Clarence Clemons, the longtime and legendary saxophone player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, died on June 18, 2011, at the age of 69.  His death came just six days after suffering a stroke.  Clemons was a fixture with the E Street Band, first appearing with the group in 1972.  As such, Clemons appeared on [...]

In 1987, the CD as a commercial music carrier was five years old and had seen significant growth in popularity.  CDs were no longer just manufactured in Japan and West Germany.  Manufacturing plants had opened in the U.S., Austria, the U.K., and Korea, for example.  Sales of traditional LPs and cassettes were starting to wane in favor of the [...]

Back in 2007, a post was entered here featuring a rare West German ”green-arrow” pressing of Rush Moving Pictures on the Mercury label (click here for more details).  As a follow-up of sorts, I recently obtained a similar West German pressing of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers Night in Tunisia that I feel is worthy of [...]

It’s March, which means that the sports world, in the U.S. at least, is engrossed in “March Madness”.  That is, the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  As such, I thought it fitting to inject a bit of CD madness into keithhirsch.com.  Enter the famous English ska band of the ’70s and ’80s, making their first appearance on keithhirsch.com [...]

There are many reasons I and other collectors of early CD pressings are drawn to particular discs.  Some of them look cool.  Some sound great.  Some are rare.  And some have unique content.  It is primarily the last reason that this month’s feature is highly sought after by CD collectors. Here we consider the first Japanese [...]

Here is a first on keithhirsch.com.  For the first time, an early Canadian issue is posted.  It is a Japanese pressing of Santana’s 1981 album Zebop! that was released in Canada around 1984 or ’85.  This CD was issued on the Columbia label, part of CBS/Sony, under catalog number CK 37158. When considering early Japanese pressings [...]

I began collecting Target CDs nearly nine years ago.  For the past few years, I have often convinced myself that I have seen every significant Target pressing variation there is to see.  Then, just when I think that collecting Target CDs is destined to be a ho-hum, been-there-done-that experience and it’s time to move on to [...]

Happy Holidays 2010!  As has become a tradition on keithhirsch.com, I thought I would kick off another holiday season by featuring an early Christmas CD.  This year, we have a Japanese pressing of the 1968 Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass classic Christmas Album.  This CD was released by A&M in the U.S. under catalog [...]