It's not an April Fool's joke -- Real Gone Music's April 1 release schedule features releases from movie and TV superstars, a legendary girl group, a Southern rock mainstay, a behind-the-scenes stalwart of '60s and '70s pop-rock, an all-time great bubblegum/garage rock band, one of the most hallowed soul singers of all time and the world's greatest jam band. Headlining the docket are two releases timed to celebrate the 90th birthday of silver screen icon Doris Day, one chock-full of rarities, the other featuring classic movie songs pulled from the Columbia vaults. Then, Real Gone turns its spotlight from the big screen to the small screen for a collection of the complete Bell recordings from one of the stars of The Carol Burnett Show, Vicki Lawrence, featuring the #1 hit "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."
Next, Real Gone dives deep into the vaults for a 2-CD, 39-song set compiling the complete Atlantic sides of Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles, with four unreleased tracks. The Duane Allman discovery Cowboy receives a long-overdue release of their debut album, and future Raider Keith Allison sees his lone solo album finally get reissued with a dozen bonus single sides. The complete Cameo recordings of the Ohio Express, one of the earliest and most essential acts helmed by the legendary bubblegum production team of Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffrey Katz, see their first ever reissue in any format, while former Temptation Eddie Kendricks' lone solo album for the Atlantic label also makes its CD debut. Finally, Real Gone once again hitches a ride on the Grateful Dead's long strange trip with another Dick's Pick volume featuring a complete live show from 1973.
For seven decades, the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated artist Doris Day has epitomized performing excellence, setting the standard for countless female singers and actors who have attempted to follow in her path. But no other female performer has ever really come close to the level of artistry, success and worldwide devotion that the woman born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, Ohio, has enjoyed ever since becoming a teen-aged songbird with the Les Brown Orchestra during the World War II era. She truly will forever be the ultimate "crossover" superstar. Now, Real Gone Music is proud to present a pair of releases timed to celebrate Ms. Day's momentous 90th birthday on April 3, 2014. The first, Doris Day: "Music, Movies & Memories", is a brand-new album of Day rarities spanning the 1940s through 1980s, offering tracks that have never appeared on an album or compact disc as well as several precious, recently-discovered gems. Among the previously unreleased titles are a 1947 rendition of the standard "Can't Help Lovin' That Man," a beautiful ballad from the '50s entitled "How Well I Know," and five tracks from Doris' final recording session in 1985 including an amazing, jazz-flavored outtake performance of "Everyone's Gone to the Moon." The other, Doris Day: "Sings Her Great Movie Hits", is the first ever CD reissue of the 1966 Columbia/Harmony album, expanded with 13 bonus tracks and including songs from every single Day movie from 1956 to 1967 in which she sang. Among the highlights: songs from the beloved trio of Day-Rock Hudson classics Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers, a pair of bouncy ditties from Day's pairings with Rod Taylor (Do Not Disturb and The Glass Bottom Boat), "Move Over Darling," a slice of "mod" Doris featuring production by son Terry Melcher and arrangements by Jack Nitzsche, and Doris' most beloved song, the original version of "Que Sera, Sera" from Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Liner notes to both packages feature photos and quotes from the great lady herself.
Before Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash morphed into the futuristic soul trio known as Labelle
Led by Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton, the Jacksonville band Cowboy was discovered by none other than Duane Allman, who, as legend has it, banged on their door at 7 am one day and asked to hear some
Keith Allison took listeners "where the action is" on his 1967 Columbia Records debut LP In Action, packing its grooves with tunes from Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (including "Action, Action, Action," the theme to ABC-TV's Where the Action Is, which featured Allison), Donovan, Neil Diamond, Ray Charles, and his future bandmates Paul Revere and the Raiders. On the album -- produced by California music icon Gary Usher -- Allison even introduced a future country-and-western staple in his own song "Freeborn Man," co-written with the Raiders' Mark Lindsay. Real Gone Music's first-ever compact disc reissue offers more action than before, adding twelve original mono single bonus tracks to the original eleven stereo pop nuggets. These diverse 45s -- ten rarities from the Columbia vaults and two ultra-rare tracks from Bell Records' Amy imprint -- boast productions by the likes of Mark Lindsay, Terry Melcher and Larry Marks, and songs by Bo Diddley, Joe South, Tommy Roe, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and the legendary Brill Building team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil as well as Allison himself. Taken together, the 23 tracks on Keith Allison: "In Action -- The Complete Columbia Sides and More!" show the many sides of this singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who, besides being the late-period Raiders bassist, worked with the Monkees, Ringo Starr and Alice Cooper. Joe Marchese's in-depth liner notes explore the Keith Allison legacy; Vic Anesini's remastering lets the music shine.
The tangled history of the Ohio Express is difficult to unwind, but the one constant in the band's chronology are the guiding hands of legendary bubblegum/garage producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffrey Katz, whose Super K Productions were behind hits by everybody from the Shadows of Knight to the 1910
Having recently released a quartet of albums by David Ruffin, Real Gone Music now turns its attention to Ruffin's former running mate in the Temptations, Eddie Kendricks, whose mellifluous tenor and falsetto were such an integral part of the group's sound. Kendricks began his solo journey in 1971, leaving Motown in 1977 for a two-album, two-year stint at Arista Records. In 1981, Eddie signed with Atlantic Records for the one-off LP, "Love Keys", which would be his last major label album (aside from a 1987 collaboration with fellow ex-Temptation, David Ruffin). Produced in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama by the team of Johnny Sandlin (best known for his work with Southern rock artists like the Allman Brothers, Bonnie Bramlett, Elvin Bishop, and Wet Willie) and Randy Roberts, Eddie Kendricks: "Love Keys" featured backing from the Muscle Shoals Horns and the Southern soul group the Controllers on songs written by Lou Courtney ("I'm In Need Of Love"), David Pomeranz ("Old Home Town") and Eddie's former Motown colleagues, Brian & Eddie Holland (for the track, "(Oh I) Need Your Lovin,'" a Billboard Top 50 R&B single). The album represented Eddie Kendricks' first venture into Southern soul, and was the last charting solo set for the great soul singer, who passed away in 1992. It makes its worldwide CD debut here, with notes and added photos. Brought to you by Real Gone and SoulMusic Records.
The first full 1973 concert to be released, and the first concert of their uniformly excellent Fall '73 Midwest tour, Grateful Dead: "Dick's Picks Vol. 19 -- 10/19/73 Oklahoma City Fairgrounds Arena, Oklahoma City, OK" captures the Dead a matter of days after the release of Wake of the Flood, the first release on their own Grateful Dead Records label, and over half the tracks from the album appear here, highlighted by stellar (no pun intended) renditions of "Stella Blue" and "Eyes of the World." Both of those songs appear as the first encore on Disc Three, which may well be one of the finest single discs in the entire Dick's Picks canon; the disc leads off with a 15-minute "Dark Star" which segues effortlessly to "Mind Left Body Jam" leading into a truly transcendent reading of "Morning Dew." Add "Sugar Magnolia" and a show-ending "Johnny B. Goode" to the set and you know everybody went home happy. A superb sound mix on this one, too, and as always it's presented in HDCD sound. Out of print for years.