The Beach Boys have opened their archives for a new career-spanning, six-CD collection titled “Made In California”, capping the legendary band’s 50th Anniversary celebrations. To be released worldwide on August 27 the set features more than seven and a half hours of music, including more than 60 previously unreleased tracks.

Produced by The Beach Boys and the Grammy Award-winning team of Mark Linett, Alan Boyd, and Dennis Wolfe, “Made In California” chronologically charts the 50-year career of the band, from their earliest demos to their most recent recordings. With huge hits and rare gems including never-before-released original songs, home demos, alternate takes and mixes, and live concert, television and radio performances, the set showcases the breadth and diversity of The Beach Boys’ recorded catalog and illustrates the band’s unique and evocative West Coast story.

Previously unreleased and long sought-after recordings include “Goin’ To The Beach,” “California Feelin’,” “Soul Searchin’,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” and “You’re Still A Mystery,” among others. The set also debuts 17 unreleased live recordings, including “Runaway” (1965), “Friends” and “Little Bird” (1968), “Wild Honey” (1972), “It’s About Time” (1973), “Wonderful” and “Vegetables” from The Beach Boys’ legendary 1993 acoustic tour, and a 1995 rendition of “Sail On, Sailor” featuring a soulful lead vocal by the late Carl Wilson.

The set also features a special ‘From The Vaults’ disc of rarities selected by the band and the producers with longtime Beach Boys fans in mind. Among the disc’s highlights are a cappella mixes of standout vocal recordings for songs including “This Whole World” and “Slip On Through,” alternate versions of “Don’t Worry Baby” and other Beach Boys classics, session highlights and instrumental tracks, plus newly-discovered BBC Radio live recordings from 1964 of “Wendy,” “When I Grow Up (To Be A Man),” and “Hushabye.”

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The album features a stunning line-up of classic female country artists – Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Bobbie Gentry, Kitty Wells, Wanda Jackson and many more. The album comes with extensive sleeve-notes in accompanying large outsize booklet that also includes photography from the Getty picture archive.

As well as the CD edition there is a limited heavyweight double gatefold vinyl edition, complete with full sleeve-notes and super-loud pressing.

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Wilson has also asked his former Beach Boys bandmates Al Jardine and David Marks to join him in the studio, as well as session all-stars Don Was and Jim Keltner. He has brought in Vinnie Colaiuta and Tal Wilkenfeld, who for several years have toured and recorded as Jeff Beck’s rhythm section, and members of Wilson’s longtime touring band, including Jeffrey Foskett, Scott Bennett, Paul Mertens, Darian Sahanaja, and Probyn Gregory, have also participated in the sessions.

Last year’s Beach Boys 50th anniversary reunion made headlines around the world as one of the year’s top entertainment stories. The band released their 29th studio album, That’s Why God Made The Radio, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, and embarked on their 50th Anniversary Tour, the band’s first major outing to include Wilson in more than two decades.

Wilson continued to write new songs throughout The Beach Boys’ whirlwind anniversary year, which also included a Grammy Award win for him for The Beach Boys’ long-awaited SMiLE Sessions release. He told family, friends, and journalists around the world that he had a rock & roll-driven album in mind, and he looked forward to returning to the studio when he got back home to California.

Installed at Ocean Way, Wilson and his hand-picked band of friends have taken a fluid, woodshedding approach to the recording process, letting collaborative creativity drive the sessions. Wilson is working with longtime collaborator Joe Thomas to hone the arrangements, often assembling pieces from various takes. Details about the album and its release will be shared soon.

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Irwin Chusid reports: “I just spoke with Paula Thompson, who informed me that her husband Bob passed away in a nursing home on May 21. I can’t find any obits online. Bob had been in poor health for years, and except for avid Exotica enthusiasts, his work has been overlooked. But as a musician-arranger-conductor, he was a class act.”

Bob Thompson (born 1924, San Jose, California) was a composer, arranger, and orchestra leader from the 1950s through the 1980s. Active in Los Angeles, Thompson scored film and television soundtracks, and wrote commercial jingles. He is considered a prime exponent of what has belatedly been termed “Space age pop,” or “Space Age Bachelor Pad Music.” This style of breezy, experimental orchestral music became popular in the 1950s and 1960s following the introduction of the long-playing microgroove record and the advent of high-fidelity and stereo home audio systems, which allowed enhanced sonic reproduction.

Thompson composed, arranged, and conducted orchestra for such artists as Rosemary Clooney, Mae West, Julie London, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, Duane Eddy, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis, Van Dyke Parks, and many others.

His classic RCA Victor albums, recorded in Los Angeles, featured many of the top session talent from the late 1950s west coast jazz scene, including drummer Shelly Manne, percussionist Emil Richards, alto saxophonist Bud Shank, trombonist Frank Rosolino, trumpeter Al Porcino, guitarist Al Hendrickson, and bassist Red Callender.

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Both Bruno’s parents – cellist Ulrich Heinen and violinist Jacqueline Ross – had worked with the composer and electronic music innovator Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 70’s in Germany when he composed Tierkreis (1974-5) for 12 music boxes. Bruno’s father had acquired 4 of the music boxes, and Bruno’s fascination with the piece began in the family home.

Tierkreis (meaning “the signs of the Zodiac”) has 12 melodies based on tone rows, one for each star sign. Heinen has adhered to Stockhausen’s brief instructions for the popular work, allowing for any combination of instruments, but that the performance should begin with the melody falling under the star sign of the selected date, and end with a repeat of the opening melody.

Heinen brings his classical training and jazz sensibility, with traces of funk, west coast flavour and Blue Note inflexions, to his substantial reworking of the composer’s ideas. Certain movements include improvising with the melodies and music boxes, while others involve reharmonising. His sextet of distinctive players bring their diverse experience to their readings and improvisations.

Stockhausen was a great believer in improvisation, and his influence rubbed off on a wide array of jazz musicians during his lifetime and since, including Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and Herbie Hancock.

It’s five years since Heinen first arranged Tierkreis for a jazz sextet, but in 2010 he also arranged the work rather differently for cello, double bass and piano for a performance that also included his father Ulrich Heinen, the long time principal cellist of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Tierkreis recorded with Markus Stockhausen’s blessing, in April 2012 at Eastcote Studios, was produced by Philip Bagenal and Bruno Heinen. The album is dedicated to Heinen’s former teacher, the pianist and composer, Pete Saberton, who died in 2012.

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The little-known world of industrial shows is reconstructed through the record collection of author Steve Young, who has spent some twenty years finding the extremely rare souvenir albums as well as tracking down and interviewing the writers and performers. Through the records themselves as well as behind-the-scenes stories, a new perspective on American history, culture, and business emerges. Eye-popping visuals, samples of confounding and hilarious lyrics, and witty commentary by Young and co-author Sport Murphy (who also contributes original artwork) bring the topic to vivid, astonishing life. The book will be published in november 2013. A companion website will offer streaming audio of the songs.

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James Brown released three live albums recorded at The Apollo during his prime years as a recording artist: the 1963 original and 1968′s “Live At The Apollo Volume II” (both released on King Records) and 1971′s “Revolution of the Mind: Recorded Live At The Apollo Vol. III”, released by Polydor Records. “Best of Live At The Apollo” will feature the highlights of those three original Apollo LPs, and two tracks from another, ultimately shelved fourth LP, recorded in September 1972.

Both of those unissued tracks – the instrumental “Hot Pants Road” and “There It Is” – have been remixed for this new compilation. The live take of “There It Is” previously appeared on the 1988 compilation Motherlode, and the original LP mix of the track appeared on a Record Store Day single last year.

“Best of Live At The Apollo: 50th Anniversary” will be released on June 25.

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The crisis in Syria and the urgent need for help and resources was the motivation to compose a 4-song digital EP based on themes connected to Syria, personal experiences, its past and hope for its people’s future. As the title of the EP implies, the intention of the collection is to find a common ground far away from politics and conflict.

The EP was co-produced, recorded, and mixed by Jonathan Jetter at Right Angle Recording, New York, NY. in February and March 2013. “Common Ground” is a powerful sonic journey from beginning to end. The heaviest and quietest moments of the collection are found in the track “Distant Brothers”, about the turmoil of sectarianism and a plea for unity. The EP closes with the positive pop-rock track “Age of Hope” written about the simpler times during Rami’s childhood in Damascus, Syria. The song includes the last vocal melody Rami ever wrote on Syrian soil.

Common Ground is available through CD Baby and all major online digital music retailers worldwide. All proceeds from the sales of the EP will go to organizations helping Syrian refugees.