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The New Releases page has been updated to include music CD, DVD and Blu-ray releases for September.

After a fairly ordinary month in August, there are a large number of quality releases this month. Highlights include:

• Beatles “1” album reissue using the 2009 remasters – 13 Sep (US/CA)/5 Sep (UK)
• “Queen: Live At Wembley 25th anniversary” DVD and the latest Queen remasters in standard and deluxe formats (to save space, only deluxe editions are listed in the diary) – 13 Sep (US/CA)/5 Sep (UK)*
• deluxe box set of Jimi Hendrix’s “Wonderland” and other Hendrix CD/DVD reissues – 13 Sep (US/CA)/12 Sep (UK)
• Ed Sullivan Motown DVDs featuring various artists/the Supremes/the Temptations – 13 Sep (US/CA)
• the “Superheavy” collaboration between Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, Dave Stewart, Damian Marley, and A. R. Rahman – 20 Sep (US/CA)/19 Sep (UK)
• “Elvis Presley – Young Man With the Big Beat” 5-CD box, including an unreleased live show – 27 Sep (US/CA)/26 Sep (UK)
• first releases in the Pink Floyd remasters campaign, including deluxe and super deluxe sets for “Dark Side of the Moon,” and a 16-CD “Discovery” box set – 27 Sep (US/CA)/26 Sep (UK)
• “Johnny Cash: Bootleg Vol 3 – Live Around the World”, which features many previously unheard live performances recorded between 1956 and 1979 – 27 Sep (US)/11 Oct (CA)/10 Oct (UK).

There are also new albums from The Bangles, Lindsey Buckingham and Chris Rhea; box sets from Sting and Madness; the Monkees on DVD; and much more.

You can browse the music CD, DVD and Blu-ray releases for previous months in the New Releases archive.

A few years back there was a tribute to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the great rock ‘n’ roll songwriting team, on American Idol. Reviewing the show, my local arts critic wondered in print just who Leiber and Stoller were. According to the writer, such figures were too obscure for a full blown “Idol” tribute. Some would say that this was a sign that Jerry Leiber, who died August 22 of cardiac arrest, had outlived his fame. Maybe Leiber, the lyricist, in the songwriting duo, and his partner Stoller were never famous enough. They made their greatest impact in an age where the roles of songwriters and singers were often rigidly segregated and unlike the golden age of Tin Pan Alley, the media focused almost exclusively on the performers. The sheer number of classic titles though that they contributed to the rock ‘n’ soul pantheon- “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Kansas City,” “Ruby Baby,” “Drip Drop,” “Stand By Me,” “On Broadway,” “Yakety Yak” and on and on – made a lot of people find out who they were. Whether or not they were ever household names or whether some hack writer knew who they were in 2007, is not what’s important. The people who really care about pop music know Leiber and Stoller because they were unbelievably good at what they did and because what they did was so profound and helped create much of what was best about the pop world of the last half century. Leiber’s death does not change that.

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The latest in the Johnny Cash “Bootleg” series will feature 50 live performances recorded between 1956 and 1979, of which 39 are previously unreleased. The 2-CD “Johnny Cash: Bootleg Vol 3 – Live Around the World” includes tracks from 10 performance locations, including the Big “D” Jamboree in Dallas (1956), the Newport Folk Festival (1964), the USO tour in Vietnam (1969) and a White House invitational (1970).

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Legendary bass player, Marshall Grant, passed away on Saturday night (Aug 6) at a hospital in Arkansas. The 83-year-old was best known for his long association with Johnny Cash, during which he helped create the “boom-chicka-boom” sound that appeared on classic recordings such as “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”

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