soul kitchen connection
THE BAND’S MUSIC FROM BIG PINK
CELEBRATED WITH REMIXED AND EXPANDED 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION RELEASES ON AUGUST 31st
BY HARVEY KUBERNIK C 2018
On July 1, 1968, The Band’s landmark debut album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to spring from nowhere and everywhere. Drawing from the 
American roots music panoply of country, blues, R&B, gospel, soul, rockabilly, the honking tenor sax tradition, hymns, funeral dirges, brass band music, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll, The Band forged a timeless new style that forever changed the course of popular music.
Fifty years later, the mythology surrounding Music from Big Pink lives on through the evocative storytelling of its songs including “The Weight,” “This Wheel’s On Fire,” “Tears of Rage,” and “To Kingdom Come,” its enigmatic cover art painted by Bob Dylan, the salmon-colored upstate New York house – ‘Big Pink’ – where The Band wrote the songs, and in myriad descendant legends carried forth since the album’s stunning arrival.
On August 31, Capitol/UMe will issue Music From Big Pink in newly remixed and expanded 50th Anniversary Edition packages, including a Super Deluxe CD/Blu-ray/2LP/7-inch vinyl box set with a hardbound book; 1CD, digital, 180-gram 2LP black vinyl, and limited edition 180-gram 2LP pink vinyl packages. Continue reading
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album a New John Coltrane Album
June 2018 Release by Impulse Records; Sonny Rollins Way Out West 60th Anniversary Edition Now Out on Craft Recordings
By Harvey Kubernik 2018
55 years after it was recorded, John Coltrane’s studio album Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is finally available in June 2018 on 
Impulse! (Verve Label Group). Recorded at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey 1963 with the Classic Quartet (John Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones).
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is an incredible success for this lost album finally seeing the light of day and released on all streaming partners, and on CD and vinyl in standard and deluxe formats.
Danny Bennett, President and CEO of the Verve Label Group and home of Impulse! Records, offered, “Jazz is more relevant today than ever. It’s becoming the alternative music of the 21st century, and no one embodies the boundary-breaking essence of jazz more than John Coltrane. He was a visionary who changed the course of music, and this lost album is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. It gives us insight into his creative process and connects us to his artistry. This album is a cultural moment and the release coincides perfectly with our relaunch of the iconic Impulse! label.”
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is a major addition to the Coltrane catalogue and the most important jazz discovery in recent memory. This recently discovered “gift” was sourced from a reference tape that Coltrane had brought to his home in Queens that he shared with his wife Naima. These tapes remained untouched for 54 years until Impulse! approached the family about finally making this lost album available. The master tape was never found-Rudy Van Gelder wasn’t one for clutter-however the reference tape was discovered to be in excellent condition. Continue reading
Revisiting The Beatles aka The White Album
By Harvey Kubernik c 2018
Courtesy Universal Music Group
The last quarter of 2018 will bring the Apple Corps. Universal Music 50th anniversary expanded and revised configuration of The Beatles aka The White Album.
I remember hearing about the winter 1968 LP release. I read in one of the English music weeklies in May ’68 the Beatles had met at George Harrison’s bungalow home in Esher, Surrey and the lads recorded demonstration tapes of 27 tunes written during their trip to India. George owned an Ampex four-track reel-to reel machine.
During late November ’68 I saw the double pocket White Album LP initially stocked in a slew of record stores all over the Southern California basin: The Frigate, The Music Revolution, Phil Harris Records, Rancho Music, and Canterbury, and head shops named The Psychedelic Supermarket and The Third Eye. I purchased my first mono copy that November at Wallichs Music City on Sunset and Vine. I bought an English import at Lewin Record Paradise on Hollywood Blvd.
In 2014 I wrote the book, It Was Fifty Years Ago Today The Beatles Invade America and Hollywood. It examines the Beatles’ musical relationship and songwriting legacy to Los Angeles and the rarely chronicled-at-length historical influence of Southern California and Hollywood on them. Continue reading
Mike Garson: Bowie’s Piano Man
New Biography and Bowie Celebration Tour in 2018 and 2019
By Harvey Kubernik c 2018
“It is pointless to talk about his ability as a pianist. He is exceptional. However, there are very, very few musicians, let alone pianists, who naturally 
understand the movement and free thinking necessary to hurl themselves into experimental or traditional areas of music, sometimes, ironically, at the same time. Mike does this with such enthusiasm that it makes my heart glad just to be in the same room with him.” — David Bowie on Mike Garson
Pianist Mike Garson was David Bowie’s most frequent musician, on record and onstage, throughout Bowie’s life. They played over a thousand shows together between 1972 and 2004, and Garson is featured on over 20 of Bowie’s albums. In November 2006, Garson accompanied Bowie and Alicia keys for a rendition of “Changes” in New York City at an AIDS benefit which was Bowie’s final public performance in the U.S.
Around his teaching, performance and recording work, Garson is serving as the pianist, bandleader and stage emcee who anchors the well-received A Bowie Celebration spotlighting a flexible touring lineup.
The current touring ensemble is Garson, who was Bowie’s musical director with Luther Vandross and David Sanborn on the Young Americans 1974 tour, longtime Bowie veteran Earl Slick guitar, Gerry Leonard guitar, Mark Plati guitar, Carmine Rojas bass, drummer Lee John Madeloni, who is Slick’s son, and vocalists Bernard Fowler, Cory Glover, Joe Sumner and Gaby Moreno. Continue reading
REVISITING OTIS REDDING’S DOCK OF THE BAY SESSIONS
New Collection Showcases Redding’s Songwriting Evolution in ’67
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” Celebrates 50th Anniversary
By Harvey Kubernik c 2018
Otis Redding was on top of the world in 1967, highlighted by a career-defining performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Returning to Memphis that
Photo Courtesy of Rhino Atlantic Records
fall, Redding began to explore different musical influences when he entered the studio to record his next album. Tragically, those sessions were cut short after only a few weeks when the singer died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, with four members of his backing band the Bar-Kays when Redding’s private airplane crashed in a Madison, Wisconsin lake. Singers Johnnie Taylor and Joe Simon were among the pallbearers at Redding’s funeral in Macon City, Georgia. Booker T. Jones played organ to the grieving congregation and Jerry Wexler provided the eulogy.
It was a day that dramatically and constantly reminds us about Redding’s frozen legacy that at least now can be heard again on these recordings. While there will never be a definitive idea of what Redding’s next album would have been this new Dock of the Bay Sessions is the first to show what could have been.
On February 23, 1968 the world was graced with the first posthumously-released Otis Redding Volt-Atlantic album, Dock of the Bay, one which was destined to be the most successful of his posthumous releases as a result of its title track.
And now, a half a century later, on May 18, 2018, the Rhino label issued Dock of the Bay Sessions as part of the ongoing 50th anniversary celebration of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” March 16th marked the actual 50th anniversary of the single topping both the pop and R&B charts in 1968 and becoming Redding’s first #1 hit. Continue reading
