Due out October 18th is a 30th Anniversary reissue of Iris DeMent’s fantastic second album, entitled My Life. Originally released om CD only, this LP release had it’s lacquer cut by Kevin Gray at his Cohearent Audio facility, and is being pressed in a quantity of 2,000 worldwide by Yep Roc Records. Get your order in now!
Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of A+ when it was released (and her debut Infamous Angel an A-, already available on a Yep Roc LP), but I think it’s better than that. Merle Haggard covered one song on the album, the devastatingly heartbreaking "No Time To Cry". His version is good, Iris’ is great. Iris is my favorite artist to have emerged in the past three decades, in terms of both songwriting and singing.
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I'm green with envy @slaw! I've been jonesing to see Gillian and David for years, but they never make it to the Northwest.
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In November, a new album (entitled Woodland) from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.
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In September Mary Gauthier’s album Drag Queens In Limousines will be released on LP (vinyl for you youngins’) for the first time.
Also in September, Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music and it’s follow-up Volume Two. Both retail for $25.99, and from a new-to-me label (Tangerine), so their quality remains to be seen. Used copies aren’t that hard to find, and at minimal cost.
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A new one from Joe Ely (Driven To Drive) out today.
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@jafant: In addition to the 27-CD boxset of Dylan’s 1974 Live Recordings that Sony Records is issuing on September 20th (27 CD’s  !), Third Man Records is issuing a 3-LP set of (some of) those recordings that augments the original 2-LP set from 1974, with no song duplication between the two. The catch is that the set is available only to Third Man Records "Vault" subscribers. The good news is that a quarterly subscription costs $75, and that subscription entitles one to the LP set at no extra charge. So you enroll and pay now (deadline July 31st), receive the LP set, and if you wish not renew your quarterly subscription at the end of the three months. A 3-LP set for $75, not bad at all.
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On August 12th Real Gone Music is releasing the never-before issued recordings Dusty Springfield made in 1971 with Jeff Barry (famous for his Pop songwriting with partner Ellie Greenwich) producing, entitled Faithful. It is a pressing of 1500 LP's worldwide, so if you want a copy I would pre-order it now from RGM!
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Nite Owls by JD McPherson (from the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant band) on September 27th.
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On September 13th Nick Lowe’s first new album in over a decade comes out on Yep Roc Records. Providing musical accompaniment is Los Straitjackets, his road band for quite a while now. The title is Indoor Safari.
I take particular interest in this album as an old friend and former bandmate of mine plays bass in The Straitjackets. We met in September of 1962 (!) on the first day of 7th grade at Hyde Jr. High in Cupertino, California, and became fast friends (I learned to play drums on his set of Japanese drums, then got my own set of used Ludwigs and A. Zildjian cymbals). We played together in a coupla bands in the ensuing years, the last being The Hillbilly Soul Surfers, an instrumental trio working out of Los Angeles.
We both loved Nick’s debut solo album (after leaving The Brinsley Schwarz Band), Jesus Of Cool (renamed Pure Pop For Now People for it’s U.S.A. release on Columbia Records), though I greatly preferred the follow up, Labour Of Lust. Nick’s former partner in the band Rockpile Dave Edmunds (they had a falling out many years ago) I love even more. I received a concert poster for Rockpile’s October 17th, 1979 show at The Hollywood Palladium as a gift from an old (young at the the time 😊) girlfriend, and as fate would have it years later played in the band of the artist listed on the poster as Rockpile’s opening act, Pearl Harbour (Pearl was a for a time married to Clash bassist Paul Simonon, but I kept my opinion of his musicianship to myself 😁). I didn’t see that show, but saw Rockpile at The Country Club in nearby Reseda, with Moon Martin opening. A great show! Nick of course played bass on John Hiatt’s brilliant Bring The Family album, with Ry Cooder on guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. Pretty good little combo 😉.
Pete (Pedro in the parlance of Los Straitjackets) has a home studio with a 2" 16-track 3M recorder, great mics, and a nice board, so I’ll be curious to see if that’s where they made the album (I would ask him, but we too had a falling out many years ago 😉).
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A new one (Consequences Of The Crown) from Shelby Lynne on August 16th.
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Available now is a new one from Richard Thompson. In July it's a live album from Steve Earle.
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Johnny Cash: Songwriter. Recorded in 1993, shortly before Rick Rubin took him into the studio to start the making of his American Recordings albums.
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Thanks for doing that research Steve. I finally looked up the LP on Discogs, and see the version you have. The copies listed there range from $75 US up to 149 UK pounds.
The new version coming out is on Sony U.S. Latin, which I find odd. I've never seen a used copy of the Rounder pressing in all my diggings. Of course Shelby is a cult-level artist, so there weren't that many copies bought back when you did.
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No kiddin’ Steve? Is it a UK pressing? I know they kept making LP’s over there, long after the US companies shut down their pressing plants. I shoulda looked up the album on Discogs before making that proclamation!
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Two upcoming albums from quality female singer/songwriters (is it okay to separate them from males? 😉 ) :
- Every New beginning by Kim Richey. Due May 24th, on CD and clear Coke bottle vinyl.
- I Am Shelby Lynne by, yeah, Shelby Lynne. Originally released on CD only in 1999, this will be it’s first appearance on LP. July 12th.
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@jafant: Yeah, I'm SO looking forward to the Sweetheart Of The Rodeo RSD release! Backing Jim McGuinn, Chris Hillman, and Marty Stuart (talk about a Supergroup!) are Stuart's band His Fabulous Superlatives, imo the current best band in the world.
Drummer/singer Harry Stinson, guitarist/singer Kenny Vaughan, and bassist/pedal steel player/singer Chris Scruggs are all 1st-call Nashville studio players. I first saw Kenny live when he was in Lucinda Williams' road band on the Car Wheels tour, and was stunned by his playing.
Another is the upcoming (June 21st) Dave Alvin/Jimmy Dale Gilmore TexiCali album.
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On June 7th Yep Rock Records is releasing an LP reissue of Super Group (Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner, and Terry Williams) Rockpile’s lone album, pressed from a new lacquer cut by Kevin Gray. The announcement makes no mention of the bonus 7" 45 RPM single (entitled Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds Sing The Everly Brothers) that was included with early pressings of the original 1980 Columbia Records release.
If you haven’t heard the album, and have a love of 1950’s Rock ’n’ Roll, 1960’s/70’s Power Pop, Hard Country, or Roots Rock in general, you need this album. Though Rockpile released just the one album (entitled Seconds Of Pleasure) under the band name, they appear on both Dave’s and Nick’s late-70’s/early-80’s solo albums. And on Carlene Carter’s (June Carter’s daughter, of course) fantastic Musical Shapes album. In 1980 Carlene was Nick Lowe’s woman (and he her man 😉 ), though she later was with Howie Epstein, Petty’s bassist. Both Carlene and Howie loved hard partying, in Howie’s case a little too much.
I don’t use the term Super Group lightly. I saw Rockpile live only once, but they are in the handful of best bands I’ve seen and heard live. For context, I saw The Beatles (in 1965, at The Cow Palace in S. San Francisco), and they aren’t included in that handful. Sorry Mazzy 😆 .
Copies of the original Rockpile LP aren’t too hard to find, or expensive. But the Yep Rock release has that new lacquer (Kevin Gray is a mastering expert, with an outstanding electronic mastering chain), and a new pressing (done at a new LP manufacturing plant in North Carolina). The Yep Rock release is limited to 1,000 copies worldwide, on yellow PVC (who cares about colored vinyl?), but as I already own Mint copies of both the USA and UK pressings (plus a spare sealed USA copy), I won’t be buying a copy.
But if you don’t already own a copy of Seconds of Pleasure, and don’t want to wait for a Mint copy of an original to come your way, do yourself a big favour and grab a copy of the Yep Rock LP. Warning: Hearing Seconds Of Pleasure may make many of the other bands you’ve heard now sound less good.
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Slated for release on May 3rd is---
Guy Clark:Truly Homemade Volume 1. Guy’s early acoustic song demos, compiled and produced by Rodney Crowell.
And now due out on April 5th---
Tony Rice: Church Street Blues (Craft Recordings).
Also on the 5th is the 3rd album from Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams.
Isn't it a great time to be alive? 😊
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New album from T Bone Burnett in April, his first of studio-recorded music in many years.
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Upcoming on LP from Vinyl Me Please:
March: The Houston Kid by Rodney Crowell. Rodney's perfect album (imo a masterpiece) from 2001, first time on LP.
April: Church Street Blues by Tony Rice (Art Dudley's favorite flat pick acoustic guitarist. A musician's musician). A long-out-of-print collectible that sells for around a hundred bucks in Mint condition. $39 from VMP ($35 for members).
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- Coming out February 28th is Joel Selvin’s book on the great drummer (VERY great) Jim Gordon. Norman Maslov posted an interview with Joel earlier today on YouTube; I’m about to watch it.
- On March 8th Norah Jones’ Visions is out.
- April 5th it will be the new one by Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams (their third). Larry was Dylan’s road bandleader/guitarist/harmony singer for quite a while. He then served the same role for Levon Helm, including all the shows in Levon’s barn. Teresa was also in the group of singers/musicians who were regulars in those shows.
I intended to make the trip to Woodstock to attend one, but never did. I did make it to Levon’s book signing appearance at Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard when his autobiography came out. So did Ringo Starr, who took cuts in line 😊 .
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Just announced by Capitol Records for release on vinyl later this month: the two Jellyfish albums. "Mastered from the original analog master tapes" for what that’s worth, and pressed on 180g vinyl.
The listing in today's Elusive Disc promo email includes this in it's description: "2023 release." Then why is it receiving a new release announcement?! That reissue received uniformly negative reviews, even from non-audiophiles.
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I’m jumping the gun into 2025.
On January 25th, Lost Highway Records (one of my favorite labels) is releasing Look Up by Ringo Starr (on LP and CD). Produced by T Bone Burnett, Ringo receives accompaniment from the likes of Alison Krauss, Billy Strings, and Molly Tuttle, the last two being rising stars in the Bluegrass genre.
Ringo exposed his love of Country & Western music while still a member of The Beatles, which was the introduction into C & W for a lot of boomers (though not myself. I already had Johnny Horton’s greatest hits album, and my mom had Johnny Cashes Ring Of Fire album). Ringo’s second solo album was 1970’s Beaucoups Of Blues, recorded in Nashville with Pete Drake (heard playing pedal steel guitar on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album, as well as a few Dylan albums) producing, employing the talents of the the Nashville A-Team musicians.
So this album is a welcome return to his first love by Ringo. He is of course not a very good singer, but then neither is T Bone Burnett. It’s all about the songs, right? And then the musicianship.
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On December 6th, Highway 20 Records releases Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road.
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On November 21st New West Records is releasing an album by The Coward Brothers (T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello).
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On October 18th New West Records is releasing (on LP and CD) a various artists collection of recordings of songs written by David Olney. Entitled Can't Steal My Fire: The Songs Of David Olney, the artists include Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier, Steve Earle, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Townes Van Zandt, Willis Alan Ramsey. R.B. Morris, Greg Brown, and Janis Ian. Wow!
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Already in the racks:
Dave Edmunds: Swan Songs: The Singles 1976-1981.
For you younger fellas, Dave Edmunds emerged as a solo artist in 1970 (after having been a member of the UK trio Love Sculpture). He was on the short list of guitarists considered as the replacement for Brian Jones in The Stones, but thankfully they went with Mick Taylor instead. Dave recorded an old Blues song ("I Hear You Knocking", written by Dave Bartholomew and recorded by Smiley Lewis, Fats Domino, many others) that year, which miraculously became a Top 30 hit single (not being a radio listener at the time, I never heard it). He transformed the song into an absolute Rock 'n' Roll scorcher, with a smokin' hot guitar solo.
Robert Plant was a Dave Edmunds fan, and when Led Zeppelin started their record label Swan Song, Dave was Robert's first signing. Dave's 1977 Swan Song debut album Get It was my introduction to Dave, and he absolutely blew my mind! This 2-LP set is comprised of all Dave's Swan Song singles, and though I have all Dave's recorded material, this release is too juicy to resist. It will make for great driving music, pedal-to-the-metal baby!
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Costello's King Of America is also being released as a 6-CD "Super Deluxe" boxset.
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I just learned that Sam Phillips' 2004 album A Boot And A Shoe was released on LP last month.
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On November 1st, Elvis Costello’s King Of America (his own personal favorite of his many albums) is being released on LP by Universal Music. "Remastered from the original master tapes", for what that’s worth. I already own both original UK (on F-Beat Records) and MoFi copies, so don’t need this one.
On October 18th, Gone Away Backward by Robbie Fulks comes out on red vinyl (on Bloodshot Records, ironically  ).
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