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Revinylization #75: Heart's Dreamboat Annie Gets a Sonic Facelift

Tom Fine Jun 08, 2026

Hard rock in the 1970s was mostly a game for dudes. Although Janis Joplin and Grace Slick had broken through in the 1960s with major rock hits, Coven lead singer Jinx Dawson had gained some notoriety, and Fanny (one of the first all-female rock bands) had some success, the rock charts were male dominated. Enter the Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy.

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Revinylization #74: You Can Never Have Too Much 'Trane on Vinyl

Ken Micallef Apr 13, 2026

As I listened to the newly remastered edition of John Coltrane's Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings, I read through some critics' takes, which make it apparent just how far critics tend to trail the musicians they cover, the great ones at least.

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Revinylization #73: Muse Records via Zev Feldman's Time Traveler Records

Ken Micallef Mar 10, 2026 First Published: Mar 01, 2026

As the jazz buyer for Tower Records's Lincoln Center (66th St.) location in the early 1990s, I held a unique vantage point on New York City, its music and culture. My position guaranteed daily encounters with an eclectic variety of unforgettable characters. Between regular visits by the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (grouchy), Kathleen Turner (pushy), and Michael J. Fox (perpetually running from the store's female staff), I saw a lot.

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Revinylization #72: Rhino reissues The Replacements' Let It Be

Robert Baird Feb 02, 2026

Punk rock was never meant to grow old. For their first three studio efforts, The Replacements epitomized the punk ethos. Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (1981), the EP Stink (1982), and Hootenanny (1983) are loud, bashy fun.

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Revinylization #71: Rahsaan Roland Kirk Live on Two Coasts

Andrey Henkin Jan 06, 2026

There's widespread consensus that Shohei Ohtani's performance in Game 4 of the 2025 National League Championship Series was the greatest in baseball history: at the plate, 3 for 3 with three home runs; on the mound, six innings with 10 strikeouts and only 2 hits allowed. That defines double threat. Almost seven decades earlier, jazz's original triple threat made his first record—Triple Threat—for the King label.

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Revinylization #70: Jackpot Records Reissues The Meters' First Three Albums

Ken Micallef Nov 12, 2025

In 1979, I was the road drummer for Boston singer-songwriter Andy Pratt, a local celebrity known for his musical talent—showcased on his 1973 Columbia album Andy Pratt . . . I was part of the touring band for Pratt's Motives album, performing regional hits like "That's When Miracles Occur," a standout track from his 1976 breakthrough, Resolution.

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Revinylization #69: Pablo Records via Granz and Kassem

Ken Micallef Sep 30, 2025

Way back in my ignorant youth I thought that Pablo Records, the label of jazz producer/promoter legend Norman Granz, was where jazz artists went to fade away, where they were put out to pasture. I thought the black discs inside Pablo's black-and-white jackets, which depicted jazz greats tracking sessions in their twilight years, couldn't compete with the music of younger jazz guns.

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Revinylization #68: Craft Recordings reissues The Blackbyrds' City Life

Robert Baird Sep 02, 2025

As a music teacher, I can think of no better learning experience than what trumpeter Donald Byrd did in the early 1970s for a group of his music students. To quote the band's current website, "Byrd envisioned taking active students at Howard University in Washington, DC, on a real-world field trip which would expose them to ins and outs of the music business."

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Revinylization #67: Rollin' with Leo Parker, a New Tone Poet Reissue

Robert Baird Aug 05, 2025

Rollin' With Leo is a treasure from bebop's past that's been reissued several times on CD and LP since 1980. This new version, with its freshened sound, proves again that Dexter Gordon's concise appraisal of Leo Parker was on the mark: "The Kid could play. Lots of bottoms."

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Revinylization #66: Queen Irma Thomas and New Orleans band Galactic

Robert Baird Jun 24, 2025 First Published: Jun 24, 2025

Photo By Katie Sikora.

In 2010, the funky-eclectic New Orleans band Galacticknown today as much for being the owners of the city's storied Tipitina's club as for their musiccut their song "Heart of Steel" with singer Irma Thomas for their album, Ya-Ka-May. The band noticed that Thomas soon included the same tune in the sets that she played with her band. In 2022, Galactic decided to revisit the Thomas connection and came up with the idea of collaborating with her on an entire album of new music.