Yes. Things are slowing down. But it isn’t without a few surprises from way out in left field. I have to admit that two of these box sets I am going to mention to you really left me completely surprised.
For starters, our consistently quality friends over at Audio Fidelity are prepping a disc of some kind for Warren Zevon – Excitable Boy for the near future. It hasn’t been specified yet if it will be an SACD hybrid or just a Gold audiophile disc. Obviously, Matt and I are pushing our hopes for an SACD hybrid. (Hoffman Forum)
The first of the completely out of the blue surprises came by way of a report from The Second Disc. They got tipped off by a blog post devoted to the man which, in turn, led to a link to the Amazon France pre-order. Isn’t it lovely how these things go? Anyway, we got the really pleasant news today that Rhino (France) is dropping upon us Soul lovers another Donny Hathaway box set titled Never My Love: The Anthology. It will be 4-CDs of quite a bit of unreleased studio and live material, plus a gathering of the released tracks he cut with Roberta Flack and material from the Everything Is Everything album. It is due out on November 11. Amazon France will be the only place where you’ll be able to get it. For those of you who want to read what is on this box set, you should go to THIS LINK. This is the news as reported from the English Hathaway blog site that made it to the eyes of the great people over at The Second Disc. (The Second Disc)
The other completely unexpected news is of an Eric Clapton box set that hadn’t been discussed, as least as far as I know, at any music forums or Clapton discussion sites. There’s going to be a 6-CD set called Give Me Strength ’74. The sleuths over at the Hoffman Forum have only been able to piece together some small fragments of what this thing is really all about. At some non-U.S. website, somebody posted that the writer, Marc Roberty, has confirmed that this box set is a legitimate release. So, I’m only assuming that this is going to be a UMe/Polydor release since it’s supposed to be legitimate. From what has been bandied about at the early stages, this box set is going to be from 1974 and 1975 and will likely consist of mostly jam sessions. It is going to be available on November 25 in the U.S. And November 22 in the EU. This one is a real head-scratcher, as it is going to be coming hot on the heels of the expanded Deluxe Edition of Unplugged. We’ll have to see how this plays out. The pre-order is already up over at Amazon. (Hoffman Forum)
One of the long-time posters over at IMWAN is reporting that the Duane Allman –Skydog: The Retrospective box set is getting a reissue with less of the fancy extras that the original package had. I can only assume that this means it’s all of the music without all of the extra packaging goodies. It is due out on October 29 from Rounder. (IMWAN)
Update on the Clapton box: It’s real and legitimate. The IMWAN guy said that Bill Levenson was involved with putting the thing together. And then, courtesy of the Hoffman Forum, an anonymous poster said Give Me Strength ’74 will contain the following-461 Ocean Blvd (expanded), There’s One In Every Crowd (expanded), E.C. Was Here (remixed and expanded + additional live), Freddie King Criteeria Studio Sessions. There will be a Blu-Ray disc of the following: 461 Ocean Blvd (Surround and original Quad mix), There’s One In Every Crowd (original Quad mix) and E.C. Was Here (original Quad mix).
Also, I wanted to let people know that the newest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine arrived in my mail today and there was an ad in it for the latest newsstand collectors edition. It’s devoted to Bruce Springsteen and should be out on store shelves now.
Damn! No No Reason To Cry. That album never gets any respect, and it could very well be his best.
Matt,
There’s rife speculation going on over at the Hoffman Forum thread on the Clapton box which makes people believe that there will eventually be something for No Reason To Cry. It appears that the progression is a strategy of moving on up through the years in some kind of chronological order. As a side note, I do wonder if Universal might try to do some kind of 5.1 for any of the Cream stuff that is for the domestic & U.K. markets (I’m not counting the Japan Disraeli Gears two channel SHM-SACD I reported on). For me, there’s too much repetition on this box for me to pre-order it now during another brutal 4th Quarter pre-order period. What’s killing me is that I wish the Freddie King material could get issued on its own. Plus, I’d like to see some kind of a disc surface of Clapton and King live from when they toured togetheer. There’s some live cuts of them on one of the German Bear Family boxes of which I still haven’t picked up yet. I’d kill to own both of the ones they did for Freddie King, but I had other things I needed to pick up before them as they are pretty spendy.