{"id":1915,"date":"2012-07-28T21:54:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-28T21:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skylight.gr\/administrator_wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/07\/28\/reissues-from-johnny-mathis-mercury-years-david-cassidy-and-more-grateful-dead-dicks-picks\/"},"modified":"2012-07-28T21:54:46","modified_gmt":"2012-07-28T21:54:46","slug":"reissues-from-johnny-mathis-mercury-years-david-cassidy-and-more-grateful-dead-dicks-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/2012\/07\/28\/reissues-from-johnny-mathis-mercury-years-david-cassidy-and-more-grateful-dead-dicks-picks\/","title":{"rendered":"REISSUES FROM JOHNNY MATHIS\u2019 MERCURY YEARS, DAVID CASSIDY, AND MORE GRATEFUL DEAD ‘DICK\u2019S PICKS’"},"content":{"rendered":"


The summer dog days bring a diverse selection of Real Gone Music reissues, ideal for vacation listening. On August 28, 2012, the label will release six titles including Johnny Mathis\u2019 Tender Is the Night\/Wonderful World of Make-Believe and Broadway, an entire unreleased album from his underrated Mercury Records catalog paired with his Love Is Everything LP; David Cassidy\u2019s Cassidy Live!, and Gettin\u2019 It in the Street; Gary Lewis & the Playboys\u2019 The Complete Liberty Singles; and a four-CD Grateful Dead Dick\u2019s Picks selection, Dick\u2019s Picks Vol. 28\u20142\/26\/73 Pershing Municipal Auditorium, Lincoln, NE 2\/28\/73 Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, UT.<\/p>\n

Johnny Mathis\u2019 mid-\u201960s sides for the Mercury label have long been overlooked, though they rank among the most commercially and artistically successful recordings of his career. Why? Well, for one thing, Johnny has been a flagship artist for Columbia Records for so long that folks tend to forget that he spent three years apart from the label. But more importantly, those recordings, most notably the ten LPs he cut for Mercury, have been out of print during the entire compact disc era, as only Johnny\u2019s Christmas album has ever come out on CD. Now, by special arrangement with Sony Music, the artist and his management, Real Gone Music will issue these essential albums (everything but the Christmas album, which remains in print) on compact disc for the first time \u2014 nearly 50 years after Johnny\u2019s first release on Mercury. Each release consists of two albums, each newly remastered at Battery Studios in New York, complete with original art and comprehensive liner notes featuring an exclusive interview of Johnny by pop vocal expert James Ritz (who counts these Mercury albums as his favorite Mathis recordings, by the way). And our first wave of releases includes a never-before-released album of Broadway-themed songs recorded by Johnny in 1964-1965, paired with his charting album from 1965, Love Is Everything, while our other twofer, Tender Is the Night\/Wonderful World of Make-Believe, features Johnny\u2019s first two \u201csecular\u201d albums for Mercury (his first release for the label was Sounds of Christmas). Both albums hit the charts in 1964, with Tender Is the Night reaching #12, and both albums feature Johnny\u2019s dreamy takes on stage and film songs, with arrangements on Tender by the great Don Costa.<\/p>\n

The all-time king of teen idols was arguably David Cassidy, eldest son of television\u2019s Partridge Family. Cassidy\u2019s star was so bright, in fact, that he was one of the very few \u201970s teen idols who was able to achieve a successful, long-lived solo career after the initial burst of teen hype \u2014 in fact, it was Cassidy\u2019s desire to tackle more mature musical material that in part led to the end of the show. Despite their commercial success, however, those solo recordings have remained largely unavailable, with only Cassidy\u2019s first two albums reissued on compact disc in this country. Real Gone Music is delving into Cassidy\u2019s rich catalog with a series of releases featuring liner notes by \u201970s pop expert Mike Ragogna and new remastering by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in NYC, and begins with Cassidy\u2019s most collectible titles. Recorded in Britain during his 1974 world tour, the live album Cassidy Live! provides eloquent testimony both to the kind of hysteria David Cassidy concerts generated and to his global appeal. Despite that global appeal, however, the album has never appeared on CD anywhere in the world. Featuring tunes by Oscar Hammerstein & Richard Rodgers, Leon Russell and Stephen Stills, it confirms that Cassidy had bigger things in mind than teen idol-dom. Meanwhile, Cassidy\u2019s 1976 album Gettin\u2019 It in the Street never saw a proper release in the U.S. even though it featured songwriting from Brian Wilson, guitar work by Mick Ronson and co-production by America\u2019s Gerry Beckley. This overlooked gem from the Cassidy catalog has only been on CD in Japan.<\/p>\n

The definitive Gary Lewis & the Playboys two-CD, 45-track The Complete Liberty Singles anthology came and went in a heartbeat a few years ago; the critical and commercial response was so good (and continues to be \u2014 used copies sell for megabucks online) that Real Gone Music decided to reissue it. It\u2019s still the ideal way to explore the recordings of one of the great singles bands of the \u201960s, featuring the A- and B-side of every single they issued on the Liberty label. Many of these original mono singles mixes and most of the B-sides were completely unavailable until this collection came along \u2014 these after all are the mixes fans heard cracklin\u2019 from their radio back in the day. The annotation by Ed Osborne features interviews with producers Bones Howe and Snuff Garrett, drummers Hal Blaine and Jim Keltner, singer (and Gary\u2019s \u201cghost\u201d voice) Ron Hicklin and even Lewis himself.<\/p>\n

Dick Latvala was the official tape archivist for the Grateful Dead until 1999. His inspiration and encyclopedic knowledge of the band\u2019s vaults spawned the fabled Dick\u2019s Picks series of live Dead concert recordings. Comprising 36 volumes, Dick\u2019s Picks follows the band on its long, strange trip through a multitude of eras, tours and venues, featuring handpicked shows that display the band at its visionary, improvisational height. Dick\u2019s Picks Vol. 28\u20142\/26\/73 Pershing Municipal Auditorium, Lincoln, NE 2\/28\/73 Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, UT (four-CD set) features two 1973 concerts that took place shortly after the Dead added a large number of new, jazzy numbers to its repertoire. One such song, \u201cEyes of the World,\u201d plays a central role in both shows excerpted here. As usual, the medleys hold the most jaw-dropping feats of improvisational derring-do: the first night\u2019s \u201cDark Star\/Eyes of the World\/Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo\u201d is seamlessly sublime (or is that sublimely seamless?), while the second night\u2019s \u201cTruckin\u2019\/The Other One\/Eyes of the World\/Morning Dew\u201d covers a prodigious amount of terrain, from raucous to frenzied to lilting to lyrical in the space of nearly one glorious hour. Also noted with pleasure is the appearance of \u201cBox of Rain,\u201d which the Dead performed live sparingly. This collection is presented in HDCD sound \u2014 never before available in stores.<\/p>\n

Source: Real Gone Music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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