Composer, pianist and leader Thelonious Monk was unique even among jazz musicians, artists notable for their
individuality.  Applying his own profound imagination to
first hand knowledge of sophisticated stride and swing piano styles, as well as his experience of tent shows and touring spiritual troupes, Monk created music at once inside and outside his time's traditions.  His music provoked the far reaches of bebop and inspired the abstractions of jazz to come. A restoration of Monk's recordings for Columbia will begin with the release of THE COLUMBIA YEARS: 1962-1968 boxed set on June 12th, followed by MONK IN TOKYO and LIVE AT THE JAZZ WORKSHOP on July 10th.  All three titles will be released by Columbia/Legacy Jazz a division of Sony Music.

Columbia Records

Canadian band Our Lady Peace is shooting a video for "Life," from their "Spiritual Machines" album on Wednesday, Jan. 31. The "Life" video is being lensed by director Marcos Siega, who has worked with Blink 182, Papa Roach, Eels, Chantal Kreviazuk and others. The band's "Spiritual Machines" album came out in late December in Canada, where it has already hit platinum status. It will be released in the U.S. on March 13.

Columbia Records

Whole New You, the eagerly-awaited new album from Shawn
Colvin, will be in stores March 27 from Columbia Records.
Whole New You is Shawn's first full-length recording since 1998's Holiday Songs & Lullabies and first album of all new original material since the three time Grammy winner's A Few Small Repairs, released in September 1996. Working again with her long-time collaborator producer/co-writer/multi-instrumentalist John Leventhal, Colvin has crafted a worthy successor to A Few Small Repairs: a new collection of songs investigating the nuances of the feminine psyche, coming to terms with the complexities of maturity, domesticity, human relationships and artistic growth.

Columbia Records

Legacy Recordings' critically-acclaimed Rhythm & Soul Series continues to celebrate the golden age of '70s and '80s soul and R&B with four new titles, set to arrive in stores April 10th on Columbia/Legacy and Epic/Legacy, divisions of Sony Music.  Leading the release are three new Expanded Editions that further restore and preserve former Columbia recording group Earth, Wind & Fire's catalog, each with four to five previously unreleased bonus tracks and newly commissioned liner notes, including:

OPEN OUR EYES, the LP that broke EW&F's career wide open in 1974 (with "Mighty Mighty," "Devotion" and "Kalimba Story"), liner notes written by music journalist j. poet. SPIRIT, the long-awaited studio album that followed the latter in 1976 (with "Getaway" and " Saturday Nite"), EW&F's first RIAA platinum million-selling album, liner notes written by composer-producer Herb Powell.

MAURICE WHITE, the self-titled (only) solo album from
EW&F's founder and mastermind, released in 1985 (with his
cover of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me"), liner notes written by White's former musical partner Ramsey Lewis and  Rhythm & Soul Series reissue producer Leo Sacks.  First time on CD.

The fourth new release, THE ULTIMATE O'JAYS ? a 16-song
collection with more than 75 minutes of music ? lives up to its title with a dozen of their biggest R&B/pop crossover hits from the Philadelphia International catalog.  The CD focuses on their hitmaking period of 1972 to 1976, from "Back Stabbers," "992 Arguments" and "Love Train," to "I Love Music" and "Livin' For the Weekend," plus selected LP tracks and single B sides.

The Rhythm & Soul Series has also included other entries
over the years by Earth, Wind & Fire; MFSB, Billy Paul, the Emotions, Marlena Shaw, Johnnie Taylor, the Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, the O'Jays, Bill Withers. All titles are produced for reissue by Leo Sacks, who is known for his diligence on the series since its inception in 1996, as well as for his work on 1997's 3-CD boxed set, The Philly Sound: Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff & The Story of Brotherly Love (1966-1976).

Columbia Records

AMARU/DEATH ROW/INTERSCOPE SETS RELEASE OF 2PAC DOUBLE CD
OF SONGS RECORDED IN THE YEAR BEFORE HIS DEATH


"When my mama ask me will I ever change, I tell her yeah…but it's clear I will always be the same until the end of time."
--2Pac, "Until The End Of Time"

Until The End Of Time, a double CD of songs written and performed by 2Pac during the exhilarating, controversial and ultimately tragic last year of his life, will be released by Amaru/Death Row/Interscope Records on March 27, 2001.

Featuring more than 20 selections, Until The End Of Time brings together the full range of 2Pac's thoughts and emotions following his release from prison in late 1995 until his death on September 13, 1996.

Interscope Records

Legacy turns its attention to two of modern rock's most
enduring acts, with an  'Expanded Edition' (including two
previously unreleased live bonus tracks) of the penultimate big-sound rock production that captured America and England by storm at the end of the 1970s and ignited the legend known as MEAT LOAF and an essential 17-song collection (including rarities and a previously unreleased live bonus track) from one of the U.K.'s most important and influential New Wave bands of the '80s, THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS, spanning their career from 1980 to 1991.

BAT OUT OF HELL by MEAT LOAF, master-minded by producer and songwriter Jim Steinman and produced by Todd Rundgren in 1977, spawned three classic rock hits during 1978 -  "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad," "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and "You Took the Words Right Out Of My Mouth" - and is ranked as one of rock's all-time phenomena, 13-times RIAA platinum's worth.  This new 'Expanded Edition' of the album boasts two previously unreleased live bonus tracks, recorded in 1978.

The following year, CBS Records in England signed THE
PSYCHEDELIC FURS (whose first RIAA gold album, 1982's
Forever Now, was coincidentally produced by Rundgren).  The release of the first official GREATEST HITS CD to encompass their dozen-year tenure at the label is a tribute to the longevity of the band that was once described as "the missing link between the Sex Pistols and Nirvana."  In addition to the rare U.K. single version of "Mr. Jones" from 1980, this collection closes with a previously unreleased live bonus track, recorded in 1987.

While GREATEST HITS by THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS will include a specially commissioned new liner note essay by Paul Lester, Associate Editor of Uncut magazine, BAT OUT OF HELL will offer the complete lyrics on CD and cassette for the next generation of Meat Loaf fans.  Both albums have been digitally remastered from the original analog master tapes at Sony Music Studios in New York.   They were both set for a simultaneous January 30th in-store date on Legacy, a division of Sony Music.

Sony Music

John Cale, whose keyboards and viola styling helped define the Velvets' trademark droning sound, surprised his
followers when his debut solo album of 1970, VINTAGE
VIOLENCE (presented here with two rare bonus tracks),
resonated with a folk-rock core that had more to do with the Band than it did with Andy Warhol's Factory.  The first of dozens of solo albums he has recorded right up to the present, it holds a unique place in collectors' hearts if only because it represented a sound and approach that he would never quite duplicate again.

A newly-commissioned essay (by Austin Chronicle music critic Margaret Moser) appears in an impending reissue of VINTAGE VIOLENCE, which has been digitally remastered at Sony Music Studios in New York, and is scheduled for February 13th  release on Columbia/Legacy.


Columbia Records