While we are STILL awaiting a release date from Mobile Fidelity for their audiophile vinyl re-issue of the George Harrison-produced Shankar Family & Friends, Dark Horse has decided to put it out on CD, and on purple coloured vinyl.
It was initially slated for a June 9 release, but it looks like the date has recently been pushed back to July 14:
There could also be a black vinyl version but we’re not exactly sure. This image is appearing on some store sites:
Image (from l to r): Dhani Harrison and Yusuf with David Zonshine (Dark Horse) and Yoriyos Adamos (Yusuf’s son and manager) at F.P.S.H.O.T.
A number of digital back catalogue albums were almost immediately put up on the Dark Horse releases site indicating they were now available on streaming services. These are all what might be considered his second tier works, definitely not his top-selling LPs. So the wait has been on to see what new content from Yusuf/Cat Stevens might be made available for the first time – and on physical media.
In March the label made this announcement about a brand new studio work and now the wait for that release is almost over because next month (June 16) sees King Of A Land issued on Dark Horse:
Amazonhas a limited edition green vinyl version available for pre-order too:
The album’s artwork is created by award-winning Canadian children’s illustrator Peter H. Reynolds. As well as the cover art he has created illustrations for each song portraying the album’s lyrical themes in an accompanying 36 page booklet. The vinyl and booklet are housed in a gatefold sleeve.
Dark Horse, with it’s direct association with founder George Harrison, seems to be a natural home for Yusuf. “George has been an immense influence on me, spiritually, from the very beginning. He pioneered certain thoughts and ideas, which stretched way east, and that was very important. He was beginning to explore Eastern mysticism around the time I was hospitalised with TB, in 1968. Lying in bed, I had a lot of time on my hands and ended up reading a Buddhist book called The Secret Path. That was the beginning of my own search for the light.”
“Looking at the jagged journey of my music, beginning as I did in the 60’s, I would say this new record is a mosaic. A very clearly defined description of where I’ve been and who I am.”
In welcoming the singer to the Dark Horse Record label, Dhani Harrison said “I’m thrilled to welcome Yusuf/Cat Stevens to the Dark Horse Records family. Not only is he a great musical legend but his songs could not fit the Dark Horse mythos any better. From his back catalogue, through to the new music we can’t wait for you to hear. Yusuf is without question one of the most influential singer-songwriters of all time. It is a great honour to be able to give his music a home on our humble yet historic label.”
Yusuf has started to tease King Of A Land with some very charming lyric videos:
King Of A Land sounds like it could be something special, very reminiscent of his early 1970’s work. Definitely looking forward to this one.
In addition to the two Dark Horse Records releases that came out on Record Store Day just past (see our post here), there are two more physical titles from the newly-revitalised label you might like to track down.
The first came out just a couple of weeks prior to Record Store Day.
Its the late, great Leon Russell’s Signature Songs, an album of solo piano and vocal recordings originally released in 2001 and which has been long out-of-print since.
Signature Songs features stripped-down, unique takes of songs from across Russell’s long and illustrious songwriting career. Songs you will definitely know either recorded by him, or the many artists who covered his songs and had hits with them: ‘A Song For You’, ‘Tight Rope’, ‘Delta Lady’, ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’, and the classic ‘This Masquerade’.
Signature Songs is available on CD, digital download, and is now pressed on vinyl for the very first time.
Here’s the hype sticker:
And the label:
Sometimes you just have to bide your time when it comes to waiting for new releases.
We reported way back in January 2022 that the Mobile Fidelity company intended to issue an audiophile pressing of the1974 George Harrison-produced Dark Horse album Shankar Family ૐ Friends. On it Indian musical virtuosos Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha, Ashish Khan, Kamala Chakravarty, Hariprasad Chaurasia are joined by Western musos like Ringo Starr, David Bromberg, Billy Preston, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voorman and Tom Scott.
Well, truth is we’re still waiting for this one, so you’ll have to be patient.
But, there has been movement at the station…
A press release page has appeared on the Mobile Fidelity website inviting pre-orders. Still no firm release date sadly, but at least you can now pre-order and secure this Dark Horse “Beatle-related” extra for your collection:
The Record Store Day 2023 release list has just come out and come April 23 there’ll be at least three titles of interest to Beatle collectors.
Probably the most interesting and hard-to-get will be a re-imagining of John Lennon’sGimme Some Truth best-of compilation which is being re-issued as a boxset containing 9 x 10” white vinyl EPs. Each EP will feature four tracks. Only 500 copies of this will be produced, hence the ‘hard-to-get’ moniker….
Next is the highly speculated 50th anniversary release of Paul McCartney’sRed Rose Speedway in limited edition, Half Speed Master vinyl form:
According to the RSD list there will be 5,000 pressed so this should be much easier to secure. It follows similar Half Speed Master editions of McCartney, Wings Wild Life and RAM.
Then there’s a re-issue of the 1981 Ringo Starr title Stop and Smell the Roses. This is being re-issued on vinyl as a 2LP with six bonus tracks for the first time. It will come in a gatefold with printed inner sleeves, original record labels and specialty color vinyl described as lava lamp effect clear red/white for LP1 and lava lamp effect clear red/pink for LP2. There are 2,500 copies being pressed.
Stop and Smell the Roses will also be issued on RSD as a CD (500 copies).
But wait, there is a George connection too. Dark Horse, the record label he started up (now run by son Dhani Harrison) is releasing not one but two LPs.
The first is by Stairsteps, a band originally signed to the label back in 1975. For Record Store Day 2023 we’ll see their 1976 album 2nd Resurrection re-issued on black vinyl. Billy Preston played synthesizer and served as co-producer alongside Robert Margouleff.
Dark Horse will also have a 20th Anniversary edition of the Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros album Streetcore as a limited edition pressing on white vinyl for RSD:
Is it just us who completely missed this, or did Dark Horse Records surreptitiously slip an additional title into Record Store Day Black Friday last Friday?
We’re pretty sure when we published this heads-up post back in September detailing which records might be of interest to Beatle completists, this listing definitely wasn’t there:
But when we looked on 25 November, there it was: a Joe Strummer LP Live at Music Millennium, 3600 copies, on the Dark Horse label:
This is a soundboard recording of Strummer’s solo acoustic in-store performance at a record store called Music Millennium in Portland, Oregon on November 2, 1999. It is getting its first ever release for RSD Black Friday and features the songs “Junco Partner,” “X-Ray Style” “Island Hopping,” “The Road to Rock N Roll,” and “Trash City.” The record continues the ongoing celebration this year of what would have been Joe Strummer’s 70th birthday.
While on the subject of Dark Horse, their other title for RSD, Dark Horse Records: The Best of 1974-1977, looks like a great collection:
Side A 1. Ravi Shankar – I Am Missing You 2. Ravi Shankar – Dispute & Violence 3. Splinter – Costafine Town 4. Splinter – Lonely Man 5. Attitudes – Ain’t Love Enough 6. Attitudes – Sweet Summer Music
Side B 1. Stairsteps – From Us To You 2. Stairsteps – Time 3. Keni Burke – Give All You Can Give 4. Henry McCullough – Lord Knows 5. Henry McCullough – Mind Your Own Business 6. Jiva – Take My Love
One of our long-time readers and avid Beatles and Beatle-related collector – see his selection of McCartney III variations for example! – has sent us this photo with the simple caption:
“Dark Horse Records: Best of 1974-1977 THE HARD WAY”
The complete list of Record Store Day Black Friday 2022 titles has been issued and there are a couple of Beatle-related items of interest for collectors.
Black Friday titles will go on sale Friday, November 25 and are only available through at brick and mortar independent record stores.
For Dark Horse Records fans there’s an interesting LP Dark Horse Records – The Best Of 1974-1977 (not to be confused with an album with a similar title by George Harrison from 1989 called The Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989).
This one is a newly-curated selection exclusive to RSD Black Friday of the artists discovered by, and in some cases produced by George Harrison, and includes two tracks each from Ravi Shankar, Stairsteps (formerly known as The Five Stairsteps), Splinter, Attitudes (featuring Jim Keltner, David Foster, Danny Kortchmar and Paul Stallworth), and Henry McCullough (Wings and Joe Cocker’s Grease Band). There’s also one track each from Keni Burke, and the band Jiva.
Ringo Starr fans are well-catered for this time around. There’s not one but five Black Friday releases.
The most interesting of these is the re-issue of a fairly obscure Ringo release called Old Wave. This originally came out in 1983, but only in limited places. Looking at the Discogs site it appears to have been released on vinyl only in Germany, Spain, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil. It did get a CD release in the US in 1994. But that’s about it. Critically known as “Ringo’s most overlooked album” and “Ringo’s solo masterpiece”, it was produced by Joe Walsh and Russ Ballard. It is set to be re-issued in 2022 on CD and on LP. The vinyl package includes an OBI strip, single album jacket, printed inner sleeve, original record labels and comes in a special brown and white smoke color vinyl. It also includes a bonus track available for the first time on vinyl “As Far As We Can Go (Early Version)”:
Here’s the CD image for Ringo’sOld Wave. It gets the bonus track as well and, as yiu can see in the list above there will only be 500 copies made available (in the US at least):
The other two RSD Black Friday releases on the list for Ringo are what is becoming the obligatory coloured vinyl editions of his 1977 LP, Ringo The 4th. This time they’ve announced two different colours. One in translucent orange (1000 copies) and the other in translucent blue (also 1000 copies). We are told the LP’s will be house in a gatefold cover with rare photos and lyrics.
But hey. Wait just a minute. Didn’t they also announce this exact same thing for RSD proper on April 23 this year!?
The EP will be released on September 23. It follows the release of Idol’s 2021 The Roadside EP, and a re-issue of his Christmas LP Happy Holidays, also on Dark Horse.
For The Cage Idol is again joined by longtime collaborator, co-writer and guitarist Steve Stevens.
For those who like physical formats, the new EP is available for pre-order on exclusive red vinyl from the Billy Idol website (though this is already showing as sold out):
And there are signed black vinyl editions – though these are showing as sold out too:
CD fans are not left wanting, with signed copies (also now showing sold out), and standard editions available:
The Billy Idol announcement comes hot on the heels of Dark Horse announcing a major box set for Joe Strummer called Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years.
Dark Horse Records have just announced a new Joe Strummer box set, Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years. It will be released on September 16th as part of the celebrations honouring Joe’s 70th birthday year.
The press release says the set is “….the first-ever comprehensive collection highlighting Joe’s work with his post-Clash band, The Mescaleros. The collection includes remastered editions of all three of the band’s studio albums, plus 15 rare and unreleased tracks spanning the first demos Joe wrote for the Mescaleros, and outtakes of several tracks of Joe’s final recordings with the band.”
The box set was executive produced by Lucinda Tait (Strummer) and produced by David Zonshine and features exclusive new interviews with Joe’s friends, collaborators and Mescaleros band mates, plus never-before-seen handwritten notes, lyrics, and drawings by Joe taken from the Joe Strummer Archive. All the albums are remastered by three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer Paul Hicks (The Beatles, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie) and are packaged with extensive new liner notes, unreleased images, and four reproduction lyric sheets and chord charts.
Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years will be available as a 4CD with 72-page book box set, and 7LP with 32-page book, special edition packaging and exclusive 12”x12” art print.
The first track from the collection, the previously unreleased version of ‘The Road To Rock ‘N’ Roll (Demo)’ is available to stream now. The video for the song was created using Strummer’s drawings and handwritten lyrics found in the Strummer archive:
If you’re wondering about the title it’s because this is the second installment in what looks to a series of career-spanning compilations. The first, Joe Strummer 001, was released in 2018 by Ignition Records. Since then, Dark Horse has taken over publishing and distribution rights for the Stummer legacy.
“There’s so much great music that Joe left us in his archive,” says Joe’s widow and the executive producer, Lucinda Tait. “We started this work with 001, so to focus on Joe’s work with The Mescaleros was the natural second step on 002 because those songs he made with them just seemed to resonate so strongly and reinvigorated his connection with his audience at a level he hadn’t experienced since his days with The Clash.”
You might recall that back in 2020 the mega music distributor and publisher BMG announced that it had formed a multi-faceted, worldwide distribution partnership with Dark Horse Records, the George Harrison-founded record label now led by his son, Dhani Harrison.
Well, there have been some developments.
Last week there was a rather intriguing press release from BMG announcing that they’ve now secured the publishing rights to the entire George Harrison song catalogue, including his Beatle, solo, and Traveling Wilbury compositions.
Plus the company has secured the rights to distribute some existing – and additional – interesting legacy artists on the the Dark Horse record label.
Here’s the official 2-page press release. We’ve highlighted those bits that grabbed our attention:
So, while there’ll be new publishing deals being done by BMG/Dark Horse for George Harrison’s compositions, it also looks like we can expect a range of interesting physical releases on the Dark Horse label.
These will include another EP from Billy Idol, and the new studio album from former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. There’s also likely to be a slew of back-catalogue re-issues from the great Leon Russell.
The 1974 Dark Horse Records title Shankar Family ૐ Friends is to get an audiophile vinyl pressing in 2022.
The Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs site has it listed only as “Coming Soon” so far – but it will be on 180 gram vinyl under their Original Master Recording imprint. This will be the first time the record has been re-issued on vinyl since 1974.
An album by Indian master musician Ravi Shankar, Shankar Family ૐ Friends was recorded primarily in Los Angeles during the spring of 1973, but not released until late 1974. It features a host of top-flight Indian players.
The album was produced by George Harrison and also features western musicians like Tom Scott, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, Nicky Hopkins and Jim Keltner. It was last re-issued on CD in 2010 as part of the Collaborations box set. Check out our unboxing here.
What is a little confusing is that on the MoFi website the release is listed as being a 180 gram numbered single LP, while in the Music Direct store catalogue it says it will be a 180 gram, 45rpm 2LP pressing…..
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