Coast folk-rock movement, announcing to the world that something special and beautiful was happening in California. Now, 50 years to the day after “California Dreamin’” entered the Billboard Hot 100 on January 8, 1966, Real Gone Music is celebrating this very special anniversary by releasing The Mamas and the Papas: The Complete Singles—The 50th Anniversary Collection, a two-CD, 53-track set that includes for the first time ever the A and B side of every single the group released, all in their impossible-to-find-on-CD original U.S. mono single mixes. But this one-of-a-kind collection—which is remastered by Aaron Kannowski, the engineer responsible for Real Gone’s acclaimed collections of singles by fellow Dunhill label acts The Grass Roots and Steppenwolf—doesn’t stop with The Mamas and the Papas’ singles. It also includes the solo single sides that group members Mama Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty and John Phillips cut for the Dunhill and ABC labels, again in their rare, original single mixes. 

Due to the unfortunate situation with the Dunhill single master tape reels (supposedly thrown out at the behest of one of the label’s owners), Mamas and Papas fans had despaired of ever hearing the group’s original singles on CD. And among the most surprised and excited about this release is Mama Michelle Phillips herself. “I can’t believe it’s been 50 years since our first single hit the charts,” Michelle exclaims. “What a way to celebrate! Thanks to Real Gone for commemorating our anniversary in such a thorough, classy way.”

Co-Producer Ed Osborne’s notes feature quotes drawn from extended interviews with Michelle, as well as with Dunhill label head and producer Lou Adler. The package also includes a number of rarely-seen images of this eminently photogenic band. Many of the solo singles and B-sides have never been on CD, let alone in their single mixes; plus, over the course of listening to this set (which clocks in at over 150 minutes) the listener will hear such legendary songs as “Monday, Monday,” “California Dreamin’,” “Creeque Alley,” “I Saw Her Again,” “Words of Love,” “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” “Glad to Be Unhappy,” “Dedicated to the One I Love,” and “It’s Getting Better” exactly as folks heard them over the radio back in those halcyon days.

Long in the making, and assembled after countless hours spent tracking down sources across the globe, The Mamas and the Papas: The Complete Singles—The 50th Anniversary Collection is the most significant addition to The Mamas and the Papas’ discography in years.

Track List:

Disc One

1.     Go Where You Wanna Go

2.     Somebody Groovy

3.     California Dreamin’

4.     Monday, Monday

5.     Got a Feelin’

6.     I Saw Her Again

7.     Even If I Could

8.     Look Through My Window

9.     Once Was a Time I Thought

10. Words of Love

11. Dancing in the Street

12. Dedicated to the One I Love

13. Free Advice

14. Creeque Alley

15. Did You Ever Want to Cry

16. Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming)

17. Straight Shooter

18. Glad to Be Unhappy

19. Hey Girl

20. Dancing Bear

21. John’s Music Box

22. Safe in My Garden

23. Too Late

24. Dream a Little Dream of Me

25. Midnight Voyage

26. For the Love of Ivy

27. Strange Young Girls

Disc Two

1.     Do You Wanna Dance

2.     My Girl

3.     Step Out

4.     Shooting Star

5.     California Earthquake (Mama Cass)

6.     Talkin’ to Your Toothbrush (Mama Cass)

7.     Move In a Little Closer, Baby (Mama Cass)

8.     All for Me (Mama Cass)

9.     It’s Getting Better (Mama Cass)

10. Who’s to Blame (Mama Cass)

11. Make Your Own Kind of Music (Mama Cass Elliot)

12. Lady Love (Mama Cass Elliot)

13. New World Coming (Mama Cass Elliot)

14. Blow Me a Kiss (Mama Cass Elliott)

15. A Song That Never Comes (Mama Cass Elliot)

16. I Can Dream, Can’t I (Mama Cass Elliot)

17. The Good Times Are Coming (Mama Cass Elliot)

18. Welcome to the World (Mama Cass)

19. Don’t Let the Good Life Pass You By (Mama Cass Elliot)

20. The Costume Ball (Mama Cass Elliot)

21. Watcha Gonna Do (Denny Doherty)

22. Gathering the Words (Denny Doherty)

23. To Claudia on Thursday (Denny Doherty)

24. Tuesday Morning (Denny Doherty)

25. Mississippi (John Phillips)

26. April Anne (John Phillips)

Wed, 12/16/2015 - 6:52 pm

This February, Real Gone Music defies the Winter chill with a series of releases guaranteed to warm the bones of just about any country music lover. First, the label revisits country legend Barbara Mandrell’s early years on the Columbia label with a deluxe album reissue featuring no less than seven unreleased tracks. Then, the rare recordings by the classic, early-‘70s edition of Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys featuring budding superstars Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley receive their first-ever comprehensive collection. And, Real Gone reissues on vinyl perhaps the greatest album of western music ever made, Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.

Speaking of classic albums reissued on vinyl, Real Gone is releasing the legendary Doug Sahm and Band record from 1972 that featured the genuine Texas groover with everybody from Dr. John to Bob Dylan. Then, the label takes one of the hairpin (safety pin?) turns for which it’s famous by reissuing VI, the fifth (!) album from notorious hardcore punk band the Circle Jerks, followed by another 180-degree maneuver featuring the only single-CD release from the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks series. And, finally, the label is resurrecting some titles in limited edition re-presses, including Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain soundtrack, Charles Bukowski’s spoken word album Reads His Poetry, the Red Bird Girls—Very First Time in True Stereo various artists collection, and the deluxe reissue of The Ides of March’s classic Vehicle album.

Stardom is a funny thing. Sometimes a talented performer can labor for years turning out recordings of such a high quality that chart success seems a foregone conclusion. Then, a change of label, or producer, or public taste, and boom! Superstardom. Such was the trajectory of Barbara Mandrell’s career. She started singing for producer Billy Sherrill at Columbia Records in Nashville, making one exceptional country-soul record after another. She enjoyed several solid Top 20 Columbia singles but never quite achieved pop-crossover stardom. Sherrill reluctantly let her go, and in 1975 Barbara signed with ABC/Dot—later morphing into MCA. She subsequently enjoyed a Hall of Fame run with a long string of hits highlighted by two Entertainer of the Year awards from the Country Music Association—the first female to accomplish the feat (the only other one is Taylor Swift!)—her own NBC television show, and other accolades too numerous to mention. Along the way, she blended her distinctive country-pop-rhythm and blues sound to appeal to audiences of all these genres. Now, with its release of This Time I Almost Made It—The Lost Columbia Masters, Real Gone Music trains a spotlight on Barbara’s unjustly neglected Columbia period. The 20-track collection features the CD debut of her 1974 album This Time I Almost Made It, including her country hits “This Time I Almost Made It” and “Wonder When My Baby’s Coming Home,” compelling covers of country-pop classics of the period (“A Very Special Love Song,” “Words,” “You’re All I Need To Get By,” “Something”),’ the rare non-LP side “Son of a Gun” and compilation album obscurity “Scarlet Water” – plus a full seven unreleased tracks dating from her very first Columbia session in 1969 through 1970,  headlined by her fantastic version of Joe Maphis’ “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, and Loud Music.” In fact, only two of these tracks have appeared on CD before, and with remastering by Vic Anesini and Maria Triana at Sony’s Battery Studios, and liner notes by Joe Marchese featuring quotes from the great lady herself and rare period photos, this is by any yardstick a major addition to the discography of a country music legend.

Back in the rock and roll-dominated early ‘70s, not many people were paying attention to the sound of traditional bluegrass as practiced by one of its greatest artists, Ralph Stanley, and his band The Clinch Mountain Boys. But there were two very notable exceptions. Due to a flat tire, Stanley and the Boys were late for a gig in Fort Gay, West Virginia when the club owner spotted two kids with instruments in the crowd and invited them on stage to fill the time. As Ralph tells it, “I walked in and these two boys were singing the Stanley Brothers’ music better than the Stanley Brothers. I began naming some more of our old songs and I couldn’t mention one they couldn’t sing. They said the Stanley Brothers had always been their favorites and you could tell by hearing them that we had. They said they would like to record an album of our songs, as a tribute…” Well, those two boys were, of course, Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley, and the album—initially titled Tribute to the Stanley Brothers by Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs, but later changed to Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys Featuring Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs after they officially joined Ralph’s outfit—was recorded in January 1971 with The Clinch Mountain Boys backing up the duo. Thus was formed one of the greatest bluegrass bands of all time, and certainly Ralph’s finest post-Carter Stanley aggregation, with Roy Lee Centers on guitar and vocals, Curly Ray Cline on fiddle, and Jack Cooke on bass joining the two youths and Stanley. Soon after Whitley and Skaggs got out of school that Summer, they went into the studio with the band to record Ralph Stanley’s first record for the Michigan-based Jessup label, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys Sing Michigan Bluegrass, which featured a bunch of songs Stanley had never done before. A mere five weeks later, the group went back into the studio to record their second and final Jessup album, Gospel Echoes of the Stanley Brothers, which delved into the Stanley Brothers’ deep and rich library of gospel songs. Now, Real Gone Music is proud to gather all three albums recorded by future superstars Whitley and Skaggs with The Clinch Mountain Boys together for the first time on Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys Featuring Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley: The Complete Jessup Recordings Plus!, boasting two CDs and 34 tracks of some of the hottest playing and most haunting singing you’ll ever hear, remastered to send a shiver down your spine by Mike Milchner of SonicVision. Liner notes by Grammy-winning writer Colin Escott and rare photos accompany.

Real Gone Music is proud to present, for the first time in close to 55 years, the original mono version of what most folks consider to be the single greatest postwar album of Western music, Marty Robbins: Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Everything about this album is iconic, from its “quick draw” cover art to the songs it contains—“Big Iron,” “Cool Water,” “The Master’s Call,” “Billy the Kid,” “The Strawberry Roan,” and, of course, “El Paso” (here in its rare, full-length version)— that have come to define the Western genre. And the music has never sounded better than it does here: our limited edition (of 600 copies) 180-gram black vinyl pressing was remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York with lacquer cutting by Kevin Gray. Comes complete with the amazing original album art, too…it’s the first vinyl reissue in the “modern” era of this classic record.

Doug Sahm’s first solo record was something of a coming out party, a big budget affair that let the world know what the insiders already knew: that Doug Sahm was a quintessentially American musical visionary. After The Sir Douglas Quintet concluded its contract with Smash/Mercury, Jerry Wexler convinced Sahm to sign with Atlantic and brought him to New York for the sessions that were to become Doug Sahm and Band. To call the personnel that Wexler and co-producer Arif Mardin assembled for the album  “star-studded” is a severe understatement: among the musicians on this 1972 release were Dr. John, David “Fathead” Newman, David Bromberg, and Flaco Jiménez (the first in a series of collaborations with Doug); Sir Doug Quintet stalwarts Augie Meyers, Jack Barber, and George Rains; and, of course, Bob Dylan, who contributes a hitherto-unheard song (“Wallflower”).  It is a testament to Sahm’s boundless talent that all of these stellar musicians wanted to play with him; it’s even more of a testament that despite all of the formidable artists in the room, and despite the fact that Sahm only wrote three of the album’s 12 tunes, Doug Sahm and Band never sounds like anything but a Doug Sahm record. And a hell of a good one, too, highlighted by the anthemic “(Is Anybody Going to) San Antone” and the brilliant Willie Nelson cover “Me and Paul.” This turned out to be Doug’s only charting solo album, but he was never about the money. What mattered to Doug was the groove, and this record has it in every one of ‘em. Real Gone Music is proud to present the first-ever vinyl reissue of this classic record, limited to 1000 gold vinyl copies. A must for your American music collection.

The joke (jerk?) is on you—VI was actually the Circle Jerks’ 5th album! But then, there were always enough jokes to go around with this hardcore outfit formed by former Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson and former Black Flag vocalist Keith Morris; in contrast to their more serious-minded hardcore peers like M.D.C. and Minor Threat, the Circle Jerks were, in the words of Keith Morris, “the party meisters. We wanted to find the keg and get laid.” That didn’t stop them from putting out some of the best albums of the entire hardcore movement, and this long out-of-print 1987 release stands as one of the best punk albums of the ‘80s. Note that we didn’t say hardcore punk; by this time the tempos had slowed and the production values increased. Predictably, this led some to cry sell-out, but VI goes right to the jugular with such skewerings of the consumer culture as “American Way” and “Living,” their lyrics spit out by the newly clean and sober Morris with his trademark desperate edge. In fact, Hetson, in Tony Rettman’s revealing liner notes, states that VI just may be their best record: “You know, every once in a while, a track from VI will come up on my iPod and I’m struck by how good a record it is. It’s definitely a consistently better record than others we’ve done. The songwriting, the sound quality, the charge of it; it definitely still holds up.” Real Gone Music is proud to reissue this punk classic, remastered by Sean Brennan at Sony’s Battery Studios, complete with lyrics and memorabilia.

The Grateful Dead’s Halloween 1971 performance is almost enough to make one believe in spirits. For that night—captured on Dick’s Picks Vol. 2—Columbus, Ohio 10/31/71, the only single CD release in the entire Dick’s Picks series—the group played the most ethereal, dreamy, and, yes, spooky version of “Dark Star” ever recorded; it’s almost as if Jerry Garcia was communing with his ancestors  (and maybe John Coltrane) for the first seven minutes of his beautifully structured, contemplative and yearning solo. Then, after the vocal verse, Garcia, rhythm guitarist Bob Weir and bassist Phil Lesh take turns suggesting a new improvisational theme before the band telepathically picks up on a two-note theme and Garcia launches into some of the most ecstatic guitar playing ever captured on tape anywhere (labeled by some the “Tighten Up” jam after the Archie Bell & the Drells song; others hear an embryonic “Eyes of the World”). The rest of the disc is more than fine, with a spirited “Sugar Magnolia,” a rare, early-‘70s performance of “St. Stephen” (the final live version until 1976) and a great “Not Fade Away”/”Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad” closer rounding out the 59-minute program. But really, the “Dark Star” is worth the price of this single CD release alone. Out of print for years!

Real Gone is also putting back into print some of its most-requested out-of-print releases. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s soundtrack to The Holy Mountain (co-composed by Ron Frangipane and jazz legend Don Cherry) is every bit as hallucinatory as the fantastic visual imagery in the film, and the label is putting out a limited edition (of 500) blue vinyl pressing of this double-album package, complete with liner notes and production stills. Out January 15. Then, the label is taking a walk on the even wilder side with its re-pressing of Charles Bukowski: Reads His Poetry, which captures the notorious author and libertine at a 1972 reading at which the topics included perversion, poverty, drunkenness, gambling and bodily functions. The ultimate non-PC record, out in a “yellow beer” vinyl edition limited to 400 copies.  In addition, Real Gone is reissuing some out-of print compact discs.  The Red Bird Girls—Very First Time in True Stereo collection brought together 20 classic ‘n’ rare girl group tracks from George Goldner’s Red Bird label and issued them in true stereo for the very first time; it appears here in lower-priced, jewel case version. And one of the all-time great “horn” bands, The Ides of March, sees their classic Vehicle album come back out in a lower-priced Expanded Slipcase Edition featuring four single bonus tracks and liner notes boasting quotes from Jim Peterik and Larry Millas.

JANUARY 15, 2016 RELEASE FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain: Original Soundtrack (Limited Blue Vinyl Edition)

FEBRUARY 5, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys Featuring Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley: The Complete Jessup Recordings Plus!

Marty Robbins: Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (Limited 180-Gram Black Vinyl Edition)

Doug Sahm: Doug Sahm and Band (Limited Gold Vinyl Edition)

Circle Jerks: VI

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 2—Columbus, Ohio 10/31/71

Various Artists: The Red Bird Girls—Very First Time in True Stereo (Jewel Case Version)

The Ides of March: Vehicle (Expanded Slipcase Edition)

FEBRUARY 12, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Barbara Mandrell: This Time I Almost Made It—The Lost Columbia Masters

Charles Bukowski: Reads His Poetry (Limited Yellow Beer Vinyl Edition)

Tue, 01/19/2016 - 3:58 pm

You know that old saying about March going in like a lion and going out like a lamb? Well, that would apply to Real Gone Music’s March release schedule, except that this set of titles actually already chewed up that lion and spit him out…it’s that fearless and far-ranging. Kicking it off is some unreleased, funky, live soul-jazz from flautist Herbie Mann and his incredible, late-‘60s band featuring free jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock…two CDs’ of amazing jams. Then, the label once again proves its pop bona-fides with a 2-CD set featuring the hitherto largely unavailable Motown recordings of the great Bobby Darin, the missing chapter of a legendary career. And Real Gone devotes two more two-CD sets to a pair of giants, guitarist-singer-songwriter Dave Mason and honky-tonker supreme (and club owner) Mickey Gilley. In both cases, the packages are the most comprehensive collections ever afforded the artist.

R&B has not been a musical genre well served by the vinyl revolution of the past several years, but Real Gone has a couple of absolutely seminal releases coming out in March that will slake the appetite of starved soul fans everywhere. First off, the label is releasing Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds’ masterful soundtrack to Waiting to Exhale, which featured everybody from Whitney Houston to Aretha Franklin to Mary J. Blige to Patti LaBelle to Chaka Khan, on vinyl for the first time ever in America. The release features newly created gatefold packaging and limited edition purple vinyl. Then, the O’Jays’ beyond-classic album Back Stabbers receives its first-ever reissue, in limited-edition 180-gram black vinyl. A must for every self-respecting soul collection.

Finally, the label is releasing complete collections from two artists on its roster. And, true to form, they are strange bedfellows indeed: post-punkers The Lords of the New Church and pop vocalist Margaret Whiting. These new packages offer consumers to own the artists’ complete oeuvre at a new low price.

While jazz flautist Herbie Mann is often remembered as a pop-jazz player, he was actually a pioneer in popularizing world music and even prog-rock with recordings released on his own Embryo imprint (as part of Atlantic Records). And in the late ‘60s, he was fronting one of the most progressive and electrifying bands in the world: guitarist Sonny Sharrock, Miroslav Vitous on electric & upright bass, saxophonist Steve Marcus, drummer Bruno Carr, and vibraphonist Roy Ayers. Together, the sextet cut the dynamic Live at the Whisky A Go Go album in 1969, drawn from a four night run at the legendary nightclub on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. Though the band’s repertoire was quite varied on these dates, just two side-long tracks, “Ooh Baby” and “Philly Dog,” surfaced on the Atlantic Records release. Now, reissue producer Pat Thomas has unearthed the multi-track tapes for these shows (never before mixed), and has programmed a double-CD set entitled Live at the Whisky 1969—The Unreleased Masters that shows this high-energy jazz-rock outfit stretching out – sometimes, on Sharrock’s solos, way out – with, as an added bonus, the appearance of Linda Sharrock on songs that appeared (in studio versions) on the seminal Sonny Sharrock album Black Woman released around the time of these live shows. All performances are previously unreleased, including a 23-minute jam of Donovan’s “Tangier” blending into Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter” and a newly discovered take of “Ooh Baby” that clocks in at 21 minutes! Sonny Sharrock’s searing lead guitar work is featured on songs first recorded by Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, and Simon & Garfunkel – plus “Black Woman” and “Portrait of Linda in Three Colors” with Linda on vocalsLive at the Whisky 1969—The Unreleased Masters presents two CDs filled to the brim with explosive, yet ethereal innovative jazz-rock at its best. Fans of Bitches Brew, The Inner Mounting Flame, early Weather Report and similar-era titles will quickly realize that Herbie Mann was not just a pop-jazzbo – but a force to be taken more seriously than history has accorded him. File this CD between Soft Machine 3rd and the jazz-funk of The Crusaders.  Packaging includes several previously unpublished live photos of this band in action, with notes by Thomas. A huge jazz find.

Bobby Darin was so much more than just “Mack the Knife.”  In just 37 years, the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and entrepreneur raced against the clock to conquer records, film, and television as he successfully transitioned from rock-and-roll teen idol to tuxedoed swinger and then to denim-clad folk troubadour.  At the dawn of the 1970s, and still battling the chronic heart problems that had plagued him since youth, the superstar artist signed with Berry Gordy’s renowned Motown Records.  At Motown, the versatile artist reinvented himself yet again, recording some of the most vibrant and vital music of his remarkable career.  He tackled Hitsville, USA-style R&B and soul alongside original songs and personal re-interpretations of favorites by the day’s top pop and rock songwriters including Randy Newman, Cat Stevens, Paul Williams, and Bob Dylan.  Darin released just one studio album and a number of singles at Motown before his untimely death in December 1973; the following year, producer Bob Crewe assembled a posthumous LP to celebrate his friend’s life and music.  Yet, as the decades passed, Darin’s artistically wide-ranging Motown recordings were all but forgotten.  Now, just two months before what would have been the singer’s 80th birthday on May 14, 2016, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records proudly present the first-ever retrospective of the final chapter of the legendary Bobby Darin’s musical life.  The 2-CD Another Song on My Mind: The Motown Years brings together the self-titled 1972 Bobby Darin album – never released on CD anywhere in the world – with Crewe’s original, never-on-CD mix of the posthumous Darin 1936-1973.  If that’s not enough, this definitive, freshly-remastered anthology also adds every one of Bobby’s Motown singles as well as the remixed tracks from the short-lived CD reissue of Darin 1936-1973!  The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese supplies the new liner notes for this landmark release, with remastering by Mike Milchner at SonicVision.  Another Song on My Mind: The Motown Years is certain to prove one of 2016’s most significant archival collections for fans of Motown, R&B, pop, soul, and classic vocals, and celebrates the singer’s 80th birthday in style.

After British singer-songwriter-guitarist Dave Mason left Traffic, the band he co-founded, he embarked on a successful session and solo career that saw him notch seven straight Top 100 charting albums for the Columbia label between 1973 and 1980. Now, Real Gone Music is releasing by far the most comprehensive collection of this crucial part of Mason’s career; the two-CD set The Columbia Years—The Definitive Anthology includes 30 tracks drawn from all of his albums for Columbia (It’s Like You Never Left, Dave Mason, Split Coconut, Certified Live, Let It Flow, Mariposa De Oro, and Old Crest on a New Wave). Along the way you’ll hear such chart hits and FM radio faves as “We Just Disagree,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “So High (Rock Me Baby and Roll Me Away),” “Let It Go, Let It Flow,” “Save Me,” and “Head Keeper,” plus smokin’ live versions of early career highlights like “Feelin’ Alright,” “Pearly Queen,” and “Only You Know and I Know.” Bill Kopp’s notes feature an exclusive interview with Dave Mason, and the package is remastered by Maria Triana at Sony’s Battery Studios. Mason’s solo oeuvre remains underappreciated; this collection sheds new light on one of rock’s most valuable players.

Long-time co-owner of the famous Gilley’s nightclub that was featured in Urban Cowboy, cousin to both Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart, and country music superstar with over 45 chart hits to his credit (and a licensed commercial airplane pilot to boot!), Mickey Gilley is a larger than life figure if there ever was one. Yet, to date, there has never been a comprehensive collection that covered his entire career, which saw him adopt honky-tonk, countrypolitan, and “crossover” country-pop styles with equal success over three decades. Now, Real Gone Music has assembled a 41-track package that contains 36 chart hits—we’re not calling it The Definitive Hits Collection for nothing! In fact, of his chart smashes for the Playboy and Epic labels, where he spent the prime of his career, all but five of them appear here, including such legendary tracks as “Room Full of Roses,” “City Lights,” “She’s Pulling Me Back Again,” “Stand by Me” (featured in the film Urban Cowboy), “You Don’t Know Me,” “True Love Ways,” and “Paradise Tonight,” his hit duet with Charly McClain. Notes by Chris Morris featuring an interview with Mickey Gilley, and remastering by Maria Triana at Sony’s Battery Studios make this set an absolute must for any country music fan.

Waiting to Exhale was a phenomenon on so many levels. First, it was a literary phenomenon, as the 1992 novel launched author Terry McMillan to superstardom. Then, when the feature film based on the book was released in 1995, it became a broader cultural phenomenon—a mainstream Hollywood film focusing on the lives of four African-American women was a genuinely revolutionary act at the time. And, finally, it was a musical phenomenon, as its soundtrack seamlessly blended female R&B divas new (Whitney Houston, Brandy, Mary J. Blige, etc.) and old (Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan) in a masterful suite of songs composed and produced by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds. Critical and commercial reaction to the soundtrack was over the top; The New York Times deemed the album one of the Top Ten releases of the year, and the record topped the Billboard Pop and R&B charts for five and ten weeks, respectively, spawning the #1 hit singles “Exhale (Shoop Shoop),” “Not Gon’ Cry,” and “Let It Flow.” Yet, because the album came out in 1995 at the height of the CD era, Waiting to Exhale never came out on LP in the U.S., and was released in Europe as a low-budget 2-LP set with both records stuffed inside a single album jacket pocket. Now, Real Gone Music is releasing this landmark ‘90s R&B album on vinyl in America for the first time in a limited edition (of 1000) gatefold double-LP package sporting a luminous photo of the movie’s four principal actors (Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Lela Rochon, and Loretta Devine) on the inside spread and pristine vinyl pressed in purple (Whitney’s favorite color).  Gently pulsating and seductive, Waiting to Exhale is Babyface’s masterpiece, and one of the great make-out records of all time, finally available in vinyl Stateside.

Deemed by many the pinnacle of the Philly Sound as perfected by legendary producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, 1972’s Back Stabbers from the vocal trio The O’Jays scored no less than two Top Five Pop and three Top Five R&B smashes with the songs “Love Train,” “Time to Get Down,” and the title tune (plus another Top 20 R&B hit with “992 Arguments”). But it’s more than the hits that make this album a soul classic; honed by a decade of woodshedding, the vocal arrangements of O’Jays Eddie Levert, William Powell and Walter Williams are simply sublime, and, when married to Gamble & Huff’s polished backing tracks, they render such album tracks as “(They Call Me) Mr. Lucky” and “Who Am I” every bit as potent as the better-known songs. In short, Back Stabbers is a masterpiece through and through, one that brought both the O’Jays and Gamble and Huff to national attention, but it’s never been reissued on vinyl in the “modern” era. With lacquer cutting by Kevin Gray, Real Gone Music’s limited (to 700 copies) 180-gram black vinyl edition just might sound better than the original pressing, and includes the original artwork.

Phrases don’t get much more oxymoronic than “punk supergroup,” but The Lords of the New Church had a pedigree no punk band could match. Lead singer Stiv Bators had spearheaded the Dead Boys, one of America’s preeminent young, loud, and snotty outfits, while guitarist Brian James was the guitarist for the Damned, who, along with the Sex Pistols and the Clash, were in the first wave and first rank of Britain’s punk groups. The rest of the band were no slouches, either; bassist Dave Tregugna and drummer Nick Turner hailed from Sham 69 and the Barracudas, respectively, two acts not quite as hallowed but each highly-esteemed.  Anticipation was high among the leather jacket and Mohawk set, therefore, when their debut album came out in 1982, but the Lords, secure in their punk bona-fides, brought a highly stylized look and a new melodic polish to the music, which alienated some followers but brought a whole new element into their fan base. Furthermore, what the music lacked in fury, the band made up for with incendiary live shows which often ended up with Bators doing physical harm to himself (and reputedly being clinically dead for several minutes after one gig). Now, Real Gone Music is offering the first three, classic albums that the band recorded for the I.R.S. label (and the only ones recorded by the original line-up)—The Lords of the New Church, Is Nothing Sacred?, and The Method to Our Madness—in one nicely-priced 3-CD set entitled The Complete I.R.S. Albums Collection. Each album comes complete with notes by Scott Schinder, too—get a big chunk of seminal post-punk in one fell swoop!

Together with Peggy Lee, Margaret Whiting was the only female vocalist to have hits in the ‘40s, ‘50s and even in the late ‘60s, when the rock and roll sound sidetracked the career of most of her peers. But unlike Peggy, Margaret’s ‘60s recordings—made with producer Arnold Goland and released on the London label—remained tough to find for years. Now, Real Gone Music, in conjunction with the Whiting estate, has compiled a 2-CD, 50-track set offering The Complete London Recordings, with notes by highly esteemed music critic Will Friedwald and pictures from the Whiting family’s private archive. Inside are Margaret’s London albums The Wheel of Hurt, Maggie Isn’t Margaret Anymore, and Pop Country, all remastered from the original stereo master tapes, plus 13 non-LP singles and four other rarities. Paydirt for pop vocal fans.

MARCH 4, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

The O’Jays: Back Stabbers (Limited 180-Gram Vinyl Edition)

The Lords of the New Church: The Complete I.R.S. Albums Collection (3-CD Set)

Margaret Whiting: The Complete London Recordings (2-CD Set)

MARCH 11, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Herbie Mann: Live at the Whisky 1969—The Unreleased Masters (2-CD Set)

Bobby Darin: Another Song on My Mind—The Motown Years (2-CD Set)

Dave Mason: The Columbia Years—The Definitive Anthology (2—CD Set)

Mickey Gilley: The Definitive Hits Collection (2-CD Set)

Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album (Limited Purple Vinyl Gatefold Edition) (2-LP Set)

Wed, 02/03/2016 - 7:57 am

While jazz flautist Herbie Mann is often remembered as a pop-jazz player, he was actually a pioneer in popularizing world music and even prog-rock with recordings released on his own Embryo imprint (as part of Atlantic Records). And in the late ‘60s, he was fronting one of the most progressive and electrifying bands in the world: guitarist Sonny Sharrock, Miroslav Vitous on electric & upright bass, saxophonist Steve Marcus, drummer Bruno Carr, and vibraphonist Roy Ayers. Together, the sextet cut the dynamic Live at the Whisky A Go Go album in 1969, drawn from a four night run at the legendary nightclub on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. Though the band’s repertoire was quite varied on these dates, just two side-long tracks, “Ooh Baby” and “Philly Dog,” surfaced on the Atlantic Records release.

Now, reissue producer Pat Thomas has unearthed the multi-track tapes for these shows (never before mixed), and has programmed a double-CD set that shows this high-energy jazz-rock outfit stretching out – sometimes, on Sharrock’s solos, way out – with, as an added bonus, the appearance of Linda Sharrock on songs that appeared (in studio versions) on the seminal Sonny Sharrock album Black Woman released around the time of these live shows.

All performances are previously unreleased, including a 23-minute jam of Donovan’s “Tangier” blending into Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter” and a newly discovered take of “Ooh Baby” that clocks in at 21 minutes! Sonny Sharrock’s searing lead guitar work is featured on songs first recorded by Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, and Simon & Garfunkel – plus “Black Woman” and Portrait of Linda in Three Colors” with Linda on vocals.  Live at the Whisky 1969—The Unreleased Masters presents two CDs filled to the brim with explosive, yet ethereal innovative jazz-rock at its best. Fans of Bitches Brew, The Inner Mounting Flame, early Weather Report and similar-era titles will quickly realize that Herbie Mann was not just a pop-jazzbo – but a force to be taken more seriously than history has accorded him. File this CD between Soft Machine 3rdand the jazz-funk of The Crusaders.

Packaging includes several previously unpublished live photos of this band in action, with notes by Thomas. A huge jazz find!

SONGS:

Disc One

1. Untitled Jam

2. Tangier/If I Were a Carpenter

3. Memphis Underground

4. Ooh Baby

5. Scarborough Fair

Disc Two

1. Black Woman

2. All Blues

3. If I Were a Carpenter

4. Philly Dog

5. Portrait of Linda in Three Colors, All Black

6. Comin’ Home Baby/Battle Hymn of the Republic/Comin’ Home Baby

7. Chain of Fools

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 11:21 am

 After a month off to take care of some business (the label changed distribution), Real Gone comes roaring back in May with a release schedule with something for just about every music lover. Two long out-of-print live albums from the Cannonball Adderley Quintet—both produced by the legendary David Axelrod—debut on CD, offering the tenor sax titan’s trademark blend of free jazz, fusion, R&B and always a whole lot of soul. Right on the heels of Mavis Staples’ new solo record comes a twofer containing two classic albums the Staple Singers cut for the Epic label in the mid ‘60s, both also making their CD debuts. And two albums crucial to the development of country rock, The Beau Brummels’ Triangle and Bradley’s Barn, rest cheek by jowl on one impossibly melodic CD.

Then, Real Gone serves up some long sought-after vinyl platters with the limited edition release on 180-gram of the ferocious debut record from Cactus, the supergroup featuring Vanilla Fudge’s Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert, The Detroit Wheels’ Jim McCarty, and Amboy Dukes vocalist Rusty Day, and, on translucent green vinyl, the soundtrack to The Return of the Living Dead (braaiiinsss!) with songs by The Cramps, The Damned, The Flesh Eaters and more.

Finally, the label delves deep into the catalog of singer-songwriter/guitarist Dan Fogelberg with a 2-CD retrospective that pulls 28 tracks from 11 different albums for a comprehensive career retrospective, while country great Johnny Paycheck receives the same thorough treatment with a 40-track set that contains a full 32 of his chart hits. Real Gone then winds down its 36-volume reissue series of the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks by releasing Vol. 1 (and starting all over again by re-releasing Vol. 36). And, after a two-month delay, the label’s long-awaited retrospective of Bobby Darin’s Motown years finally comes to fruition.

Julian “Cannonball” Adderley first gained notice as the bluesier saxophone voice on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (John Coltrane being the other), and in the late ‘60s and early ’70s, he was engaged in an ongoing artistic conversation with Miles, often trading musicians (e.g. Joe Zawinul) with him and taking the electric innovations of Bitches Brew and filtering them with through his own earthy sensibility. The height of Cannonball’s fusion phase arguably came in 1970, a year that yielded no less than three live albums—all produced by David Axelrod—that have since ascended to cult favorite status. We at Real Gone have already issued one of them, the double-album Black Messiah; now, we’re back with a double-barreled blast of Cannonball, as we reissue for the first time on CD two albums released by The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free and Music, You All. Both releases feature liner notes by Bill Kopp that include quotes from Cannonball’s drummer at the time, Roy McCurdy, and remastering by Mike Milchner at SonicVision. Drawn from a performance at the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival and “live in the studio” tracks cut at Capitol, the double-album The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free was a testament to Cannonball Adderley’s sprawling artistic vision, embracing abstract improvisation, funky soul-jazz, hard bop, and world music. It also offered the lone lead vocal of the saxman’s entire career (on Milton Nascimento’s “Bridges”), and was the last Cannonball Adderley album to feature keyboardist Joe Zawinul, who contributes the key compositions “Directions,” “Painted Desert,” and “Rumplestiltskin.” The record went to #5 on the Billboard Jazz chart and #169 on the Top 200, quite a remarkable showing given the avant-garde stylings of such numbers as “Out and In” and “Alto Sex,” although the album also did include such trademark populist Cannonball fare as “Down in Black Bottom” and “Get Up off Your Knees.”  Music, You All, meanwhile, was put together by Axelrod from the same 1970 Troubadour performances that yielded the album Black Messiah; featuring the same line-up (the two Adderley brothers, Cannon and Nat; keyboardist George Duke; bassist Walter Booker; drummer Roy McCurdy, and special guests guitarist Mike Deasy, percussionist Airto Moreira and saxman Ernie Watts), the album displayed the same uncompromisingly eclectic rock/soul/jazz fusion as did its companion release. But on Music, You All, Cannonball’s warmly iconoclastic stage personality really comes to the fore…witness the two tracks simply entitled “Cannon Raps!” And George Duke fans will flip over this album; check his solo on “Capricorn” for starters. One of those live albums that REALLY makes you wish you were there.

One could make the argument that no gospel group before or since has so successfully straddled the sacred and secular worlds as has The Staple Singers. The enormously influential blues guitar stylings of Roebuck “Pops” Staples, the astonishing, wise-beyond-their-years lead vocals of Mavis Staples, and the exalted harmonies of Cleotha, Pervis, and (later) Yvonne Staples packed a punch whether singing about salvation or civil rights. Now, Real Gone Music welcomes “God’s greatest hitmakers” into the fold with its release of two classic albums by The Staple Singers on a single CD, their second and third releases and first two studio records for the Epic label, both produced by Billy Sherrill. 1965’s Amen! features the infectious title track along with Pervis’ doleful recitation on the powerful “Be Careful of the Stones You Throw,” while 1966’s Why actually scored a minor hit with the timely “Why (Am I Treated So Bad),” and highlights Mavis at her deep, moaning best on “Move Along Train.” CD debuts for both records, with annotation by Gene Sculatti and remastering by Mike Piacentini at Battery Studios in New York. Two fantastic records…get ready to move and be moved.

While San Francisco’s Beau Brummels are best known to casual fans for the British Invasion-style hits “Laugh, Laugh” and “Just a Little,” the two albums they cut for Warner Bros. with producer Lenny Waronker, Triangle and Bradley’s Barn, remain their most artistically ambitious and critically acclaimed records, and continue to exert an influence on modern-day rockers well beyond their modest commercial success. The group was at a low point when they recorded Triangle; they were fresh off the debacle of Beau Brummels ’66, the album of covers that was their ill-conceived Warner debut, and the original quintet had shrunk down to a trio of vocalist Sal Valentino, guitarist and principal songwriter Ron Elliott, and bassist Ron Meagher.  But with Waronker as producer, the band was for the first time given the freedom to craft a coherent project from beginning to end, with help from some creative sidemen like Van Dyke Parks; the result was a moody, mysterious masterpiece that spoke to the psychedelic spirit of 1967 yet stood apart from it with such ethereal songs as “Magic Hollow” and “Painter of Women.” Triangle also had hints of the newly emerging country rock style, and for 1968’s Bradley’s Barn, the Beau Brummels (now just consisting of Valentino and Elliott with Meagher off to the military) went to Nashville to record with such crack Music City session men as Jerry Reed, David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, and Kenneth Buttrey. Unfortunately, Bradley’s Barn met the same fate as Triangle, scoring big with critics but not with audiences; today, however, highlighted by such twangy tunes as “Loneliest Man in Town” and “Long Walking Down to Misery,” it’s reckoned as a country rock landmark and a true alt-country precursor. Real Gone Music is proud to present these two classic albums together on one CD for the first time, complete with Richie Unterberger’s liner notes featuring quotes from songwriter Ron Elliott.   Essential listening from perhaps the most underrated band of the ‘60s.

Finally back on vinyl where it belongs comes the 1970 self-titled debut record from the supercharged supergroup that melted minds and loudspeakers (not necessarily in that order)! We’re talking Cactus, people, with the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section of bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, Amboy Dukes vocalist Rusty Day, and, oh yes, the AMAZING guitarist Jim McCarty, late of the Detroit Wheels but somehow reincarnated here as the speed freak spawn of Alvin Lee, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. McCarty’s frenetic soloing with an impossibly overdriven tone that Jack White only dreams of matching powers (and we do mean POWERS) incredible versions of “Parchman Farm” and “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover” as well as bloozy, boogie-in’ originals like “Let Me Swim” and “Oleo.” Our Real Gone reissue of Cactus comes in a limited edition (of 700) 180-gram edition that captures every bit of the glorious sonic excess with the original cover art intact (hey, is that cactus giving you the finger?). TURN IT UP!

There are zombies…and then there are brain-eating zombies! And Return of the Living Dead was the film where brain-eating zombies got their first lease on, er, life. Co-written by John Russo, who was George Romero’s writing partner on Night of the Living Dead, this 1985 quasi-sequel introduced more “splatstick” humor to the horror formula as well as the indelible image of ghouls groaning “Braainsss” as they shuffle along. All set to a KILLER score featuring the greatest punk and death rock bands of the era, including The Cramps, 45 Grave, The Flesh Eaters, The Damned, Roky Erickson, The Jet Black Berries, T.S.O.L. and SSQ. This marks the first-ever vinyl reissue of this classic soundtrack, and it is just so Real Gone: 750 copies in limited edition translucent green vinyl! Braainsss!

He’s commonly thought of as the quintessential West Coast singer songwriter, but, as his celebrated collaborations with jazz flautist Tim Weisberg and soundtrack composer Domenic Frontiere demonstrate, the Peoria-born Dan Fogelberg had a restless artistic spirit that took him beyond the typical country-influenced, folk-rock sound of his contemporaries. And it is that constant thirst for experimentation and change that make this new 2-CD career-spanning retrospective such a great listen. From rockers like “Phoenix,” “As the Raven Flies,” and “The Power of Gold,” to chart-topping, radio-friendly fare like “Longer,” “Same Old Lang Syne,” “Hard to Say,” and “Leader of the Band,” to more idiosyncratic offerings like  “Tucson, Arizona (Gazette)” and “Heart Hotels,” The Definitive Anthology cherry picks 28 tracks from ten of Fogelberg’s studio releases plus two tracks (“Missing You” and “Make Love Stay”) that first were released on his Greatest Hits album to form a full portrait of a multi-faceted, complex songwriter and musician. Bill Kopp’s liner notes guide the listener through each album and track. Remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York.

Never less than authentic, and irascible to the very end, Johnny Paycheck was one of country music’s all-time great honky-tonkers and most incorrigible outlaws, one of the truly larger than life figures in a genre that’s full of ‘em. Paycheck got his break in the early ‘60s backing up George Jones (who appears on a couple of hit duets on this collection), then changed his name from Donald Lytle to Johnny Paycheck and recorded some cult classic hard country sides with maverick producer Aubrey Mayhew on the Little Darlin’ label. Nashville producer Billy Sherrill brought him to Epic, where he scored a series of pop-flavored smashes, but not even Sherrill could tame him, and by the mid-‘70s Paycheck joined the outlaw country movement, which suited his renegade temperament just fine. “Take This Job and Shove It,” “Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets,” and “I’m the Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised)” (all included here) were among his biggest outlaw sides. In the end, Paycheck succumbed to some of the self-destructive tendencies he celebrated in song and wound up in jail, but he left behind some of the greatest country of the ‘70s. Now, Real Gone Music has put together the ultimate collection of his seminal Epic recordings; Take This Job and Shove It—The Definitive Collection offers 40 songs including a full 32 of his chart hits for the label featuring such classic tunes as “She’s All I Got,” “Someone to Give My Love To,” and “Mr. Lovemaker.” Chris Morris’ liner notes explore the life, music, and times of one of country music’s most colorful characters, while remastering is by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios. Essential, real country.

With the release of Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 1—Tampa, Florida 12/1/73, we at Real Gone Music conclude our reissue campaign of all 36 volumes of the Dick’s Picks series; we went in reverse order, so we’re ending with the first volume in the series, which you know had to have a special place in compiler Dick Latvala’s heart! And right off the bat you’ll hear why; the version of “Here Comes Sunshine” that leads off disc one is pretty much universally considered the best ever. Throw in a great rendition of the rarely-performed “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” that leads into a stellar 16-minute jam that flirts with a full-fledged “The Other One” but dances spacily away, and a moving “Stella Blue” before the “Around and Around” finale and you have another great night—in fact, the LAST night—from a great year (1973) of touring….and, as such, the perfect way to begin and end the long strange trip that is the Dick’s Picks series (in a perfectly symmetrical move, Real Gone is also re-releasing Dick’s Picks Vol. 36—The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 9/21/72, the volume that started its whole reissue campaign). Out of print for years!

Bobby Darin was so much more than just “Mack the Knife.”  In just 37 years, the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and entrepreneur raced against the clock to conquer records, film, and television as he successfully transitioned from rock-and-roll teen idol to tuxedoed swinger and then to denim-clad folk troubadour.  At the dawn of the 1970s, and still battling the chronic heart problems that had plagued him since youth, the superstar artist signed with Berry Gordy’s renowned Motown Records.  At Motown, the versatile artist reinvented himself yet again, recording some of the most vibrant and vital music of his remarkable career.  He tackled Hitsville, USA-style R&B and soul alongside original songs and personal re-interpretations of favorites by the day’s top pop and rock songwriters including Randy Newman, Cat Stevens, Paul Williams, and Bob Dylan.  Darin released just one studio album and a number of singles at Motown before his untimely death in December 1973; the following year, producer Bob Crewe assembled a posthumous LP to celebrate his friend’s life and music.  Yet, as the decades passed, Darin’s artistically wide-ranging Motown recordings were all but forgotten.  Now, just two months before what would have been the singer’s 80th birthday on May 14, 2016, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records proudly present the first-ever retrospective of the final chapter of the legendary Bobby Darin’s musical life.  The 2-CD Another Song on My Mind: The Motown Years brings together the self-titled 1972 Bobby Darin album – never released on CD anywhere in the world – with Crewe’s original, never-on-CD mix of the posthumous Darin 1936-1973.  If that’s not enough, this definitive, freshly-remastered anthology also adds every one of Bobby’s Motown singles as well as the remixed tracks from the short-lived CD reissue of Darin 1936-1973!  The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese supplies the new liner notes for this landmark release, with remastering by Universal’s Kevin Reeves.  Another Song on My Mind: The Motown Years is certain to prove one of 2016’s most significant archival collections for fans of Motown, R&B, pop, soul, and classic vocals, and celebrates the singer’s 80th birthday in style.  Back on the schedule after a two-month delay!

MAY 6, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet: The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet: Music, You All

The Staple Singers: Amen!/Why

The Beau Brummels: Triangle/Bradley’s Barn

Cactus: Cactus (Limited 180-Gram Vinyl Edition)

The Return of the Living Dead: Original Soundtrack (Limited Translucent Green Vinyl Edition)

Dan Fogelberg: The Definitive Anthology (2-CD Set)

Johnny Paycheck: Take This Job and Shove It—The Definitive Collection (2-CD Set)

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 1—Tampa, Florida 12/1/73 (2-CD Set)

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 36—The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 9/12/72 (4-CD Set)

Bobby Darin: Another Song on My Mind—The Motown Years (2-CD Set)

Thu, 04/21/2016 - 7:21 am

Summer brings the live festival season, and Real Gone Music is giving music fans a V.I.P. pass to its own star-studded event with a pair of unreleased concerts from two great live bands: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band featuring the killer guitar duo of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, and the quintessential British folk-rock band Fairport Convention. Both sets come complete with liner notes, photos, and, most importantly, amazing performances. Then, the label takes a stylistic swerve as it only can with an expanded and remastered version of the seminal West Coast gangsta rap album No One Can Do It Better by The D.O.C., known for his work with Dr. Dre and N.W.A.

 

The label also tackles the work of two superstars of the ‘70s and ‘80s, respectively, with a pair of two-CD compilations covering the work of Edgar Winter and Air Supply. Both collections are the largest ever afforded the artist(s). Real Gone continues its survey of the great British female vocalists (e.g. Dusty Springfield, Lesley Gore) with a collection of the rare Scotti Brothers recordings by the legendary Petula Clark. And the earliest recordings by Loudon Wainwright III, the two albums he made for the Atlantic label, receive a long-overdue reissue.

 

Real Gone is also putting back into print some key titles from the early days of the label, including the long-lost solo album from Sam Samudio (the man who put the “Sam” in Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs), the two rare Cameo albums from trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson, and a very limited, “wine-red” vinyl pressing of a spoken word album from cult figure Charles Bukowski. Finally, Real Gone resurrects a couple of long-deleted volumes of the Dick’s Picks series featuring some of the greatest Grateful Dead live performances ever captured on tape.

 

If the Summer of 1967 was the Summer of Love, the Summer of 1966 set the stage for the musical revolution that was to come. Albums released during the season, like The Beatles’ Revolver and The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension, brilliantly blended the burgeoning influence of Eastern exoticism into the rock music format, and the term “psychedelia” entered the common lexicon to stay. But beating them all to the punch was a multi-racial blues band that cut its teeth in Chicago, far from the hippie havens of London, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Issued in July 1966, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s East-West took blues-rock to places only free jazz had dared to tread, offering lengthy, modal improvisational passages that sparked the West Coast rock revolution, and, in Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, fully unleashing the first great guitar tandem in rock history. Now, Real Gone Music is very proud to release, for the first time in legitimate fashion, a legendary bootleg that captures this singular sextet on the brink of the stylistic breakthrough that would shake the rock ‘n’ roll world to its core: recorded live at Boston’s Unicorn Coffee House 50 years ago in May 1966, two months before the release of East-West, Got a Mind to Give Up Living—Live 1966 reaffirms that The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was simply untouchable live, capable of turning on a dime from slow-burning blues tunes to up-tempo rave-ups. And, particularly on a pair of tunes that were soon to be released on East-West, “Work Song” and “I Got a Mind to Give Up Living,” the raga influence (check Bloomfield’s solos!) comes through loud and clear, combining with the band’s blues tropes to create a truly new style of rock and rock guitar playing. Butterfield fans will also delight in the early appearances of “One More Heartache” (from The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw) and “Walking by Myself” (from Keep On Movin’), plus a pair of tunes, “Comin’ Home Baby” and “Memory Pain,” that the band never commercially recorded. Notes by Chris Morris featuring fresh quotes from Elvin Bishop and Mark Naftalin, rare pictures and memorabilia, editorial input from Bloomfield aficionado and co-producer Toby Byron, and some audio spit ‘n’ polish from Mike Milchner at SonicVision make this a package indispensable for any ‘60s rock (or jazz or R&B!) fan.

 

Hosts of the annual Cropredy Festival and a mere year shy of their 50th anniversary, Fairport Convention is the British folk-rock group, and many of the most talented and celebrated musicians in the scene have passed through their ranks. Of their many line-ups, generally it’s the Richard Thompson-Ashley Hutchings-Sandy Denny era that gets the most attention, followed by the return of Denny in the mid-‘70s with husband Trevor Lucas. But if there is one line-up that really doesn’t get its due, it would be the quartet of guitarist Simon Nicol, bassist Dave Pegg, fiddler Dave Swarbrick, and drummer Dave Mattacks that remained after Richard Thompson departed following Full House. Together, the four made two fine, underrated studio albums, Angel Delight and “Babbacombe” Lee, but live—as this unreleased August 1971 concert demonstrates—they were a revelation. Never during any of its eras did Fairport rock harder, and, though the band lacked any lead vocalist of the stature of Denny or Iain Matthews, all four members of the group sang and sang well, which lent their on-stage act extra energy. Live in Finland 1971 begins with the viola/violin duet between Nicol and Swarbrick on “Bridge over the River Ash” that appeared on Angel Delight along with the second track, “The Journeyman’s Grace,” but then the set list gets delightfully obscure for Fairport fans with a piledriving version of “Mason’s Apron,” a tune that never showed up on any of their studio albums. Old faves “Sir Patrick Spens” (from Full House) and “Matty Groves” (from Liege and Lief) follow, but then the band launches into the rollicking three-song medley “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament” which only appeared on a 1970 single and whose extended original title vied for entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest of its kind. The show winds up with the more elegiac “Sir William Gower” from Angel Delight, but, make no mistake, this is one blazing set of music, and the ample low-end of this concert recording—mastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision—will have you dancing a jig across your living room. With notes by Richie Unterberger featuring quotes from the band, and photos from the Fairport archives, this is a major addition to the band’s vast discography.

 

With the 2015 release of the film Straight Outta Compton, we at Real Gone Music figured it was about time somebody revisited one of the landmark albums of West Coast rap, The D.O.C.’s No One Can Do It Better. The D.O.C. a.k.a. Tracy Lynn Curry was a behind-the-scenes contributor to some of the biggest and most hallowed rap releases ever, including Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, Eazy-E’s Eazy-Duz-It, and Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, and his Dr. Dre-produced debut record lived up to the braggadocio of its title by going platinum, spawning the #1 rap singles “It’s Funky Enough” and “The D.O.C. & The Doctor,” and being hailed by critics nationwide as one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever recorded. However, there has never been an updated reissue of the original 1989 CD, which, like most releases of the early CD era, doesn’t really do the music sonic justice. Real Gone Music’s Expanded Edition of this classic album adds seven impossible-to-find 12” single mixes to a remastered version of the original release, along with liner notes by Aaron Kannowski that feature exclusive quotes from The D.O.C. himself. No one really could do it better than The D.O.C.—now here’s a better (and longer…75 minutes!) edition of his career-making classic.

 

After gaining notice as a sideman on his brother Johnny’s Second Winter album, keyboardist-saxophonist-composer Edgar Winter signed to Epic Records and quickly became one of the biggest stars of the ‘70s, releasing eight charting albums during the decade including the #3 smash They Only Come Out at Night. But aside from his commercial success, what makes Edgar Winter such an intriguing artist—and worthy of a 2-CD, 30-track retrospective, his biggest ever—is that he never stayed in one stylistic rut. Elements of blues, jazz, soul, rock and funk swirl within his music, sometimes even in the same song (e.g. “Frankenstein”), and the level of musicianship—with such sidemen/band members as Rick Derringer, Ronnie Montrose, Dan Hartman, and, of course, brother Johnny Winter—is never less than top shelf. The Definitive Collection hits all the high points in chronological order, offering such hits and album tracks as “Give It Everything You Got,” “Keep Playin’ That Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo.” “Free Ride,” “Frankenstein,” “River’s Risin’,” “Easy Steet,” and more, and pulls tracks from all 11 of the albums he recorded for Epic and Blue Sky featuring all of the various aggregations (Edgar Winter’s White Trash, The Edgar Winter Group, and his Together album with Johnny) that he led. Bill Kopp’s liner notes share the fruits of a 2 ½ hour-long interview, and we’ve included copious photos and album shots. Remastered by Darren Salmieri at Battery Studios in New York…some of the best blues-rock of the ‘70s!

 

Here they are…the ones that you love. The Columbia & Arista Years—The Definitive Collection includes ALL of the hits that the Australian duo of Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell scored during their sterling, 40-year career, plus a whole lot more—their biggest collection ever! Air Supply simply ruled the ‘80s charts with Top Five hits like “Lost in Love,” “All Out of Love,” “Every Woman in the World,” “The One That You Love,” “Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was over You,” “Sweet Dreams,” “Even the Nights Are Better,” and “Making Love Out of Nothing at All,” and they’re all here, newly remastered by Sean Brennan at Battery Studios to make their indelible pop melodies soar even more than before. But this two-CD, 30-track set contains a lot more for Air Supply fans to savor, like their first single for Columbia, “Love and Other Bruises,” and the David Foster-produced “I Can Wait Forever” from the Ghostbusters soundtrack. Liner notes by Joe Marchese follow the duo’s meteoric rise to the top of the charts, and the package includes art from their albums and added photos. Supreme popcraft in every track!

 

After achieving tremendous success as an international music star in the 1960s and 1970s, Petula Clark began a new phase of her American music career when, after a short hiatus from the States, she was approached by Scotti Brothers Records to return to the recording studio. Label owner Tony Scotti was a fan of Petula's work, and knew that she was capable of singing a variety of styles, including country-flavored tunes. Scotti’s instincts proved dead-on; the slick and twangy toe-tapper “Natural Love,” Petula's debut release for Scotti Brothers, not only brought her back to the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts but also to the Top 20 Country Singles list in 1981. Its success set the stage for follow-ups: Petula's plaintive take on the western torch favorite "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and a pair of pop ballads, "Love Won't Always Pass You By" and "Dreamin' with My Eyes Wide Open." Ironically, at the time Petula wasn't able to capitalize on or properly promote her renewed popularity in the U.S., as she was tied up starring in a record-setting revival of The Sound of Music on stage in London through 1982. However, Scotti Brothers did take advantage by issuing a single for the British market of Petula performing "Edelweiss" from the beloved musical—a song popularized by Petula's childhood friend Julie Andrews in the movie version. Now, for the first time, all of Petula's Scotti Brothers Records masters are brought together on Natural Love—The Scotti Brothers Recordings, which offers all eight single sides—including a pair of original Clark compositions ("Because I Love Him," "Darkness")—and three additional songs not originally released for a total of 11 tracks, several of which are making their CD debut. It's a missing cache of music from one of the most important and versatile voices in the pop world, with incisive liner notes from The Second Disc's Joe Marchese featuring quotes from Petula, period photos and digital remastering by Mike Milchner of SonicVision. Another all-time great female singer brought to you by Real Gone Music.

 

No singer-songwriter has ever stared at himself in the mirror with quite the intense honesty displayed by Loudon Wainwright III throughout his career, but his first two albums, Loudon Wainwright III/Album II, cut for Atlantic in 1970 and 1971, respectively, really bare the soul to a degree perhaps only rivaled by John Lennon’s first solo album with the Plastic Ono Band. Lust, suicidal feelings, fear of parenthood; all are grist for Loudon’s songwriting mill—with such fearless introspection, little wonder he later became an acclaimed actor. But if this all sounds like a tedious wallow, it’s not, for Wainwright is also probably the funniest singer-songwriter ever (Sample rhyming couplet: “And a baby can spot your shtick/All the coochy coochy coo is a lot of poo poo when you spread it on that thick”). This Real Gone release finally brings to retail the original limited edition Rhino Handmade set that was only available online, and then only for a heartbeat before it sold out, complete with bonus track (“Drinking Song”). These 24 tracks represent Loudon’s complete Atlantic recordings…indispensable stuff.

 

After the late-‘60s collapse of Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, the band’s front man and lead singer Domingo “Sam” Samudio signed a solo deal with Atlantic and recorded Sam, Hard and Heavy, a 1971 slice of collector nirvana. Why nirvana? Well, aside from Sam’s estimable vocal and songwriting contributions, the album boasted contributions from, oh, about a half-dozen different flat-out legends, including producers Tom Dowd and Jerry Wexler and sidemen the Dixie Flyers (led by Jim Dickinson), the Memphis Horns, the Sweet Inspirations, and some session guitarist named Duane Allman! The album also won a Grammy for Sam’s hilarious, stream-of-consciousness liner notes (“Thank the monkey”), which we’ve reproduced here along with new notes by Richie Unterberger. Back in print for the first time in years.

 

Released through Real Gone by arrangement with ABKCO Records, and also finally back in print, New Sounds of Maynard Ferguson/Come Blow Your Horn—the Complete Cameo Recordings features two of the most collectible albums in the entire Maynard Ferguson catalog, the two records he recorded in 1963 for the Cameo label in between his stints at the Roulette and Mainstream labels. Maynard still has his great Roulette band of Lanny Morgan, Willie Maiden, Frank Vicari, Mike Abene, Ronnie Cuber and master arranger Don Sebesky et al. with him on these recordings. Both albums feature driving big band arrangements of both standards and originals, and we have unearthed an unreleased bonus track from the New Sounds sessions, a take on the classic “The Song Is You,” exclusively for this reissue. Remastered straight from the original tapes with new liner notes—Maynard’s complete Cameo recordings.

 

“This is Charles Bukowski. Well, let me just sit here and drink beer.” Thus begins the September 14, 1972 poetry reading from which Reads His Poetry, his 1980 release on John Fahey’s Takoma label is drawn. This is quintessential Bukowski, from the rude ‘n’ crude drawing that adorns the front cover to the belches that punctuate the poems. As for the work itself, it’s not really what you’d commonly conceive of as poetry, but rather observations and vignettes drawn from life’s darker side, focusing on perversions, poverty, drunkenness, gambling, and bodily functions. But Bukowski’s bemused air and self-deprecating humor blunt the shock value of the words and emphasize the universality of the themes.  “I want you to hate me,” he says to the audience, but it’s hopeless—he is one of us. Having rescued this recording from the clinical, digital world of the compact disc and restored it to its proper vinyl format, we at Real Gone are now putting it out in a collector’s “red wine” vinyl edition limited to 375 copies. If there were ever an echo of the analog, non-PC (personal computers or politically correct) world, this album would be it. EXPLICIT MATERIAL.

 

 

Real Gone is also reissuing two long out-of-print volumes of live Grateful Dead performances from the Dick’s Picks series. The first, Dick’s Picks Vol. 25—May 10, 1978 New Haven, CT May 11, 1978 Springfield, MA, presents a pair of shows taken from an extended East Coast run in the Spring of 1978. Both concerts—which appear here minus just two and three songs, respectively—find the group in exceptionally lyrical form on ballads like “Loser,” “Stella Blue,” “Looks Like Rain” and “They Love Each Other.” Also not to be missed is a superlative, slowed-down version of “Friend of the Devil” and the rare performance of Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” as an encore (the band only played it about a dozen times live). The second, Dick’s Picks Vol. 31—8/4-5 Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia, PA 8/6/74, Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ, captures the Dead right in the thick of the legendary 1974 Wall of Sound tour and only two months away from leaving the road for a year-and-a-half hiatus. As opposed to most Dick’s Picks collections, this four-disc set offers highlights (including two epic versions of “Playing in the Band”) from three consecutive nights of shows rather than presenting shows in their entirety; the result is that each disc stands on its own as a musical statement. Highly rated by aficionados, and possibly the best Wall of Sound set of shows available, in HDCD sound to boot.

 

 

 

 

 

JUNE 3, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

 

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Got a Mind to Give Up Living—Live 1966

Fairport Convention: Live in Finland 1971

The D.O.C.: No One Can Do It Better (Expanded Edition)

Edgar Winter: The Definitive Collection (2-CD Set)

Air Supply: The Columbia & Arista Years—The Definitive Collection  (2-CD Set)

Petula Clark: Natural Love—The Scotti Brothers Recordings

Loudon Wainwright III: Loudon Wainwright III/Album II—The Atlantic Recordings

Sam Samudio: Sam, Hard and Heavy

Maynard Ferguson: New Sounds of Maynard Ferguson/Come Blow Your Horn—The Complete Cameo Recordings

Charles Bukowski: Reads His Poetry (Limited “Red Wine” Vinyl Edition)

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 25—May 10, 1978 New Haven, CT May 11, 1978 Springfield, MA (4-CD Set)

Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks Vol. 31—8/4-5 Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia, PA 8/6/74, Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ (4-CD Set)

Thu, 06/16/2016 - 7:10 am

Summer’s at its hottest in August, and so is Real Gone’s release schedule! Leading off is the first of three volumes of the complete Atlantic singles of the great Wilson Pickett. With such classic songs as “Mustang Sally,” “Land of 1000 Dances,” and “In the Midnight Hour,” this promises to be the year’s wickedest soul release. Then, Real Gone is releasing the first-ever live album on CD to capture the beloved new wave band The B-52’s in their early prime (1979 to be exact), complete with such classics as “Rock Lobster” and “Planet Claire.”

Real Gone also is bringing to a close its reissue campaign of the classic Reprise albums by the all-female band Fanny with a (vastly) expanded edition of their Mother’s Pride album, complete with tons of rare photos and liner notes by the band (the label is also repressing Fanny’s first album). The legendary folk group The New Christy Minstrels also gets the Real Gone treatment with an expanded edition of its seminal Ramblin’ album, again with loads of bonus tracks and great liner notes by NCM expert Tom Pickles. Then, the label continues its string of 2-CD compilations from the Sony vaults with hit-crammed collections from the country group Diamond Rio and the legendary producer, arranger, and A&R man Mitch Miller. And the label is re-pressing the debut album by Cat Mother and the All-Night Newsboys, which was produced by none other than Jimi Hendrix!

Finally, Real Gone is releasing a limited orange vinyl edition of Faithful, the lost third Atlantic album by Dusty Springfield that the label released to great acclaim on CD several years ago. And probably the greatest postwar Western album of all time, Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, receives a limited magenta vinyl run to match the color of its classic cover art.

Are you ready for the wickedest Real Gone soul collection yet? Here, in one smokin’ hot set, are the first 22 single sides that the great Wilson Pickett recorded for the Atlantic label, some of the most hallowed recordings in the history of soul music. Along with the intoxicating mix of hits—“In the Midnight Hour,” “Mustang Sally,” “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.),” “Land of 1000 Dances,” “Don’t Fight It,” and more—and rare B-sides that come with the territory on a singles collection, you also get those punchy mono single mixes/versions that bring out the raw excitement of these seminal performances, not to mention the incredible musicianship of folks like Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Isaac Hayes. Indeed, even if you purchased Rhino Handmade’s collection of Pickett’s complete Atlantic studio sessions, you don’t own the single versions—this volume (and the two to come after it) are necessary complements to that outstanding set. Remastered by Mike Milchner from sources derived from the original tapes, and annotated by Joe Marchese, who penned the notes on Real Gone’s previous collection of the Wicked Pickett’s RCA recordings, The Complete Atlantic Singles Vol. One presents some of the greatest soul ever waxed exactly how it was originally waxed—as singles for airplay on the radio. It’s the material that made Wilson Pickett a legend.

Best to let the band itself describe this live album, which is only the second B-52’s concert recording and the only one to capture them during their early years: “We opened for the Talking Heads at the Berklee Center in Boston just six weeks after our first record was released. We were a little scared of the audience so we kept our heads down and focused – and we danced like mad when there was a break! Ricky was so fierce on the guitar – so intense – it was all so raw and live and we loved it.” Now, Real Gone Music is very proud to present The B-52’s: Live! 8.24.1979, a key live document of one of America’s most beloved and distinctive New Wave groups on CD for the first time, complete with liner notes by Jason Gross featuring fresh quotes from the band members and rare photos. From “Rock Lobster” to “Private Idaho,” you WILL dance this mess around when you hear this, we promise.

With the release of Fanny’s 1973 album Mother’s Pride, Real Gone Music concludes its reissue campaign of the groundbreaking female rock group’s classic Reprise catalog. And while there might be some argument as to whether or not we have saved the best for last—all four Reprise albums the band put out have their champions among Fanny followers—there is no question that we have saved the biggest for last, as this expanded edition clocks in with no less than eight bonus tracks! Indeed, Mother’s Pride is perhaps the most controversial entry in the Fanny catalog, as Todd Rundgren agreed to produce the album on the condition that he and he alone oversee the album mix. The result was a record that cemented Fanny’s popularity in the U.K. but failed to make a dent in the charts here in the States. Like our previous Fanny reissues (Real Gone is also repressing Fanny, the group’s self-titled debut album), this release features track-by-track annotation from the band as well as rare photos. Another seminal ‘70s rock record from everybody’s favorite “forgotten” all-female rock group, supplemented with rare demos and lost tracks.

The New Christy Minstrels’ classic Ramblin’ album has long been considered that great group’s creative high water work.   Released in July of 1963, the album instantly made the charts and stayed there for 77 weeks, earning founder Randy Sparks and his group their first Gold Record…and bringing fame and a little “Green, Green” to one Barry McGuire.   Here it is again, in long-overdue, sonically superior remastered form – and now in an expanded edition loaded with rare material (including six unreleased tracks) related to the album.   You’ll hear the creation of “Green, Green” – the group’s biggest hit – in unreleased versions that feature members Dolan Ellis, Jackie Miller, and Gayle Caldwell (later “Jackie and Gayle” of Shindig fame), with Barry McGuire on only the third verse.  It’s a great arrangement, very different from the hit single…and a MUST HAVE for every Christy fan.  Plus, you’ll hear the German and Spanish versions of the hit – released in the US for the first time and recorded just after (future Byrd) Gene Clark joined the group.  PLUS…an unreleased “live” version recorded at Randy Sparks’ folk club, Ledbetter’s and a “gag” version with a solo by Randy himself (teasing his group). And, there’s more…you’ll hear the brilliant Nick Woods’ amazing solo of “Natural Man” – originally intended to be the follow up single to “Green, Green.” Those plans were set aside when Randy came up with a little number called “Saturday Night”…which had “hit” written all over it.  Both songs are here…along with “The Banjo” (the B-side of “Green, Green”), “Walk the Road”, an unreleased version of “The Drinking Gourd,” and – most rare of all – a demo of “Last Farewell” (JFK’s favorite Christy song) with a pop arrangement featuring a terrific solo by Randy Sparks himself. It’s a great package for folkies everywhere – remastered by Sean Brennan at Battery Studios in New York, with detailed notes by Christy guru Tom Pickles that tell the story of Randy Sparks and his group at their absolute peak.

Oddly enough for a band that started as an attraction at the Opryland theme park, Diamond Rio turned out to be more authentic and original than most any of their country contemporaries, eschewing session musicians to sing and play everything on just about every song they recorded. Add crisp, multi-part harmony arrangements and excellent songwriting to that streak of homegrown creativity and you had, along with Alabama, the biggest country group of the ‘90s, which The Definitive Hits Collection celebrates by living up to its name by offering 31 of the 33 hits Diamond Rio notched during its unparalleled run on the Arista Nashville label. The 40-song set leads off “Meet in the Middle,” the only debut single EVER to hit #1 on the charts, and doesn’t let up with such chart-toppers as “How Your Love Makes Me Feel,” “One More Day,” “Beautiful Mess,” and “I Believe,” plus such favorites as “Love a Little Stronger,” “Walkin’ Away,” “You’re Gone,” and more. Notes by Bill Kopp round out the set, which is freshly remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios. By far the biggest and best Diamond Rio collection ever.

There was never anybody like Mitch Miller in the music business. And there never will be again. Head of A&R for Columbia for over 15 years, star of his own television show on NBC, accomplished oboist and English Horn player, Miller was enormously influential on pop music during the ‘50s and early ‘60s, producing and nurturing the careers of such popular artists as Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Jo Stafford, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell and many others, while famously passing on more rock and roll-oriented acts like Elvis, The Beatles, and Buddy Holly. But Miller’s contribution didn’t stop there—he was also a successful recording artist in his own right, recording 13 Top Ten albums and a series of bestselling singles with an orchestra and chorus, often credited to Mitch Miller and the Gang. Spanning the years 1950 to 1962, The Definitive Collection covers virtually his entire recording career at Columbia, and includes such chart-topping highlights as “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena,” “Meet Mister Callaghan,” the famous “The River Kwai March”/”Colonel Bogey March” medley, “Song for a Summer Night,” and more, plus the movie themes “The Guns of Navarone” and “The Longest Day.” Gene Sculatti’s notes (festooned with photos from the Columbia vault) trace a career arc like no other in the annals of the music industry. 38 freshly remastered tracks (by Maria Triana at Battery Studios) for you to sing along with Mitch.

Let’s get the preliminaries over with right away by stating that The Street Giveth…and the Street Taketh Away, the 1969 debut release from Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys, was co-produced by none other than Jimi Hendrix (they were long-time friends, the band opened for the Experience on tour, and had the misfortune of sharing the same manager, Mike Jeffrey). But Cat Mother was far more than a footnote to a superstar’s career. Not only did this record score a Top 40 hit with “Good Old Rock ‘N Roll,” but it’s also a marvelously eclectic affair beloved by record collectors of every stripe—just do a quick Google search—with elements of folk, country and late ‘60s riff rock alongside the hit’s tongue-in-cheek revivalism. Not JUST for Hendrix completists (though they will want it, too).

In 1971, Atlantic Records released a pair of Dusty Springfield singles produced by the legendary songwriter/producer Jeff Barry (one-time songwriting and romantic partner of Ellie Greenwich, and author of too many hits to name):  "Haunted"/"Nothing Is Forever" and "I Believe In You"/"Someone Who Cares." A restless Dusty, freshly relocating to America from her native England, then departed the label and left an additional 9 songs recorded with Barry in the can, where they stayed until Rhino issued one track, "Faithful" (in mono), as a bonus track on the 1990s CD release of Dusty's 1970 Atlantic album A Brand New Me. The other tracks didn’t surface until a subsequent deluxe reissue of Dusty’s landmark 1969 album Dusty in Memphis included them as bonus cuts. Now, reissue producer Jim Pierson—who tracked down the missing masters after being lost for over two decades —has assembled  Dusty’s Barry-produced masters and put them together in a single package for the first time to create the third Dusty Springfield Atlantic Records album as planned in 1971. Real Gone Music’s release of Faithful on LP presents these historic Barry-Springfield collaborations exactly as they were originally intended to be heard, with the 12 tracks meant for the album release finally out on vinyl 45 years later. All tracks are in stereo, while the liner notes on the inner sleeve, penned by The Second Disc's Joe Marchese, feature a number of rarely-seen photos of the legendary singer. These stunning pop, soul and gospel flavored selections showcase the iconic singer at the height of her vocal magic.  A missing/jumbled part of Dusty’s august recorded legacy, finally set right and available in its intended format. Out on orange vinyl limited to 1000 copies.

Real Gone Music is proud to present the original mono version of what most folks consider to be the single greatest postwar album of Western music, Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Everything about this album is iconic, from its “quick draw” cover art to the songs it contains—“Big Iron,” “Cool Water,” “The Master’s Call,” “Billy the Kid,” “The Strawberry Roan,” and, of course, “El Paso” (here in its rare, full-length version)— that have come to define the Western genre. And the music has never sounded better than it does here: our limited edition (of 500 copies) magenta vinyl pressing was remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York with lacquer cutting by Kevin Gray. Comes complete with the amazing original album art, too…a classic album now even more collectible than before.

Wed, 07/27/2016 - 10:03 am

September means back to school, and Real Gone Music spent its Summer vacation rounding up some far out, funky sounds from every end of the musical spectrum to get everybody back in the groove! At the top of the curriculum is an unprecedented double-CD collection from the prototypical New Orleans funk band The Meters, precursor to The Neville Brothers and backing band on so many classic sides to come out of the Crescent City. We’ve rounded up their complete Josie, Reprise, and Warner Brothers singles to fashion a 40-song set that spans their entire recording career and provides the last word on this seminal outfit. And the label has uncovered a gem from another seminal funk band, The Isley Brothers, offering the CD debut of a long-lost live-in-the-studio album the group cut in 1980.

Real Gone then continues its string of comprehensive, two-CD collections from the Sony vaults with releases from Porter Wagoner and Robert Goulet. At 40 tracks, the Wagoner set is the definitive look at his solo career, featuring every Top 10 solo hit and some of those wildly eccentric album tracks, while the Goulet set covers his recording career for Columbia by including singles, key album tracks, and a bunch of soundtrack performances by this multi-talented performer. And the label has combined the two previous collections it released of Dionne Warwick’s Warner Bros. recordings to fashion the definitive look at this underappreciated period of the diva’s career.

Then, the ever eclectic label casts its stylistic net a little wider with two limited edition colored vinyl releases, one from punk rock legends X-Ray Spex, and one from New Wave of British Heavy Metal luminaries Angel Witch.

How would you like to hear a new side—or should we say sides—of the world’s greatest funk band, The Meters? This 40-track set presents the A and B-side of every single that organist Art Neville, guitarist Leo Nocentelli, bassist George Porter, Jr., and drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste cut for the Josie, Reprise & Warner Bros. labels, virtually their entire singles output save for a few odds ‘n’ ends issued mostly overseas. That means that you not only get every hit along with its hard-to-find B-side but also the rare single mixes, including the especially rare original mono single mixes of the 1968-1971 Josie sides, very few of which have appeared on CD (the first CD is all mono; the second, featuring the later Reprise and Warner Bros. singles, presents all stereo single mixes). These songs represent the mother lode of New Orleans funk, classic tracks like “Sophisticated Cissy,” “Cissy Strut,” “Look-Ka Py Py,” “Chicken Strut,” “Hand Clapping Song,” “Hey Pocky A-Way,” and more. And, with liner notes by Bill Dahl featuring quotes from Nocentelli, Neville, and Porter, A Message from The Meters—The Complete Josie, Reprise & Warner Bros. Singles 1968-1977 offers probably the best retrospective to date of this enormously influential band. And how’s the sound? Well, after extensive and exhaustive tape research, we were able to come up with original tape sources for all but five of these single sides, and the remastering—by Mike Milchner at SonicVision—is tight! Just maybe the year’s most indispensable R&B release.

“The Great Lost Isley Brothers Album?” You bet! In 1980, Ronald, Rudolph, O’Kelly, Ernie, and Marvin Isley and Chris Jasper were riding high with their electrifying fusion of rock, funk, and soul.  After having transformed in 1973 from a three-man vocal group to a self-contained six-man band, The Isleys cranked out hit after hit: original powerhouses like “That Lady,” “Fight the Power,” and “For the Love of You,” and dramatic covers of pop songs introduced by Seals and Crofts, Carole King, and Todd Rundgren.  “Don’t Say Goodnight (It’s Time for Love)” had given the Isleys their longest stay atop the R&B charts since 1969’s “It’s Your Thing,” and savoring its success, they decided to follow in the footsteps of The Commodores, Parliament, and Earth Wind & Fire to record a live album.  Rather than bring a mobile truck to a concert venue, however, The Isley Brothers chose to cut Groove with You…Live! at Bearsville Sound Studio in Woodstock, New York.  The resulting recordings had all of the incendiary thrills of a live performance, but with pristine studio fidelity.  The band overdubbed an audience’s frenzied reception and the energetic introduction of MC “Gorgeous” George Odell to create an in-studio live album as captivating as the real thing.  It was presented to CBS for release on the band’s T-Neck imprint, but the label opted to wait for an original studio record.  Groove with You…Live! was shelved.  Fast forward to 2015, and the Bearsville sessions were remixed, sans crowd ambiance, for inclusion as one disc of a massive Isleys CD box set.  Later that year, Groove with You…Live! was restored and released in its originally-intended “live” version on limited edition vinyl.  Now, this sizzling, swooning, and immersive double-album document of The Isleys at the peak of their powers comes to CD for the very first time as The Isley Brothers originally intended it!  Featuring classic hits like “Take Me to the Next Phase,” “Summer Breeze,” and “Livin’ in the Life,” the record has been remastered by Mark Wilder and Chris Le Monde and features new liner notes from The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese featuring quotes from Ernie Isley and Chris Jasper.  This must-have for fans of R&B, soul, funk, and rock will, without a doubt, make you want to shout! A Real Gone Music/The Second Disc release.

No one, but no one, painted a picture in song of despair and desolation like the Thin Man from the West Plains, Porter Wagoner. Forget the Nudie suit and the pompadour; Waylon Jennings once said that Wagoner couldn’t go pop with a mouthful of firecrackers, and these 40 songs prove it.  Sure, the hits—27 of ‘em in all and every Top Ten solo smash—are here, like “A Satisfied Mind,” “Misery Loves Company,” “Skid Row Joe,” “The Cold Hard Facts of Life,” and “The Carroll County Incident,” but what elevates The Definitive Collection above a mere best-of are the tracks lifted from Wagoner’s starkly compelling concept albums (complete with their amazing album art, some of which we’ve included here) like Confessions of a Broken Man, Soul of a Convict and Other Great Prison Songs, and The Bottom of the Bottle. Grammy-winning writer Colin Escott contributes notes to the package, which is newly remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York. Country music never got harder than this…this ain’t cry-in-your-beer country, it’s more like punch-in-the-gut poetry.

How else to lead off a Robert Goulet compilation than with his breakthrough performance of “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot? But that song was only the beginning for our fair Sir Lancelot; indeed, Robert Goulet was truly one of the singular talents of his generation, owner of one of the truly great baritone voices and winner of Grammy, Tony, and Emmy awards during a nonpareil career spanning six decades. The Definitive Collection contains 36 highlights drawn from his prime recording years at the Columbia label, including singles, album tracks, and performances drawn from movie soundtrack and Broadway cast albums: “My Love Forgive Me (Amore scusami),” “The Happy Time” (the title track to the Kander and Ebb musical that brought him a Tony Award), “The Impossible Dream,” “The Daydreamer,” “Mon Amour…mon amour,” “The Girl That I Marry,” “She Touched Me,” and many more. Flawlessly remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in New York, and annotated by Goulet aficionado Joe Marchese with rare pictures and album art drawn from the Columbia vaults, this truly is the best-sounding, best-looking, and, yes, definitive collection that Robert Goulet fans have been waiting for.

When Dionne Warwick signed to the Warner Bros. label in 1971 (bringing her legendary songwriting and production team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David with her), success seemed preordained for probably the greatest pop-soul singer of all time. However, like so many other ‘60s superstars, Dionne fell prey to the changing tastes of the ‘70s marketplace and exited the label five years later sans her production team or any major chart hits. Subsequent anthologies have, understandably, focused on the Scepter label hits she recorded with Bacharach and David during the ‘60s and the more contemporary smashes she recorded for Arista with during the in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, while roundly ignoring her Warner Bros. sides. Now, with its release of The Warner Bros. Recordings containing with two separate collections of Warwick’s complete Warner Bros. singles and previously unreleased tracks recorded for the label, Real Gone Music is at last shining a light on a body of work that, despite its lack of commercial prowess, ranks as some of the finest this pop-soul diva’s nonpareil career has to offer. The singles collection includes all 21 of the “A” and “B” stereo single sides that Warwick recorded for Warner Brothers featuring such tracks that hit Billboard's Hot 100, R&B and Easy Listening charts as "Once You Hit The Road" and "If We Only Have Love." The rarities package, meanwhile, presents 19 tracks that never came out on LP or as singles, and present Warwick working with such legendary producers as Ashford & Simpson, Thom Bell, Jerry Ragavoy, and Holland-Dozier-Holland. Paul Howes supplies the liner notes to these missing chapters of the Dionne Warwick story.

Real Gone Music is proud to present Germfree Adolescents, one of the signature albums of the early (1978) British punk movement, in the format (vinyl!) and color (shocking pink!) it belongs.  The one and only LP release from X-Ray Spex and its irrepressible frontwoman Poly Styrene has been deemed by everybody from Greil Marcus to Robert Christgau to Spin to Mojo as one of the greatest punk albums ever made, yet, somehow, this is its first vinyl reissue (and you can tell because prices for the used vinyl are insane)! And we’ve done it right; besides the colored vinyl, we’ve reproduced the inner lyric sheet, where you can read Poly’s brilliant observations about the plastic, corporate nature of modern society. All of which she sings in a passionate yowl all her own (with Lora Logic among others backing on saxophone); this is not only one of the most penetratingly observant punk records, it’s also one of the most passionate, and, surprisingly enough, catchy. Check out “The Day the World Turned Day-Glo” and “Germ Free Adolescents” if it’s hooks you’re after; if it’s righteous anger and a noisy racket you’re seeking, every track will do ya. Limited edition of 900!

One of the first and greatest “black metal” albums, and one of the records that helped launch the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement, the 1980 self-titled debut from Angel Witch still packs a wallop some 36 years later. Unlike, say, Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin, songwriter Kevin Heybourne’s lyrical imagery just doesn’t dabble in the occult, it lives (dies?) there, with abundant sword and sorcery themes and tales (e.g. “Angel of Death”) of damnation. Yet, as on the title track, the band is not above crafting some catchy hooks, though the raw production ensures that those hooks have barbs. Real Gone Music is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of this classic metal album, in limited edition (of 1000 copies) sporting red-and-yellow “flame” marbled vinyl. Buy or be eternally condemned!

SEPTEMBER 2, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

The Meters: A Message from The Meters—The Complete Josie, Reprise & Warner Bros. Singles 1968-1977 (2-CD Set)

The Isley Brothers: Groove with You…Live!

Porter Wagoner: The Definitive Collection (2-CD Set)

Robert Goulet: The Definitive Collection (2-CD Set)

Dionne Warwick: The Warner Bros. Recordings (2-CD Set)

Angel Witch: Angel Witch (Limited “Flame” Vinyl Edition)

Wed, 08/24/2016 - 9:24 am

Real Gone Music’s October schedule is definitely adding some color to the autumnal soundscape, as the label “leaves” no genre unexplored in its continuous pursuit of unexplored crannies in every genre of popular music. Leading the line-up is the great female singer and entertainer Keely Smith, whose ‘60s solo sessions for Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label represent one of the last strongholds of unreleased recordings from the decade. Real Gone is launching a comprehensive reissue campaign of the LPs Smith released after splitting from Louis Prima with a deluxe version of The Intimate Keely Smith album, complete with bonus tracks including a duet with Sinatra. And the label has discovered a priceless cache of performances by The Queen of Gospel Song, Mahalia Jackson, featuring her with jazz greats Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, and Barney Kessel. These 16 historic tracks have never been released in any audio format.

Then, Real Gone takes a deep dive into the vaults of two rich libraries and surfaces with three titles apiece. First, the label continues its acclaimed string of double-CD retrospectives from the Sony vaults with complete hits collections from blue collar rocker Eddie Money and disco diva Evelyn “Champagne” King, plus a definitive anthology from orchestral arranger and composer extraordinaire Percy Faith. Then, the label raids the Concord vaults for a reissue of what is generally considered the first “world music” album ever, Sandy Bull’s Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo, and a long-overdue look at Mirrors, the only album recorded for Vanguard by the great white bluesman John Hammond yet to be released on CD. And Real Gone has assembled, with the help of the artist herself, the first compilation of jazz singer Eden Atwood’s Concord sides.

Finally, following the wildly successful reissue early in 2016 of The Return of the Living Dead soundtrack featuring music by The Cramps, The Damned, The Flesh Eaters, and other punk rock notables, the label is back with not one, not two, not three, but four different brain-eating, colored vinyl versions in time for Halloween. Zombie lovers, take your mark!

You can’t get any more popular in American entertainment than Keely Smith was in the early ‘60s.  Having blown the doors out in Las Vegas, winning a Grammy, having hit after hit and lighting up television screens playing straight “man” to husband Louis Prima, she’d navigated the tricky waters of a professional and personal divorce, striking out on her own and starting her own record label, Keely Records, in partnership with close friend and mentor Frank Sinatra, under the auspices of his Reprise label. A groundbreaking businesswoman, as well as recording artist, Keely recorded 5 classic albums for Reprise.  Because she’d seen enough show business shenanigans to last a lifetime, a generation before it became standard practice to do so, she retained the rights to her masters. Those albums have NEVER come out legitimately on CD anywhere in the world. Now, Real Gone Music, in concert with Keely & her family, is very proud to announce that the label is going to answer the pleas of pop fans worldwide and release ALL of Keely’s Reprise albums on CD for the first time in deluxe packages featuring bonus tracks, rare photos, and new liner notes by Steve Hochman.

Produced by Keely’s husband-to-be & Reprise hitmaker Jimmy Bowen, 1964’s The Intimate Keely Smith is, as the steamy cover and saucy title suggest, a sexy, swinging affair and the quintessential Keely Smith recording from her Reprise period. A concept album, the project was the long form representation of her legendary “mood spot” concert segment, a staple of Keely’s live shows. Key album tracks include a rendition of Sinatra’s “Time After Time” and a version of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child”…this album presents Keely really taking wing as an artist. And the bonus tracks? Well, Keely’s strong rapport and long history with Frank Sinatra are well known.  As one of the foundational artists at Reprise, which was at full creative flower, Keely was part of some really great projects outside of her own releases. With the blessing of Frank Sinatra Enterprises, we’ve included her duet with Frank, “Twin Soliloquies,” from the The Reprise Musical Repertory Theatre Presents South Pacific album, plus the rare non-LP single of the King-Goffin-Spector track “No One Ever Tells You,” arranged by Jack Nitszche and also produced by Bowen.

Mahalia Jackson was the greatest gospel singer that ever lived, a transformative figure who transcended the genre to become a household name both here and abroad. But, ironically, out of her voluminous catalog of recordings for labels like Decca, Apollo, and, of course, Columbia, the performances that perhaps exposed the most people to her majestic artistry have remained unavailable for over half a century, never issued in any physical audio format…until now! A little background…in 1961, Mahalia, fresh from her triumphant performance at John F. Kennedy’s inaugural ball, hooked up with Irving Townsend (producer of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue among many other landmark albums) to film 58 performances of no more than five minutes’ duration to be aired as TV program “filler” on Sunday mornings. These renditions, aired under the banner of Mahalia Jackson Sings, not only introduced untold numbers of viewers to the Queen of Gospel Song, but also captured her at her absolute best. Drawing upon his jazz connections, producer Townsend assembled a crack backing band highlighted by drummer Shelly Manne, bassist Red Mitchell, and guitarist Barney Kessel, with Jackson’s long-time accompanist Mildred Falls as musical director. As a result, the 16 tracks collected on Mahalia Jackson Sings—The Great Television Performances—which range from old favorites like “I Asked the Lord,” “Didn’t It Rain,” and “The Lord’s Prayer” to lesser-known gospel gems like “God Will Take Care of You” and “Highway Up to Heaven” to songs, like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “I Believe,” that fall outside the gospel canon altogether—rank as some of Mahalia Jackson’s greatest—and rarest—recordings, a monumental and essential addition to her discography. Audio engineer Mike Milchner polishes up the sound, while Davin Seay contributes liner notes accompanied by photos. A hugely important discovery from one of 20th century music’s towering figures.

After famously dropping out of the New York Police Academy to pursue his rock and roll dreams, Eddie Money burst on to the scene in the late ‘70s with a series of sweaty, blue collar hits in the mold of Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, and Bruce Springsteen, then capitalized on the MTV era by narrating a series of funny videos that cemented his image as a rock and roll Everyman, albeit one with a sneaky good songwriting touch and a powerful blue-eyed soul set of pipes. The lifestyle got the best of him during the mid-‘80s, but he made a remarkable comeback in the late ‘80s and continues on the circuit to this day offering his trademark mix of no-nonsense rock ‘n’ roll and regular guy stage persona. The Complete Hits and More! is by far the biggest Eddie Money collection ever, offering, like the title says, all 24 chart hits plus tracks drawn from 10 different albums and some rare live tracks drawn from the promo-only Livin’ It Up EP (which debuts on CD here in its entirety), featuring “Two Tickets to Paradise,” “Baby Hold On,” “Think I’m in Love,” “Shakin’,” his comeback duet with Ronnie Spector, “Take Me Home Tonight”/”Be My Baby,” “I Wanna Go Back,” “Walk on Water,” and “Peace in Our Time.” Bill Kopp supplies the liner notes, with added photos and album art. 35 tracks remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios…two CDs to paradise for Eddie Money fans.

Evelyn “Champagne” King ranks right up there with Donna Summer and Patti LaBelle at the top of the disco diva pantheon, but there has never been a domestically released collection to do her glittering career justice. Which is a real “shame”…but The Complete RCA Hits and More! not only offers, like the title says, all 24 hits she scored on the R&B and Pop charts for the RCA label, but also presents them in the 12”, alternate mix, and remix versions that really got the dance floor shaking back in the day! So you get the 12” mixes of big hits like “Shame,” “I Don’t Know If It’s Right,” “I’m in Love,” and “Love Come Down,” the “Dance Mix” of “Your Personal Touch,” remixes of “High Horse” and “Shake Down,” and so on. Soul expert David Nathan contributes liner notes with exclusive quotes from Evelyn, and we’ve added photos from the RCA vaults and 12” single and album art. All 26 tracks are remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in New York…Break out the bubbly, cuz the definitive Evelyn “Champagne” King collection is finally here.

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that Percy Faith invented easy listening music; along with Mantovani, he pioneered the use of string sections to soften and sweeten the brass-dominated sound that dominated popular music during the ‘40s. Faith was also one of Mitch Miller’s main men at Columbia Records, where he provided arrangements for everybody from Doris Day to Tony Bennett to Johnny Mathis, and he composed some of the most memorable soundtrack themes of all time. Now, Real Gone pays tribute to one of the great arrangers and composers in pop music history with The Definitive Collection, a 32-track set spanning 22 years of recordings, including hit singles, tracks drawn from a total of 20 different albums, and a number of his most revered compositions for the screen. Among the highlights: the #1 hits “Delicado,” “Where Is Your Heart (from ‘Moulin Rouge’),” and “The Theme from ‘A Summer Place;’” his soundtrack themes to the films Tammy Tell Me True, The Oscar, and The Love Goddesses, and the TV series The Virginian; and some of his signature adaptations of Latin music like “How Insensitive (Insensataez)” and “Brazil (Aquarela Do Brasil).” Joe Marchese provides the notes, and the package includes photos from the Columbia vaults as well as some of the great cover art that adorned Faith’s album releases. Remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in New York…like the title says, the definitive—and largest ever—Percy Faith collection!

Multi-instrumentalist Sandy Bull’s debut, Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo, was for all intents and purposes the beginning of the  “world music” movement. And if that seems like a bold claim, keep in mind that while many classical composers had borrowed folk motifs throughout the centuries, the mélange of folk, jazz, blues, classical, gospel, and even rock ‘n’ roll that this record offered—back in 1963!—was simply unprecedented. It all comes together on the album’s first track, a 21 minute and 51 second stylistic odyssey appropriately entitled “Blend.” Backed by jazz drummer Billy Higgins, Bull improvises in a fashion akin to jazz, but his guitar style displays elements of folk, and the droning quality and raga-like climax echo aspects of Middle Eastern and Indian music. The rest of the album is no less peripatetic, offering interpretations of German composer Carl Orff, English Renaissance composer William Byrd, a Southern mountain tune, and a gospel song. Nowadays, of course, this kind of stylistic leapfrogging is commonplace; but Bull was so far ahead of his time in 1963 that the record predictably did not sell well, though it did attract an avid cult following and gained praise from the New York Times and Down Beat. Now, Real Gone Music takes great pleasure in bringing this groundbreaking recording back into print for the first time ever on CD, with notes by Richie Unterberger supplementing Nat Hentoff’s original notes and remastering by Joe Tarantino. One of the great lost treasures of the ‘60s, ripe to be rediscovered.

The cleverly-conceived cover shot tips you off to the fact that the 1967 record Mirrors—comprised of outtakes from sessions for his John Hammond, Big City Blues, So Many Roads, and Country Blues albums—displays two different sides of the great white bluesman John Hammond, one electric, one acoustic. The electric side features a backing band for the ages, consisting of Band members Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson plus Mike Bloomfield (on piano!) and Charley Musselwhite, while the acoustic side is just Hammond on guitar. There is little doubt that members of blues-rock bands both current and future listened carefully to this record; “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” (Grateful Dead), “Statesboro Blues” (Allman Brothers), and “Keys to the Highway” (Derek & the Dominos) all appear here, and indeed Hammond was friends with Eric Clapton and Duane Allman as well as with the members of The Band that play on the album. More importantly, however, Hammond lays a convincing claim to being one of his generation’s greatest bluesmen, especially with his takes on the Robert Johnson tunes “Travelling Riverside,” “Stones in My Passway,” and “Walking Blues.” This is the only Hammond album recorded for Vanguard in the ‘60s yet to be released on CD, and our Real Gone reissue includes notes by Richie Unterberger with exclusive quotes from John Hammond himself. Remastered by Joe Tarantino…a long-lost classic.

Signed to Concord Records at the ripe old age of 23 after being discovered by Marian McPartland, singer Eden Atwood came from some fine bloodlines; her father Hub Atwood was a composer and arranger for Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole among others, and her grandfather was noted novelist A.B. Guthrie, Jr. (The Big Sky; The Way West)! Little wonder, then, that Eden was a precocious artist indeed; not only was she one of the few singers of his generation to tackle the American standard songbook in the jazz idiom, but even in these early recordings she displayed a sensitivity for the lyrical material well beyond her years. Real Gone is proud to present the first-ever compilation of Eden’s Concord years, I’m Glad There Is You—The Best of the Concord Years, 14 tracks taken from all four of the albums (No One Ever Tells You, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, There Again, and A Night in the Life) she recorded for Concord, with disarmingly honest, track-by-track liner notes written by the artist herself.

There are zombies…and then there are brain-eating zombies! And The Return of the Living Dead was the film where brain-eating zombies got their first lease on, er, life. Co-written by John Russo, who was George Romero’s writing partner on Night of the Living Dead, this 1985 quasi-sequel introduced more “splatstick” humor to the horror formula as well as the indelible image of ghouls groaning “Braainsss” as they shuffle along. All set to a KILLER score featuring the greatest punk and death rock bands of the era, including The Cramps, 45 Grave, The Flesh Eaters, The Damned, Roky Erickson, The Jet Black Berries, T.S.O.L. and SSQ. Now, to celebrate Halloween, Real Gone Music is releasing no less than four colored vinyl versions: a grey “brainsss” vinyl version limited to 750 copies, a black and blood red starburst vinyl version limited to 750 copies exclusive for independent record stores, a green and orange “pumpkin” starburst version limited to 720 copies for the Transworld chain of stores including F.Y.E. and the company’s other properties, and, finally, a glow in the dark version limited to 500 copies and for sale only via the Real Gone Music website. But you’ll have to fight off the hordes of zombies seeking to consume each and every version…

Mon, 12/12/2016 - 4:28 pm

Year after year, Real Gone Music starts the calendar with a bang by putting out a huge slate of releases, and this year’s crop is no exception—the label is putting out a total of ten releases the day after Groundhog Day! Leading off the line-up is a deluxe reissue of the roots-rock classic LP Motel Shot by Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, featuring eight unreleased bonus tracks on a domestic CD debut. The label is also filling in the last big gap in Lesley Gore’s catalog by reissuing her A&M album Love Me by Name, again garnished with bonus tracks. And fabled R&B producer Thom Bell’s classic soundtrack to The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh featuring The Spinners, The Four Tops, The Sylvers, and more receives an expanded reissue with three bonus tracks.

Then, the label delves into the Vanguard vaults for a pair of long-lost classics: guitar god Larry Coryell’s second solo album, and Jug Band leader Jim Kweskin’s first solo album. The liner notes to both feature quotes from their respective artists. The only Duke Ellington album yet to be reissued, 1963’s Serenade to Sweden with Swedish singer Alice Babs, finally sees the light of day on CD. A rare live show from the proto-prog rock band Soft Machine comes out on limited edition “soft” purple vinyl. And a long-overdue, comprehensive collection of the great Lynn Anderson’s hit recordings for the Chart and Columbia labels caps off the schedule with a flourish.

Though they never achieved the popular success enjoyed by some of their peers, Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett spearheaded the roots-rock revolution of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s along with The Allman Brothers and The Band, turning away from the exoticism of psychedelia towards music “rooted” in blues, country, and soul. Witness the fact that the “And Friends” that played with the pair included Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Leon Russell, Dave Mason and Bobby Whitlock….out of Delaney and Bonnie’s various aggregations arose Derek and the Dominoes and Joe Cocker’s band for the legendary Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. And for Delaney & Bonnie and Friends’ Motel Shot, the duo’s fourth studio album and their third for Atco/Atlantic, the circle of “friends” included Cocker, Whitlock, and Mason, plus appearances by Duane Allman, Gram Parsons, and John Hartford among others! But for the most part, this is a largely acoustic, charmingly informal affair dipped in gospel and dominated by the Bramletts and Whitlock; the Motel Shot title refers to informal, after hours jam sessions on the road. But there’s a whole lot more to the story (and to this release!). The project began not in a hotel room but in the living room of engineer Bruce Botnick, with November 1970 sessions as a prospective release for Elektra Records. But, after Delaney had a falling out with label head Jac Holzman, the project moved to Atco, who put the “band” into a proper studio to re-record much of the material. Those later sessions comprise the original album, which has heretofore only appeared briefly on CD in Japan; but, after hours of tape research, co-producers Bill Inglot and Pat Thomas uncovered the original “living room” sessions that yielded the eight unreleased tracks on this Expanded Edition CD release – and notably is the first American CD release of the original Motel Shot album as well. Remastered by Inglot, with an essay by Thomas that includes exclusive (and extremely candid) quotes from Bonnie Bramlett, Bobby Whitlock, Bruce Botnick, and Jac Holzman, Motel Shot finally is presented here the way it was originally conceived, and takes its rightful place as one of the great albums of the classic era of the roots rock movement.

Having filled a major gap in the late, great Lesley Gore’s discography with its release of her Motown album Someplace Else Now, Real Gone Music now turns its attention to the other major missing piece of her catalog, the 1976 album she recorded for A&M Records. Love Me by Name not only reunited Lesley with producer Quincy Jones from her hit-making ‘60s days, but brought her into together with a truly staggering array of talent, including Herbie Hancock, Toots Thielemans, Harvey Mason, Jim Keltner, Dave Grusin and just about every other studio superstar you could name, even the Partridge Family! Love Me by Name features compositions written by Gore and her songwriting partner Ellen Weston, most notably the title track, which was later covered by Dusty Springfield, Patti Austin, and Jennifer Holiday among others. The album also gave a nod to the disco and funk trends that were so prominent in pop music at the time, particularly on the lead-off track, “Sometimes,” which paired her unmistakable pipes with the Brothers Johnson. Our Real Gone reissue marks the worldwide debut of this album on CD, and adds two rare single versions as well as liner notes by Joe Marchese that explore the life and times of this remarkable lady. Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision and featuring rare photos, this Expanded Edition of Love Me by Name is the one release that Lesley Gore fans worldwide have been waiting for.

Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are tipping off 2017 with a slam dunk release!  The 1979 cult favorite film The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh featured an all-star team from the worlds of basketball and Hollywood - Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Meadowlark Lemon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry Tarkanian, Stockard Channing, Jonathan Winters, Flip Wilson, Debbie Allen, Harry Shearer, and more – for its fantastical tale of a struggling Pittsburgh basketball team that beats the odds with a little help from the heavens.  The movie’s soundtrack was equally illustrious.  Pop-soul maestro Thom Bell, renowned for his work with The Spinners, The Stylistics, The Delfonics, and Johnny Mathis, wrote, produced, arranged, and conducted his very first motion picture score, and the result was a soul symphony incorporating funk, disco, and jazz rhythms, and of course, Bell’s trademark luscious balladry.  An A-team of R&B’s finest artists was enlisted to perform Bell’s all-new songs, including The Four Tops, The Spinners, Bell and James, Phyllis Hyman, The Delfonics’ William “Poogie” Hart, and The Sylvers, plus country superstar Loretta Lynn, ragtime legend Eubie Blake, and the one and only Doc Severinsen.  Yet, when the movie came and went from theatres, so did the soundtrack album…until now! The Fish gained a cult following on television and VHS, and now, it’s time for its sizzling soundtrack to have its chance on the court, too.  Hip-hop’s most tuned-in artists have already sampled these lost grooves; now you can hear the originals! The first-ever CD release of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh boasts a sparkling new remastering from the original Lorimar Records tapes by Sean Brennan at Sony’s Battery Studios, detailed liner notes by The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese featuring fresh quotes from Thom Bell, and three rare bonus tracks: two distinctive 12-inch mixes of Bell and James’ infectious title track, and the lush, dramatic “Pisces Theme.”  This deluxe Expanded Edition is nothing but net, and a must-have for classic soul fans from Philly to Motown…and of course, Pittsburgh.  The Doctor is in!

Larry Coryell is one of the greatest guitarists ever to walk the face of the earth, but he remains somewhat underappreciated—witness the fact that this, his second solo album, has never been released on CD until this Real Gone reissue! 1969’s Coryell offers an intriguing blend of improvised and arranged pieces, with an all-star cast that includes Ron Carter, Bernard Purdie, Albert Stinson (“The Jam with Albert” is perhaps the highlight of the entire album), Chuck Rainey, and Free Spirits bandmate Jim Pepper. Jimi Hendrix is definitely an influence on this jazz-rock gem, but Coryell takes his axe in directions only known to him; at this time, only John McLaughlin (with whom Coryell would shortly cut the one-off Spaces) could rival him in the fusion field. Bill Kopp’s notes include copious quotes from Larry Coryell himself; Mike Milchner’s remastering lets this overlooked album shine.

After a couple of albums on Vanguard Records established Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band as a major force in the folk scene, their leader had something different in mind for his first LP without the group. Billed to Jim Kweskin, 1965’s Relax Your Mind gave him the opportunity to, as he puts it in Richie Unterberger’s liner notes, record “music that was a little more meaningful to me personally.” With accompaniment by the Jug Band members Fritz Richmond on washtub bass and Mel Lyman on harmonica, Kweskin delivered a set just as diverse as his records with the full Jug Band, encompassing traditional folk standards, blues, gospel, African music, and more. Mel Lyman’s original, stream-of-consciousness liner notes (also included here) describe an uproarious, impromptu jam session in the Vanguard studios from which much of this record was taken; the rest comes from a live date recorded at Cambridge’s Club 47 a year or two earlier. Remastering by Mike Milchner at SonicVision and copious Kweskin quotes in the notes present this fine folk album—which sees its first domestic release to retail—in its best light.

Real Gone Music is proud to present what is probably the rarest album in the voluminous Duke Ellington discography, his 1963 date with Swedish singer Alice Babs, Serenade to Sweden. That year, Ellington was hired by the Reprise label as an A&R man, free to sign any artist he wanted and to record them. His first choice was Babs, who, in Ellington’s words, was “the most unique artist I know…She sings opera, she sings lieder, she sings what we call jazz and blues, she sings like an instrument, she even yodels, and she can read any and all of it!” For her part, Babs (born Hildur Alice Nilson) had a hit in Sweden when was only 15 (“Swing It Teacher”), and was an iconic figure in her homeland, appearing in 14 Swedish films from 1938 to 1959. The result of this meeting of legendary musical minds was a sublime cool jazz masterpiece that, sadly, never received a proper release in the U.S. and appears to be the only Ellington album never to be reissued on CD or even digitally, having eluded even the most comprehensive compilers. Needless to say, original copies go for big Swedish krona online, and not just because it’s rare; Babs’ wordless vocals and scat singing on “The Boy in My Dreams,” “Strange Visitor,” and “Babsie” are positively Ella-worthy, and Ellington’s masterful arrangements—at times filigreed with a French horn section—provide the perfect accompaniment. We’ve added liner notes by Scott Yanow, while the album boasts remastering by Aaron Kannowski. Fascinating for any jazz fan—essential for Ellington enthusiasts!

Soft Machine was one of the first prog-rock bands, but if your vision of prog-rock consists of musicians wreathed in pot smoke airily singing of fairies and wizards, it will be summarily dispelled by this fantastic “authorized bootleg,” which captures the band in March 1969 at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, playing material that was to be released six months later on Soft Machine: Volume Two. The trio of Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals, Mike Ratledge on organ, and Hugh Hopper on bass launch what can only be called a high-decibel, jazz-rock sonic assault; “Like vindaloo for the ears” is how Hopper puts it on the accompanying notes on the inner sleeve, adding, “I do remember playing incredibly loud, Mike on fuzz organ and me on fuzz bass, both through hundred-watt Marshall stacks.” Some of the frenzied instrumental passages on Live at the Paradiso might recall Miles Davis’ Agharta-era band, but remember, this is a trio making all this racket (in 1969, no less); Soft Machine at this point in time were on a journey all their own. This is the first-ever vinyl release of this notorious concert, and it comes on “soft” purple vinyl limited to 1000 copies. Anybody interested in just how far out rock got in the late ‘60s will want to give this repeated listens.

She is one of the Top Ten charting female country singers of all time, the first to win an American Music Award, the first to headline and sell out Madison Square Garden, and was a regular on TV including everything from The Lawrence Welk Show to The Tonight Show to Starsky & Hutch.  Now, Real Gone Music is proud to present a collection that finally does justice to the superstar career of Lynn Anderson: 40 tracks, 38 hits, all of her classic Chart and Columbia sides, lovingly remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios and annotated by Joe Marchese. The Definitive Collection starts with her first hit, “Ride, Ride, Ride,” and continues with every other notable song, including “Rose Garden,” “You’re My Man,” “How Can I Unlove You,” “What a Man, My Man Is,” “Keep Me in Mind,” “Mother, May I” (with her mother, Liz Anderson), “That’s a No No,” “Cry,” “Listen to a Country Song,” “Fool Me,” and many more hits both major and minor. Great, great ‘70s country from an oft-overlooked artist (why isn’t Lynn in the Country Music Hall of Fame?)!

FEBRUARY 3, 2016 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Delaney & Bonnie and Friends: Motel Shot (Expanded Edition)

Lesley Gore: Love Me by Name (Expanded Edition)

Various Artists: The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Expanded Edition)

Larry Coryell: Coryell

Jim Kweskin: Relax Your Mind

Alice Babs & Duke Ellington: Serenade to Sweden

Soft Machine: Live at the Paradiso (Limited “Soft” Purple Vinyl Edition)

Lynn Anderson: The Definitive Collection (2-CD Set)

Mon, 01/23/2017 - 6:39 am

Real Gone’s March schedule boasts a series of double-CD sets that rank among the most momentous releases in the label’s five-plus year history. After years of planning, the complete singles by the all-time great rock ‘n’ soul band The Rascals—including both their Atlantic and Columbia seven-inches—are coming out on one comprehensive and thoroughly annotated collection. Then, the label is releasing ALL of the seminal early recordings that Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes cut for the Epic label, newly remastered by Mark Wilder at Battery Studios with commentary by Southside Johnny himself. Similarly, the complete Columbia recordings by the long-lost power pop band Artful Dodger receive a long-overdue retrospective, with brand-new remastering by Maria Triana, also at Battery Studios. And the bombshell to end all bombshells, Ann-Margret, has her classic RCA recordings anthologized on one picture-packed, 30-track set.

Then, Real Gone is putting out a couple of limited-edition platters. The soundtrack to Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, which boasts otherwise unavailable tracks from such artists as Megadeth, Melvins, Ministry and Biohazard, is finally reissued on limited edition (of 1100) opaque green vinyl. And the classic debut album by Question Mark and the Mysterians, 96 Tears, gets a limited-edition (of 600) repress on orange vinyl.

Finally, the label is releasing a couple of old favorites on CD. Star of the TV Western Cheyenne, Clint Walker crooned quite a nice country gospel record for Warner Bros. in 1959 called Inspiration, which Real Gone is reissuing in an Expanded Edition featuring Walker’s single-only rendition of “Silver Bells” as a bonus track. And the label is releasing the mood music album to end all mood music albums, Jackie Gleason’s Music for Lovers Only, in its full, 16-track mono version.

With two fantastic singers and songwriters in Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati, an underrated guitarist and songwriter in Gene Cornish, and the great Dino Danelli on drums (plus a pair of studio Svengalis in engineer Tom Dowd and arranger Arif Mardin to rival George Martin), The Rascals were the closest answer America had to The Beatles during the ’60s. The resemblance wasn’t limited to the composition of their line-up and the profusion of hit releases, either; like the Fab Four, The Rascals were able to author chart-topping singles while simultaneously crafting albums that held together as artistic statements. Witness the fact that The Rascals’ albums have seen numerous reissues by multiple labels; their singles, on the other hand, have eluded a comprehensive collection, in large part because the band had two phases to their career, one with the Atlantic label, the other on Columbia. Now, just over 50 years after they first hit the top of the charts with “Good Lovin’,” Real Gone Music is proud to present the first-ever compilation to collect all of the band’s single sides in one place. At 47 songs strong, The Complete Singles A’s & B’s includes the A and B-side of every single The Rascals ever cut, both their hit Atlantic tracks and their later Columbia 7” releases. Along the way you’ll hear such legendary songs as “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore,” “Good Lovin’,” “Groovin’” (also here in its Spanish and Italian versions!), “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long,” “A Girl Like You,” “How Can I Be Sure,” “A Beautiful Morning,” “People Got to Be Free,” “See,” and more, the earlier tracks in their original mono single mixes (termed “the money mixes” by Cornish), the later songs in their stereo single mixes (28 of the 47 songs on the collection are mono). Such a monumental release deserves annotation commensurate with its importance, and for this 2-CD set Ed Osborne has penned a 4500-word essay containing exclusive quotes from Cavaliere, Brigati, and Cornish, punctuated with rare European picture sleeve singles and photos. Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision, and featuring a total of 19 charting songs, The Complete Singles A’s & B’s  takes its place as the definitive career-spanning collection from America’s greatest blue-eyed soul outfit.

Here at last is the anthology Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes fans have been waiting for, the one that not only includes all four albums the group cut with Miami Steve Van Zandt (including the CD debut of the promo-only LP Jukes Live at the Bottom Line), but also finally, finally presents this seminal body of work in newly remastered form. Indeed, the Epic recordings of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, the crucial early sides that made their reputation (and featured a ton of Springsteen/E Street Band spillover), have long suffered from indifferent sound and packaging, as all reissues have been taken from the same digital masters made at the dawn of the CD era. The Fever—The Remastered Epic Recordings changes all that—all four Epic albums including I Don’t Want to Go Home, Jukes Live at the Bottom Line, This Time It’s for Real, and Hearts of Stone (plus the single version of “Havin’ a Party”) appear here in brand-new, sparkling versions remastered from the original master tapes by Mark Wilder at Battery Studios in New York. What’s more, the 2-CD, 40-track collection offers new liner notes by Chris Morris that feature fresh quotes from Southside Johnny himself, and Bruce Springsteen’s original liner notes for I Don’t Want to Go Home. Speaking of Springsteen, his fingerprints are all over these projects, with such songs as “The Fever,” “Little Girl So Fine,” “Love on the Wrong Side of Town,” “When You Dance,” “Talk to Me,” “Trapped Again,” and “Hearts of Stone” all written or co-written by The Boss, while Van Zandt not only produced all four Epic albums but wrote much of the repertoire. But the real star here, of course, is Southside Johnny himself, one of the great white R&B singers of this or any other time, backed by a crack band including The Miami Horns and with such special guests as Ronnie Spector, The Coasters, The Drifters, and The Five Satins. Joyful, soulful music finally sounding the way it oughtta!

Artful Dodger was a band ahead of its time, casting hard-edged hooks into a mid-‘70s pond that wasn’t quite ready to bite on the genre that came to be known as power pop. Had they come along a few years later, things might have been quite different for this outfit hailing from Fairfax, VA, for their three albums for the Columbia label hold up to this day as shining examples of the style. Their first two records, 1975’s Artful Dodger and 1976’s Honor Among Thieves, combine Beatle-esque pop and driving rock in the finest Raspberries tradition (interestingly, Artful Dodger had a big following in Cleveland, the Raspberries’ home town); they feature refreshingly straightforward production from Jack Douglas (Aerosmith) and/or Eddie Leonetti and some really tremendous songwriting especially on tracks like “Wayside” and “Scream.” And 1977’s Babes on Broadway, while showing some signs of a group frustrated with its lack of commercial success, definitely has its moments, particularly on the song “Can’t Stop Pretending.” Unfortunately, without a stylistic pigeonhole to place them in, Columbia was unable to move any copies and dropped them, which explains why Artful Dodger has been so hard to find in the digital era, with CDs of their first two albums commanding huge sums online and the third one never coming out at all. Now, Real Gone Music is shining a long-overdue spotlight on this seminal power pop band with The Complete Columbia Recordings, a 2-CD set that includes all three albums plus a couple of single versions, their COMPLETE recordings for the label, newly remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in New York. Jeremy Cargill’s notes feature fresh quotes from band members Steve Cooper and Steve Brigida, plus we’ve dug up some rare photos from the Columbia vaults. Power pop fans, prepare to have your minds blown!

She was the ultimate bombshell, a Swedish seductress with flame-colored hair, a fulsome figure, and a taste for Triumph motorcycles. But with Ann-Margret, her irresistible beauty took a back seat to her incandescent talent; this was no mere starlet, but a performer whose singing, dancing, and acting skills—all imbued with a devil-may-care charisma—caused record execs to groom her as the female Elvis Presley. Now, finally, here is a comprehensive collection that captures those magical early days of Ann-Margret’s career, a 2-CD set that includes 30 tracks carefully chosen from her 1961-1966 RCA recordings. Among the featured tracks: chart hits like “I Just Don’t Understand,” “It Do Me So Good,” and “What Am I Supposed to Do;” her famous duets with Elvis from Viva Las Vegas, “You’re the Boss” and “The Lady Loves Me” (which, as legend has it, Col. Tom Parker withheld from commercial release because he was afraid she would overshadow The King); four tracks from Beauty and the Beard, her charting album with trumpeter Al Hirt; soundtrack recordings from Bye Bye Birdie, Every Night at Eight, Thunderball, The Swinger, and The Pleasure Seekers; and much more. In fact, the 30 songs on The Definitive Collection—which includes single sides as well—hail from nine different albums, and liner note writer Joe Marchese walks you through each and every one of them on this sumptuous package, which includes vintage album artwork. An earful and an eye-ful…viva Ann-Margret!

Wanna hear the soundtrack to Armageddon? The 1995 film Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight starred William Sadler as the Demon Knight, who, along with his new recruit, Jada Pinkett Smith, is charged with fending off The Collector (Billy Zane) and his army of demons from acquiring an ancient relic that is the only thing preventing the complete destruction of the human race. While the flick did meh box office and was panned critically, the soundtrack was easily one of the best of its era and of its kind, an all-star line-up of thrash and heavy metal acts mostly doing otherwise unavailable material (only the track by Pantera appears to have been released prior to the movie). The Pantera, Megadeth, Melvins, and Biohazard entries are particulary good, and the one hip hop tune on the collection, Gravediggaz’ “1-800-Murder,” is an archetypal “horrorcore” rap song. But perhaps the best tune is “Hey Man Nice Shot” by Filter, an outfit that hadn’t released anything prior to this soundtrack. Since this movie came out in 1995, it only came out on LP in Europe; our Real Gone reissue brings it back on opaque green vinyl limited to 1100 copies!

By exclusive arrangement with ABKCO Music, Real Gone Music is proud to present the garage band to end all garage bands, Question Mark and the Mysterians! Hailing from Saginaw, Michigan, this group of Mexican-American teenagers had all the bona-fides collectors of ‘60s cool cherish—the name, derived from a Japanese horror film; the sound, an insistent, three chord beat powered by that unmistakable Vox organ tone; and, of course, the sunglasses-shod Question Mark himself, who claims to have been born on Mars and lived among the dinosaurs in a past life. And their 1966 debut album, 96 Tears, hit the Top 100 on the Billboard charts thanks to its legendary title tune. We’re presenting this all-time classic record on orange vinyl (cuz after all, orange is Question Mark’s color) limited to 600 copies and mastered at 45 rpm for maximum sonic effect!

Much like his namesake Clint Eastwood (whose sole album is also a Real Gone release), Clint Walker was the star of a TV western (Cheyenne) who parlayed his TV stardom into a recording contract, and, like Clint, being a TV cowboy he went country on the 1959 Warner Bros. release Inspiration. Or rather country gospel, for Clint’s Crosby-like croonings reveal a somewhat gentler soul than his steely-eyed counterpart. In fact, Clint is a heck of a singer, and the label surrounded him with top-notch talent, in this case arranger/conductor Ralph Carmichael, vocal arranger Jimmy Joyce and Hollywood's finest session men including organist Buddy Cole for what is an unexpectedly musically satisfying affair that has since become something of a cult classic.  And for this Expanded Edition, we’ve added Clint’s single-only rendition of “Silver Bells!” Notes by Todd Everett featuring quotes from Clint plus photos round out the set.

Probably the most popular, iconic mood music album ever made, and the go-to make-out record for an entire generation, Jackie Gleason’s Music for Lovers Only set the stage for untold imitators to come with its evocative album artwork and lush, sweeping soundscapes. Released as a 10” LP in 1952 as the debut album from the television comic superstar, it set the record—which still stands!—for most weeks in the Top Ten Album charts at 153, and hit the charts yet again in 1955 when it was released as a 12” LP. But here is where the history of Music for Lovers Only becomes, like most romances, complicated. The original 10” included only eight tracks, but Capitol’s first 12” issue of the album added eight more for a total of 16; subsequently, however, the album was reissued on LP with 12 tracks, and the out-of-print initial CD release of Music for Lovers Only featured just the eight tracks from the original 10” release. Now, Real Gone Music is restoring this classic album to its full, 16-track length, with its glorious, original artwork intact (back cover quote: “A wisp of cigarette smoke in the soft lamplight, the tinkle of a glass, a hushed whisper…and music for lovers only”) and in its original mono. As for those wondering what musical contribution Mr. Gleason made to the album, some say Gleason conceived of melodies in his head and described them vocally to his assistants. But when Bobby Hackett, whose wistful trumpet lines were the focal point of the Gleason sound and of this album, was asked what Jackie contributed to the recordings, he replied: “He brought the checks.” Either way, Music for Lovers Only stands as The Great One’s greatest musical achievement.

MARCH 3, 2017 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

The Rascals: The Complete Singles A’s & B’s (2-CD Set)

Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes: The Fever—The Remastered Epic Recordings (2-CD Set)

Artful Dodger: The Complete Columbia Recordings (2-CD Set)

Ann-Margret: The Definitive Collection (2-CD Set)

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight—Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Limited Opaque Green Vinyl Edition)

Clint Walker: Inspiration (Expanded Edition)

MARCH 10 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

Question Mark and The Mysterians: 96 Tears (Limited Orange Vinyl Edition)

Mon, 02/27/2017 - 6:13 am

Real Gone Music slides into baseball season this April with vinyl releases from a pair of literary heavy hitters. Kaddish is one of beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s greatest poems, a moving meditation on his mother Naomi and his Jewish faith; Atlantic Records released Ginsberg’s own reading of the work in 1966 as the only title in its Verbum spoken word series. Real Gone’s release features the original gatefold album art with an added inner sleeve sporting new liner notes by Pat Thomas and memorabilia courtesy of the Ginsberg estate. And On the Road author Jack Kerouac’s legendary first album, Poetry for the Beat Generation, gets a stand-alone vinyl release for the first time ever in a “beatnik smoke” limited edition.

A hits package from Country music’s most notorious outlaw is something of a contradiction in terms, but—despite pissing people off in and outside the country music establishment—David Allan Coe has scored 31 chart hits during his riotous career, which is a testimony as to just how powerful a singer and songwriter he is. Our double-CD set has ‘em all, with notes by Chris Morris. And we also hear from a much kinder, gentler figure in country music, B.J. Thomas, with the first-ever collection of the singles he cut for Columbia and related imprints during the ‘80s. Liner notes by Joe Marchese again feature quotes from the man himself.

Real Gone is also repressing a couple of titles that sold out in a heartbeat the first time around the label issued them on vinyl. X-Ray Spex’ Germfree Adolescents is one of the greatest punk albums of all time; it’s back in radioactive green vinyl limited to 500 copies. And the debut, self-titled album from Angel Witch is a pioneering Black Metal record and a key album in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal pantheon; a 500-unit repress in “White Witch” vinyl is in the offing.

Along with Howl, Kaddish stands as one of Allen Ginsberg’s most illustrious creations. Always a follower of popular trends in music, Ginsberg had spent parts of 1958 digging into Ray Charles’ “I Got A Woman” – occasionally doing so while on morphine and methamphetamine. One evening, in this drug-induced state while cranking some Ray, Ginsberg began discussing his mother Naomi with his pal Zev Putterman.  Putterman in turn, began reciting the traditional Hebrew “Kaddish” prayer for mourning the dead.  Soon after, fueled by Dexedrine, LSD, and caffeine, Allen penned the majority of Kaddish.  In early 1959, Kaddish received its debut performance at a poetry reading at Columbia University – in which Allen shared the bill with his lover Peter Orlovsky and fellow beat poet Gregory Corso. Over time, the manuscript was tweaked and adjusted until publication in April 1961 by City Lights. Then, in November 1964, with Orlovsky and Corso in tow, the trio performed several gigs at Harvard and Brandeis Universities, and it was at Brandeis where this recording was made. Released in 1966, Reads Kaddish—A 20th Century Ecstatic Narrative Poem turned out to be the only record in Atlantic’s spoken-word Verbum series; but if label head Jerry Wexler changed his mind about the imprint, he remained a big fan of the work, later telling Los Angeles historian Harvey Kubernik that Kaddish had stirred “the Yiddish currents in my own blood” and inspired “joy and anguish…the exaltation that great poetry will bring on.” Indeed, Kaddish is an intensely personal and moving work, capturing the complex relationship between Ginsberg, his mother, and his faith, and concluding with a heartrending description of her death. Real Gone Music is very proud to present the first-ever vinyl reissue of this landmark performance, in its original gatefold packaging with an added inner sleeve featuring new liner notes by Pat Thomas and memorabilia provided by the Allen Ginsberg estate…over an hour of one of the towering figures in American poetry reading one of his greatest works. Limited edition of 1700 in red vinyl.

The story behind Poetry for the Beat Generation, which marked Jack Kerouac’s debut as a recording artist, is almost as fascinating (but not quite) as the performances it contains. Kerouac had completely bombed in his first set during a 1957 engagement at the Village Vanguard when TV personality, comedian, and musician Steve Allen volunteered to accompany him on piano during the second. The results were so impressive that legendary engineer Bob Thiele then brought the duo into the studio to record an album for Dot Records. In true, stream-of-consciousness, Beat fashion, the entire album was cut in one session with one take for each track, Allen’s piano weaving in and out and occasionally commenting on Kerouac’s verbal riffs to great effect. However, when Poetry for the Beat Generation was ready for release in March 1958, Randy Wood, the president of Dot Records, was appalled by the then-daring language and subject matter and canceled the release…but not before 100 promo copies got out (and if you have one you’re set for life)! Thiele then left the company over the dispute and got the master tape in the bargain, which he finally released on the Hanover label which he founded with Allen in June 1959. That release still stands as one of the most momentous spoken word albums not just of the ‘50s but of all time…and we at Real Gone Music are proud to bring it to you in a black and white “beatnik smoke” vinyl version limited to 900 copies!

We’d be the first to admit that a David Allan Coe hits collection is something of an oxymoron. Despite having written some of the most hallowed songs in country music, tunes like “Take This Job and Shove It” and “Would You Lay with Me (in a Field of Stone),” nobody would ever confuse Coe with a popular country artist. The man is outlaw to his core, having offended just about everybody inside (and a lot of people outside) the country music business during the course of his riotous career. But because he is such a great songwriter and honky tonk singer, he did manage score 31 chart hits despite his best efforts at career sabotage (that some of these gripping performances didn’t score higher on the charts is testimony to just how far out of the country mainstream he was and is).  And you’ll find all of them here on this 2-CD collection entitled (natch) The Complete Hits, which serves not only as a great career overview but also takes its place as the most comprehensive Coe collection to date. Among the highlights here: “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile,” “You Never Even Called Me by Name,” “The Ride,” “She Used to Love Me a Lot,” “Longhaired Redneck,” and his hit with Willie Nelson, “I’ve Already Cheated on You,” most of them produced by countrypolitan producer par excellence Billy Sherrill, who definitely had his hands full trying to sand off the rough edges of David Allan Coe! Chris Morris supplies the notes for The Complete Hits, which features photos and remastering by Chris LeMonde. Some of the hardest country ever recorded.

Having documented B.J. Thomas’ early sides with our 2-CD Set The Complete Scepter Singles, and followed his late ‘70s/early ‘80s foray into inspirational music with a pair of album twofers from the Myrrh label, it was only a matter of time till we at Real Gone Music tackled the next big phase in the career of this all-time great American singer, namely the classic country-pop sides he cut for Columbia in the ‘80s. This is a stage in B.J.’s career that has seen little attention in the CD era, which is strange because he was just killing it on the Country charts with #1 hits like “Whatever Happened to Old Fashioned Love” and “New Looks from an Old Lover”  and the #3 hit “Two Car Garage.” In fact, out of the 21 songs on New Looks from an Old Lover—The Complete Columbia Singles —which includes the A and B-side of every Columbia single plus sides from the Cleveland International and Priority labels —eight were chart hits, among them the Top 20 duet “Rock and Roll Shoes” with Ray Charles plus “The Whole World’s in Love When You’re Lonely” and “The Girl Most Likely To.” We’ve also added a pair of bonus tracks including his rare original solo version of “As Long as We’ve Got Each Other,” the theme to the TV show Growing Pains, and his early version of “Wind Beneath My Wings,” which ended up being a hit for Gary Morris and Bette Midler among others. Remastered by Sean Brennan at Battery Studios, peppered with rare photos, and annotated by Joe Marchese based on a fresh interview with the artist himself, New Looks from an Old Lover—The Complete Columbia Singles is a must for any B.J. fan and anybody who wants to hear some of the best country-pop the ‘80s had to offer.

APRIL 7, 2017 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC

ALLEN GINSBERG: Reads Kaddish—A 20th Century American Ecstatic Narrative Poem (Limited Red Vinyl Edition)

JACK KEROUAC & STEVE ALLEN: Poetry for the Beat Generation (Limited Black & White “Beatnik Smoke” Vinyl Edition)

DAVID ALLAN COE:  The Complete Hits (2-CD Set)

B.J. THOMAS: New Looks from an Old Lover—The Complete Columbia Singles

X-RAY SPEX: Germfree Adolescents (Limited Radioactive Green Vinyl Edition)

ANGEL WITCH: Angel Witch (Limited “White Witch” Vinyl Edition)

Mon, 03/13/2017 - 6:31 am

Real Gone Music is on top of the world about its late Spring schedule! Headlining the slate is a rarities collection from Rockford, Illinois’s own Cheap Trick, 18 tracks taken from the 1975-1979 early days of the band. Much of the material is taken from original drummer Bun E. Carlos’ own archive, and indeed Bun has (with Ken Sharp’s able assistance) written track-by-track notes for our release. A must for Cheap Trick fans.

Then, Real Gone has collectors buzzing about a new girl group collection curated by Sheila Burgel, producer of (among other releases) Rhino Records’ Grammy nominated One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found box set and Ace Records’ ’60s Japanese girl-pop compilation series, Nippon Girls. Honeybeat: Groovy 60s Girl Pop presents 19 tracks (14 on the limited edition violet vinyl LP) taken from nine labels hidden in the dim recesses of the Sony vaults…fantastic annotation, rare pictures, and remastering by Vic Anesini make this one a gotta-have for girl group mavens.

And, once again proving that no vault is safe from a Real Gone spelunking expedition, the label has pulled a cult classic extraordinaire from the Vanguard catalog, the 1972 debut album from Marc Jonson (later known as Mark Johnson of power pop fame). Our expanded edition of Years includes four bonus tracks featuring a non-LP side.

If a group’s made up of two genuine rock star types, a Huntz Hall lookalike with a guitar fetish, and a guy who looks like an accountant, which one d’ya think would keep track of its recording archive? Don’t worry, it’s not a “trick” question—it is indeed the bespectacled Bun E. Carlos, the drummer for the original line-up of Cheap Trick, who has not only commented on every song (as faithfully transcribed by Ken Sharp) but provided much of the source material for this collection of rarities from the band’s early days, 18 tracks that reconfirm that the singular blend of classic rock, power pop, and glam—and inspired visual style—wielded by this outfit from Rockford, Illinois places them among the first rank of American rock ‘n’ roll bands. First up on The Epic Archive Vol. 1 (1975-1979) are three 1975 demos (of “Come On, Come On,” “Southern Girls,” and “Taxman, Mr. Thief”) they cut at Ardent Studios in 1975 prior to signing a record deal, followed by early, 1976-1977 studio takes (produced by Jack Douglas) of “You’re All Talk” and “I Want You to Want Me,” an outtake, “Lookout,” from their debut record, and an alternate (and nasty) version of “I Dig Go-Go Girls.” On deck are an instrumental version of “Oh Boy” (the B-side to “I Want You to Want Me”) and live versions of “You’re All Talk” and “Goodnight” from a 1977 stand at the Whiskey, and a pair of alternate takes from the Heaven Tonight album, “Stiff Competition” and “Surrender.” Also inside are five rarities from the band’s famed Japanese tours, including the single version of “Ain’t That a Shame,” the promo-only release “Lookout,” and three tracks from the out-of-print Budokan II album, “Stiff Competition,” “How Are You,” and “On Top of the World.” The “no strings” version of “Dream Police” rounds out the collection in fine style. Compiled by producer Tim Smith, remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York, and featuring photos by Robert Alford, The Epic Archive Vol. 1 (1975-1979) takes its place as a key release in the august Cheap Trick discography.

TRACK LISTING

1.   Come On, Come On (Ardent Studios Demo)

2.   Southern Girls (Ardent Studios Demo) 

3.   Taxman, Mr. Thief (Ardent Studios Demo) 

4.   You're All Talk (Early Studio Version)    

5.   I Want You to Want Me (Early Studio Version)    

6.   Lookout (Studio Version)

7.   I Dig Go-Go Girls (Outtake)

8.   Oh Boy (Instrumental Version)       

9.   You're All Talk (Live at The Whiskey)

10.  Goodnight (Live at The Whiskey)

11.  Stiff Competition (Alternate Version)

12.  Surrender (Alternate Version)        

13.  Ain't That a Shame (Live Single Edit)

14.  Lookout (previously unreleased alternate version)

15.  Dream Police (No Strings Version)

16.  Stiff Competition (Live at Budokan)

17.  How Are You (Live at Budokan)

18.  Top of the World (Live at Budokan) 

Mon, 04/17/2017 - 6:20 am

Real Gone Music is hitting the road this Summer with a release schedule that’s definitely in full bloom! Having released all 36 volumes of the Grateful Dead’s groundbreaking Dick’s Picks live concert series, the label is now taking the Dead’s Road Trips series to music retail for the first time EVER (and just like they did with Dick’s Picks, the label is starting with the last volume in the series). Then, the label continues its foray into reissuing cult classic soundtracks on vinyl with the first-ever LP release of John Carpenter and Shirley Walker’s soundtrack to Escape from L.A. along with Ry Cooder’s long sought-after score to Paris, Texas. Both titles come in limited edition colored vinyl versions, as does 20 Feet from Stardom legend Merry Clayton’s solo debut album Gimme Shelter, featuring her own take on the Rolling Stones song on which she stole the show from Mick Jagger.

Turning to CD releases, one of the great female singer-songwriters of the ‘70s gets the Real Gone Expanded Edition reissue treatment with the label’s release of Rita Coolidge’s Beautiful Evening—Live in Japan, a 1980 live album that was only released in Asia and Australia, and the first-ever U.S. release of Rita’s classic Full Moon duets album with then-husband Kris Kristofferson. Both albums come with a bounty of unreleased tracks and liner notes featuring fresh quotes from “The Delta Lady” herself.

Real Gone also casts a look back this June to a pair of guitarists whose careers remain a tad underappreciated. Native American axeman Jesse Ed Davis played with Conway Twitty, three of the four Beatles, Gene Clark, Leonard Cohen, and Jackson Browne to name but a few. The 19-track compilation Red Dirt Boogie captures his critically-acclaimed solo recordings for the Atco label with a pair of unreleased tracks. And the late, great Larry Coryell’s most Hendrix-like album At the Village Gate receives a timely American CD debut.

Finally, Real Gone pays tribute to an old friend of the label, Doris Day, with a 95th birthday release of a 32 (!) track CD containing a series of rare duets from her 1952-1953 CBS radio program The Doris Day Show. You’ll hear everybody from Gordon MacRae to Howard Keel to Kirk Douglas to Ronald Reagan singing and laughing along with Doris on this delightful novelty from a little-known chapter in her incomparable career.

It was our great honor at Real Gone Music to issue all 36 volumes of Dick’s Picks, the Grateful Dead’s landmark live concert series; over the four and a half years it took us to release all three dozen titles, we sometimes felt like we were on the greatest Dead tour ever, every single show a classic! Well, our diligence in releasing Dick’s Picks has had a “Ripple” effect, for now the band is entrusting us with releasing its subsequent live concert series, Road Trips! Unlike Dick’s Picks, which saw about two-thirds of its titles go to regular retail in their original incarnations, NONE of the entries in the Road Trips series were offered to retail outlets outside of the Dead’s own website. Since it worked so well with Dick’s Picks, we are reissuing the last titles first, and we have enlisted the series’ original designer, Steve Vance, to convert the original wallet packaging to customer-friendly triple-CD jewel cases. This volume, Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 5—Boston Music Hall 6/9/76, the last entry in the series, revisits June 1976, when the Dead ended its 20-month hiatus from touring with two shows at the Paramount in Oregon, then headed to Boston and the acoustically friendly confines of its Music Hall for a four-night run. This show is from the first night and was hence the third show on the "comeback tour." The band is clearly settling back into a groove here; in particular, Jerry Garcia’s voice is as strong as it’s ever been, and the inclusion of some unusual material (like the only encore version of “Franklin’s Tower” ever performed) makes this a highly collectible show. Among the highlights are a dazzling “Crazy Fingers” from Blues for Allah (which had been released during the band’s hiatus, so new to set lists), and an exceptionally long and tight “St. Stephen” to lead off the second set. The third disc offers bonus gems, like a rare version of “Mission in the Rain,” from the last night of the run, too; excellent sound throughout, long out of print! A timely release, coinciding with the premiere of the Dead documentary on Amazon Prime.

John Carpenter wasn’t just a sci-fi and horror master, one of the best and most innovative directors of his generation—he was and is also a highly accomplished soundtrack composer whose pioneering use of synthesizers to create suspense and dread in his film scores influenced musicians both within the film world and without. And the score he composed—along with Shirley Walker—for his 1996 dystopic sequel Escape from L.A. offered the creeping, atmospheric tension that Carpenter fans crave; although, as this film was set in L.A. and featured plenty of dark humor, Carpenter and Walker threw in a bit of rock ‘n’ roll as well. The original soundtrack release included a mere 16 tracks and came out on CD exclusively; now, Real Gone Music not only has added another 16 tracks to the release, but is also bringing it to vinyl for the very first time! And not just any vinyl; do you remember how in the film Snake Plisskin is infected with the plutoxin virus that will prove fatal within ten hours unless he retrieves the “Sword of Damocles” super weapon and receives the antidote? Well, our limited edition (of 1500) double-LP is being pressed on test tube clear with plutoxin virus green splatter vinyl…just make sure you don’t let the vinyl scratch your skin! Brand new gatefold artwork featuring stills from the film production completes the package.

Effortlessly blending pop, country, and rock, Rita Coolidge is one of the great female singer-songwriters of our time, but crucial parts of her recorded legacy have remained fallow in the CD era. Now, Real Gone Music is releasing two long-sought after highlights from her catalog. Beautiful Evening—Live in Japan, an extremely rare 1980 concert album that was originally released on LP only in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, captures Rita Coolidge at the height of her powers and international popularity, with a crack band featuring Booker T. Jones, Michael Warren, Salvatore Guglielmi, Mike Utley, Richard Adelman, Phyllis Battell and Carlena Williams. The set list is just killer, with big hits from throughout her career, like “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher,” “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love,” a solo version of her then-current hit duet with Glen Campbell, “Somethin’ ‘Bout You, Baby I Like,” her smash version of the Chiffons’ “One Fine Day,” “Fever,” and “Fool That I Am.” And for an “encore,” we have rounded up five studio tracks issued on various Japanese singles and albums that have never before surfaced in the U.S. Worldwide CD debut and first U.S. release of any kind. Then, would you believe that the famed Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge duets album Full Moon— which went to #1 on the country charts and #26 on the pop charts and garnered a Gold Record—has never been reissued on CD outside of Japan?  This was a love album par excellence, as the two stars had just gotten married weeks prior to the record’s release in 1973; interestingly, though Kris Kristofferson, fresh from recording his country chart-topper “Why Me,” was the bigger star at the time, Full Moon really played to Rita Coolidge’s strengths, as it was produced by her long-time producer David Anderle and set its songs in a higher key more suited to her dreamy vocals. The album scored a huge hit with Kristofferson’s “A Song I’d Like to Sing,” and followed that up with a smash version of Tom Jans’ “Loving Arms;” the duo’s rendition of Kristofferson’s “From the Bottle to the Bottom” also won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In short, Full Moon was and is a stone-cold classic; and our Real Gone Expanded Edition adds a no less than six unreleased tracks from the A&M vaults including a Kris & Rita duet from the album sessions and five more Rita solo recordings from the period! Both releases include detailed liner notes by Joe Marchese that offer exclusive insightful quotes from The Delta Lady herself. Cornerstone ‘70s pop.

Seldom has any artist captured that ineffable “high, lonesome sound” quite as beautifully as Ry Cooder did on his landmark soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ 1984 film Paris, Texas. Not quite blues, not quite bluegrass, not quite ambient, Cooder’s haunting, evocative score mirrors the existential journey of Harry Dean Stanton’s Travis Henderson as he wanders through the empty Texas prairie landscape in pursuit of his irretrievable past. With the able help of multi-instrumentalists David Lindley and Jim Dickinson, Cooder crafts a soundscape (much of it based on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”) that is profoundly sad yet leavened with bits of humor and whimsy. Real Gone Music is proud to present this classic soundtrack in a translucent blue vinyl edition limited to 900 copies.

As the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom made abundantly clear, Merry Clayton is one of the greatest and most distinguished female backup singers in rock and soul history, having sung with everybody from Bobby Darin to Ray Charles to Joe Cocker to Linda Ronstadt to Neil Young to Lynyrd Skynyrd (on “Sweet Home Alabama”). But her most famous vocal turn, of course, was her 1969 duet (“It’s just a shot away!”) with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter.” The notoriety she gained from that led to a recording contract with Lou Adler’s Ode label, and to this 1970 debut solo record, which took its title from the Stones track and featured Merry’s own hit solo version of the song. But don’t stop there—produced by Adler, arranged by the great Gene Page, and featuring Billy Preston on keyboards, Gimme Shelter is an overlooked soul classic, with Merry’s indomitable voice taking songs like James Cleveland’s “Here Come Those Heartaches Again,” The Doors’ “Tell All the People,” and James Taylor’s “Country Roads” to dizzying heights (she also turns “Bridge over Troubled Water” into the sanctified gospel hymn it truly is). First-ever vinyl reissue, in limited edition (of 900) opaque white vinyl.

Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, Native American guitarist Jesse Ed Davis was the “go-to” sideman for a remarkable group of musicians. Starting in the mid-‘60s, he toured with Conway Twitty, then become a key part of Taj Mahal’s band, playing on several albums and tours including an appearance on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and his historic pairing with Leon Russell to play on Bob Dylan’s  “Watching the River Flow” at the Concert for Bangla Desh (after which he accompanied George Harrison). By now, he’d caught the eye of ATCO Records, which released his debut LP Jesse Davis in 1971 featuring Russell, Eric Clapton, Gram Parsons, Merry Clayton, Ben Sidran, John Simon (producer of The Band), Alan White (of Yes), and many others including Delaney Bramlett behind the mixing desk. A year later, Atco released Ululu containing some of the same all-stars, plus Duck Dunn, Jim Keltner, and Dr. John—and a version of George Harrison’s “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” before even George recorded it. Next up, Jesse become John Lennon’s guitarist on Walls and Bridges and Rock n Roll, plus Harrison’s Extra Texture and Ringo Starr’s Goodnight Vienna. Davis also produced and played on Gene Clark’s 1971 album White Light and appeared on Clark’s No Other, Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies’ Man, and that’s Jesse taking the solo on Jackson Browne’s 1972 breakout hit “Doctor My Eyes.” However, despite his status as one of the all-time great session guitarists, Jesse Ed Davis’s solo LPs have been out of print for years and hard to find on CD—so for the very first time, the best of the ATCO material has been collected together, coupled with some unreleased gems!  Real Gone Music proudly presents Jesse Ed Davis: Red Dirt Boogie—The Atco Recordings 1970-72, a 19-track collection featuring liner notes (festooned with photos from the Atco vaults) by Pat Thomas that trace the ups and downs of this supremely talented musician whose life ended tragically at the age of 43 from a drug overdose. Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision to bring out every stinging lead. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, as Davis is featured in a new documentary that debuted at Sundance a few months ago: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World—including Robbie Robertson and John Trudell.

Larry Coryell unexpectedly passed away earlier this year right after our Real Gone reissue of his second solo album, Coryell, and with the renewed attention given to his monumental recorded legacy, we decided to move up our long-in-the-works domestic CD debut of his album At the Village Gate in order to expose this classic record to the largest audience possible. This is the recording where Larry really went axe-to-axe with Jimi Hendrix, who had passed away four months prior to the January 1971 gigs that formed the basis of this release; perhaps in response, Coryell formed his own power trio of his own composed of himself, drummer Harry Wilkinson, and bassist Mervin Bronson to play material that stylistically wasn’t too far removed from the funk/jazz/rock of Jimi’s Band of Gypsys. The result was a fan favorite that somehow has never been issued on CD in the U.S. (and came out overseas over a decade ago on a couple of lightly-distributed labels of suspect provenance). Coryell’s Gibson 400 has seldom sounded as slashing as it does here, while Wilkinson’s playing (aptly described as “busy” by Downbeat) is a cross between Mitch Mitchell, Tony Williams, and Buddy Miles; Bronson keeps things rooted when Coryell heads for the stratosphere. Which is often…this is maybe the most “heroic” of this underappreciated guitar hero’s records. Mike Milchner’s remastering captures every coruscating note, and Bill Kopp’s liner notes feature an interview with drummer Wilkinson. One of the truly great jazz-rock guitarists, loud, free ‘n’ fiery!

One couldn’t imagine a better opening number for the CBS radio program The Doris Day Show than “It’s Magic,” for each week between March 1952 and May 1953, the versatile song stylist and beloved motion picture star Doris Day cast a spell over listeners worldwide with an intimate gathering of famous friends filled with music and laughter. Over the course of five dozen broadcasts of The Doris Day Show—recorded in Hollywood in front of a  live audience and happily preserved on 16-inch transcription discs—Doris joined her special guests at the piano for performances of songs she often had never commercially recorded. This is a largely unknown and scarcely documented facet of Doris’ career, and Day Time on the Radio brings to light no less than 32 rarities including 27 duets and five solo performances—most of which have gone unheard for over six decades! Among her notable foils are frequent leading man Gordon MacRae, who starred in five pictures with Doris; here the two of them sing a total of four duets, highlighted by their medley of “Cuddle Up a Little Closer”/”Till We Meet Again.” Movie stars Kirk Douglas, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan (!), and Broderick Crawford all prove willing and able duet partners, while the more musically-inclined Tony Martin, Howard Keel, Smilin’ Jack Smith, and Frank Loesser lend their formidable talents to a mix of traditional and Broadway-inspired fare. Doris’ sparkling lost solo performance of “Till I Waltz Again with You” finishes Day Time on the Radio with a flourish before a couple of hidden bonus tracks: her renditions of the opening “It’s Magic” and closing “Love to Be with You” radio themes sans announcer. Joe Marchese’s detailed notes and rare photos round out what is a fantastic addition to the Doris Day discography, the first authorized release ever of her long-lost radio performances.

JUNE 2, 2017 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC (all releases single CD unless otherwise noted)

GRATEFUL DEAD: Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 5—Boston Music Hall 6/9/76 (3-CD Set)

SHIRLEY WALKER & JOHN CARPENTER: Escape from L.A.—Music from the Motion Picture Score (Limited Test Tube Clear with Plutoxin Virus Green Splatter Vinyl Edition) (2-LP Set)

RITA COOLIDGE: Beautiful Evening—Live in Japan (Expanded Edition)

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON & RITA COOLIDGE: Full Moon (Expanded Edition)

RY COODER: Paris, Texas—Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Limited Translucent Blue Vinyl Edition) (LP)

MERRY CLAYTON: Gimme Shelter (Limited Opaque White Vinyl Edition) (LP)

JESSE ED DAVIS: Red Dirt Boogie—The Atco Recordings 1970-1972

LARRY CORYELL: At the Village Gate

DORIS DAY: Day Time on the Radio—Lost Radio Duets from The Doris Day Show (1952-1953)

Mon, 05/22/2017 - 6:33 am

Real Gone Music hits its mid-Summer stride with another release schedule that vaults over stylistic boundaries with a little musical magic for listeners of every stripe and preferred musical format. Laura Nyro’s first two, beyond-classic albums, More Than a New Discovery and Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, see their rare and highly coveted MONO versions reissued for the first time ever on a 2-CD set along with non-LP single bonus tracks. And the soundtrack to one of the great action films of the ‘90s and certified cult classic True Romance finally comes out on vinyl in a limited-edition illustrated gatefold version.

Then, the label continues its painstaking exploration of Dusty Springfield’s hallowed catalog of recordings for the Atlantic label with a 17-track set containing the complete recordings she made at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia with Gamble-Huff Productions including an unreleased track. The label stays in a R&B vein with the first of four promised 2-CD volumes featuring the complete singles of Warner Bros.’ highly collectible Loma imprint, 50 tracks featuring everybody from The Olympics (“Good Lovin’”) to Ike & Tina Turner to The Apollas, with over half the tracks making their CD debut. Las Vegas legend and pop standard interpreter par excellence Keely Smith’s first record on the Reprise label receives its first-ever reissue in an Expanded Edition featuring bonus tracks and pictures from the singer’s private archive. And Real Gone once again taps the august catalog the Tennessee Plowboy, Eddy Arnold, for a 20-track collection of his gospel sides.

Finally, the label revisits the catalog of the prodigiously talented Tim Buckley for vinyl releases of his last two albums, Sefronia and Look at the Fool, both featuring brand new mastering from the original tapes by Bill Inglot. And Real Gone is repressing Tom Tom Club’s first record in a limited blue and yellow starburst vinyl edition.

Can you surry?  Can you picnic?  Laura Nyro, to use her own fanciful word, surried onto the scene 50 years ago with the release of her debut album More Than a New Discovery.  Its title was certainly apt. Throughout the course of her life, Nyro wrote and introduced some of the most beloved popular songs of all time with her singular fusion of pop, jazz, R&B, soul, Broadway, and folk sounds.  Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are proud to celebrate the golden anniversary of Laura Nyro’s debut with a landmark 2-CD collection.  A Little Magic, A Little Kindness: The Complete Mono Albums Collection features, for the very first time on CD, both of Nyro’s original mono albums newly-remastered by Vic Anesini at Sony’s Battery Studios from the original master tapes.  More Than a New Discovery, originally released on Verve Folkways in 1967, premiered the songs that Barbra Streisand, Blood Sweat and Tears, and The 5th Dimension would all take up the charts, including “Stoney End,” “And When I Die,” “Blowin’ Away,” and perhaps the most famous song Nyro ever wrote, “Wedding Bell Blues.”  This special edition restores the original album sequence and mono mix from the very first version of the album.  In 1968, Nyro moved to Columbia Records for her most acclaimed album, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession.  Its songs were once again adopted by other artists such as Three Dog Night, Frankie Valli, and of course, The 5th Dimension.  Featuring “Eli’s Comin’,” “Emmie,” “Sweet Blindness,” and the era-defining “Stoned Soul Picnic,” this ultra-rare album – thought by many Nyro connoisseurs to be superior to the familiar stereo version – also makes its maiden appearance on CD.  A handful of bonus tracks round out this special package, including the Bones Howe-produced “pop” version of “Save the Country,” and the CD debuts of the Verve “censored” single version of “Stoney End” and the single mix of “Eli’s Comin’.”  The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese provides new liner notes; the crystal-clear remastering is by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York.  A Little Magic, A Little Kindness: The Complete Mono Albums Collection pays tribute to one of pop’s most enduring iconoclasts.  It’s a soul picnic you won’t want to miss.

Though it was directed by Tony Scott, the 1993 film True Romance displayed all the signature themes and images of its writer, Quentin Tarantino, from its grisly violence to its B-movie homages to its gleeful amorality. And the same could be said of the soundtrack; alongside composer Hans Zimmer’s riff on Carl Orff (which itself was an homage to another violent road movie, Badlands), True Romance offered a playlist that smacked of Tarantino in its embrace of rockabilly (Charlie Sexton, Chris Isaak), grunge (Soundgarden), honky-tonk (Shelby Lynne), and romantic machismo (Robert Palmer’s take on [Love Is] The Tender Trap).Vinyl would seem a natural for such a “warped” soundtrack; yet, outside of a very limited South Korean edition of dubious origin, the soundtrack to True Romance has never made it to LP. So how does a reissue label rectify this grievous oversight? With a bang! Real Gone Music and Wargod are proud to announce the first-ever legitimate release of the True Romance soundtrack on vinyl, housed inside a gatefold album jacket featuring commissioned, custom artwork by Rafał Wechterowicz. This artwork is exclusive to this album’s initial manufacturing run and will never be reprinted. What’s more, our release of True Romance comes in pillow feather white with blood red splatter vinyl limited to 2000 copies! Consider this our own homage to one of the greatest cult classic films of all time…don’t miss out on this limited edition.

Having issued collections of her lost 1971 Jeff Barry-produced sessions (Faithful) and her entire 1970-1971 U.K. sessions (Come for a Dream), we have made chronicling the hallowed late ‘60s/early ‘70s period of Dusty Springfield’s career something of a mission here at Real Gone Music. And we have saved what just might be the best for last—this collection brings together, for the first time ever, all of the historic recordings made by Dusty at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia with Gamble-Huff Productions for Atlantic Records. The 17 selections cover the ten 1969 recordings issued on Springfield's 1970 album A Brand New Me—including the hit title songplus 7 additional tracks from 1970 including the single "I Wanna Be a Free Girl," outtakes not issued until the 1990s on various compilations, and a previously unreleased track, “Sweet Charlie .” Additionally, because former iterations of this material have not been sonically quite up to snuff, each track on The Complete Philadelphia Sessions – A Brand New Me (Expanded Edition) is newly-remixed from the original multi-track masters by Ted Carfrae!  Liner notes by Joe Marchese and rare images from Dusty’s own collection complete this invaluable look at the seductive Ms. Springfield’s foray into the Philly Soul sound. Put this together with our other Real Gone Dusty retrospectives and you have the full picture of Dusty’s recordings from 1969-1971 that immediately followed her Dusty In Memphis pinnacle!

It didn’t have any hits to speak of. Its roster of artists was obscure to say the least. And it only released about 100 singles and a half dozen albums in the four short years (1964-1968) of its existence. But in the five decades that have passed since Loma Records existed as a little-known imprint of Warner Brothers Records, it has become a highly-coveted label—maybe the most coveted label—among ‘60s soul and R&B collectors. Why has Loma has become such a hot property? Well, it has not been well anthologized in the digital age—witness the fact that over half of the tracks on this 50-song set have never appeared on CD, and nothing piques collector interest like scarcity. But there is a deeper story here. While Loma was started by WB chief Mike Maitland as a purely commercial venture designed to accommodate the flood of recordings being made by artists and producers off roster, label head Bob Krasnow—veteran of such hallowed indie labels as Del-Fi, Autumn, and King—recognized that Warner’s holdings were severely lacking in soul and R&B, and brought a certain focus to Loma’s “throw it at the wall and see if it sticks” approach. Which, given the times, was not a bad approach at all. The post-Beatles rising tide of pop music really did lift all boats, prompting an incredible outburst of creativity in the recording industry across all genres. That’s why, alongside the hitless wonders on these 50 tracks, you will find legends like Gene Page, Jerry Ragavoy, and James Brown producing and arranging. And why you will also find some legendary artists, like Ike & Tina Turner, Little Jerry Williams (a.k.a Swamp Dogg), and Smiley Lewis, as well as artists like The Olympics (whose complete output for Loma appears here, including the original version of “Good Lovin’”) and The Apollas that are treasured by ‘60s soul collectors. The Complete Loma Singles: Vol. 1 is the first of four 2-CD collections containing the complete singles output for Loma that we have planned here at Real Gone, and we have brought ‘60s rock and soul guru Alec Palao on board to write the liner notes and co-produce. Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision, all but one single of this material comes from original tape sources, and we have rounded up some rare photos to complete the package. Big, big news for collectors, with more to come!

You can’t get any more popular in American entertainment than Keely Smith was in the early ‘60s.  Having blown the doors out in Las Vegas, winning a Grammy, having hit after hit and lighting up television screens playing straight “man” to husband Louis Prima, she’d navigated the tricky waters of a professional and personal divorce, striking out on her own and starting her own record label, Keely Records, in partnership with close friend and mentor Frank Sinatra, under the auspices of his Reprise label. A groundbreaking businesswoman, as well as recording artist, Keely recorded 5 classic albums for Reprise.  Because she’d seen enough show business shenanigans to last a lifetime, a generation before it became standard practice to do so, she retained the rights to her masters. Those albums have NEVER come out legitimately on CD anywhere in the world. Now, Real Gone Music, in concert with Keely & her family, is very proud to announce that the label is going to answer the pleas of pop fans worldwide and release ALL of Keely’s Reprise albums on CD for the first time in deluxe packages featuring bonus tracks, rare photos, and new liner notes. Little Girl Blue, Little Girl New was Keely’s first release for her new label Reprise, and she celebrated her newfound freedom in grand style by putting out a concept album jointly supervised by Keely with Frank Sinatra. Reassembling the topnotch, high flying creative team of their Capitol years, the entire package was fashioned as two distinct records, from the song choices to the album artwork itself.   It featured two different front covers, one lachrymose, one cheery. The first side, “Little Girl Blue,” offered such lovelorn fare as “Here’s That Rainy Day,” “Willow Weep for Me, and the title tune, while the second side, “Little Girl New,” was epitomized by the spirit of its closing track, “Blue Skies.” Taken as a whole, Little Girl Blue, Little Girl New is a uniquely powerful listening experience and stands as one of the first concept albums ever recorded by a female artist. We’ve added Keely’s first Reprise single (produced by Don Costa), “Going Through the Motions” b/w “When You Cry” (mixed to stereo for the first time ever!), to the original stereo album for this Expanded Edition, which is remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision from original tape sources and also features fresh liner notes and rare photos. Oh, and one more thing…the whole thing is arranged and conducted by the great Nelson Riddle!

Eddy Arnold is no stranger to our Real Gone roster; we’ve put out his hits (Complete Original #1 Hits), his only session with Lee Hazlewood and his last session with Chet Atkins (Each Road I Take—The 1970 Lee Hazlewood & Chet Atkins Sessions) and his holiday sides (The Complete RCA Victor Christmas Recordings). But there remains one aspect of his remarkable career that we have yet to address: his inspirational recordings. And it’s an important one; his first non-45 release was a box (Eddy Arnold’s Sacred Songs) containing three seven inches of spirituals, and he recorded a number of religious-themed records for RCA. For When It’s Round-Up Time in Heaven—The Great Gospel Recordings, we’ve snagged two of the best for this 20-track compilation: 1954’s When It’s Round-Up Time in Heaven and 1963’s Faithfully Yours. These two beautifully-recorded albums have been remastered by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in New York, and come with notes by Joe Marchese examining the role religion played in Eddy’s life and in his art. Sure to uplift your soul!

The list of ‘60s and ‘70s singer-songwriters is long and full of legends; but perhaps the most talented of that very talented bunch was Tim Buckley. Certainly when it came to singing Buckley was at the very top; his range was unmatched, capable of covering several octaves and acres of emotion in one breath, from sweet, tenor tenderness to hoarse, cracking anguish. And his songwriting showed a similar wide range; in the course of eight short years Buckley went from baroque, psychedelic folk rock to jazzy, even avant-garde ravings to blue-eyed soul. This extreme eclecticism, of course, worked against Buckley commercially; by the time his fans caught up to his latest stylistic change he was off on another. But it’s also one of the reasons why his reputation has steadily grown in the years since his untimely death in 1975; countless listeners only familiar with his early Elektra albums have found themselves floored by his later output. Which is where we find ourselves with 1973’s Sefronia and 1974’s Look at the Fool, the last two records Buckley released during his lifetime and probably the two most controversial albums of his career. Long-time fans decried these records as sellouts, and indeed their soft ‘70s funk feel is jarring to those used to his more adventurous work. But Buckley proves himself to be one helluva R&B singer on these albums, which deserved a much larger audience than they got (by this time Buckley was on Frank Zappa and Herb Cohen’s label DiscReet). Now, Real Gone Music is proud to present both Sefronia and Look at the Fool on vinyl for the first time since the late ‘80s, in versions newly remastered from the original master tapes by Bill Inglot. These releases mark a significant upgrade in sound from what’s heretofore been available, and to celebrate, we’re offering each of these records in two different versions: for audiophiles, a limited edition of 400 copies in 180-gram black vinyl, and for collectors, a limited edition of 300 copies in colored vinyl (salmon pink for Sefronia and crimson for Look at the Fool). It’s high time these albums were reappraised; these vinyl releases show them at their very best.

The Talking Heads spawned a number of worthy side projects and spinoffs—David Byrne & Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Jerry Harrison’s The Red and the Black—but none were as funky, danceable, and flat-out fun as Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth’s Tom Tom Club. Conceived as something of a larkish break from the grandly realized intellectual and artistic pretensions of the Heads’ Remain in Light record, the duo’s self-titled 1981 debut was recorded in Barbados with Weymouth’s sisters and Adrian Belew and Steven Stanley from the Remain in Light band, and not only spawned a couple of hit singles in “Genius of Love” and “Wordy Rappinghood” but also became, in its own way, enormously influential. This was the sound of downtown New York talking, listening, and rapping to the burgeoning hip hop movement, a hybrid heard in a whole host of acts in the ‘80s and ‘90s, from Madonna to Mariah Carey to the Beastie Boys and beyond. Weymouth and Frantz went on to record several more albums under the Tom Tom Club moniker, but this remains the classic; Real Gone Music is proud to offer Tom Tom Club in a blue and yellow starburst vinyl edition limited to 700 copies. Fun, natural fun!

JULY 7, 2017 RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC (all releases single CD unless otherwise noted)

LAURA NYRO: A Little Magic, A Little Kindness—The Complete Mono Albums Collection (2-CD Set)

TRUE ROMANCE: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack  (Limited Pillow Feather White & Blood Red Splatter Vinyl Edition) (LP)

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: The Complete Philadelphia Sessions – A Brand New Me (Expanded Edition)

THE COMPLETE LOMA SINGLES: Vol. 1 (2-CD Set)

KEELY SMITH: Little Girl Blue, Little Girl New (Expanded Edition)

EDDY ARNOLD: When It’s Round-Up Time in Heaven—The Great Gospel Recordings

TIM BUCKLEY: Sefronia (Limited Salmon Pink Vinyl Edition) (LP)

TIM BUCKLEY: Sefronia (Limited 180-Gram Vinyl Edition) (LP)

TIM BUCKLEY: Look at the Fool (Limited Crimson Vinyl Edition) (LP)

TIM BUCKLEY: Look at the Fool (Limited 180-Gram Vinyl Edition) (LP)

TOM TOM CLUB: Tom Tom Club (Limited Blue & Yellow Starburst Vinyl Edition) (LP)