Hallmark CDs

[Calv1971]

Seems like a further 12 titles are being released by Hallmark June 25th, no Motown though, but at least Gerry Anderson's "Supercar" TV Soundtrack gets a release!!!!

[Motown4Ever518]

I must be living under a rock here in Upstate NY. What is the deal with Hallmark as it relates to Motown, I was on E-Bay today and saw a copy of Hi We're The Miracles for sale at a decent price. I already own a 90's reissue and the Miracles Box Set with the early Lps so I wasn't interested. But what is the deal, is it that Motown Universal did not renew the copyright, I shudder when I think that the disc is 50 years old, is there some enhanced audio thing happening?

[mysterysinger]

Hotspurman is behind these releases on Hallmark and can give you the expert view, but there have been other threads on this subject such as....
http://soulfuldetroit.com/showthread...these-for-real

Also available Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, Please Mr Postman, Bye Bye Baby/I Don't Want To Take A Chance, The Great Gospel Stars, Twistin The World Around, plus 2 Marv Johnson albums.

Hallmark are not alone in this, for example One Day Music have a compilation on release.

[mysterysinger]

And I forgot to include Tamla Special Number 1 and Cookin With The Miracles.

[Hotspurman]

I must be living under a rock here in Upstate NY. What is the deal with Hallmark as it relates to Motown, I was on E-Bay today and saw a copy of Hi We're The Miracles for sale at a decent price. I already own a 90's reissue and the Miracles Box Set with the early Lps so I wasn't interested. But what is the deal, is it that Motown Universal did not renew the copyright, I shudder when I think that the disc is 50 years old, is there some enhanced audio thing happening?

It isn't that Motown Universal did not renew the copyright, it is just that in Europe, at present, the copyright term is fifty years. So on 1 January 2012, everything released worldwide in 1961 fell into the public domain, meaning we can reissue these. If you follow the thread below, you'll find much more background information on the term of copyright, the forthcoming extension and pretty much everything else you would need to know.

With regards to additional Motown releases this year, I'm afraid we're out of new titles [[we used them all up by February) so you'll have to wait until next January.....

[kenneth]

These titles are well worth the price. I have the original LPs of the Gospel Stars and Twistin' Kings but it's great to have them on CD, and the sound transfers are excellent. To me, it is not apparent at all that it as a dub from an LP.

Of course the titles available elsewhere in other forms - such as the early Miracles LPs - may not be needed by SDF collectors. But I think it's great these are coming out.

Hopefully, we'll see the Columbus Mann in next year's batch.

[mysterysinger]

Yes I like the quality of these Hallmark releases and the front covers at least are faithful and sympathetic to the original releases save for the removal of trade marks and inclusion of "original recording" legend on each. I wondered whether they might do a kind of compilation release of selected tracks, similar to the 16 Big Hits series, but One Day seem to have answered that in part. At least Hallmark put out the Tamla Special Number 1 album anyway. Great to hear the Twistin Kings and Gospel albums for the first time.