Matt's unreleased music

[grandpajan]

Michele,
Do you know what I think would be neat? If you could arrange with EMI, much as Napster does, and allow we fans who have most all of Matt's music except those songs not yet released, to download a song for a certain amount of money (Napster charges $.99 per song). That way, we wouldln't have to wait and purchase an upcoming CD from EMI that has all of the old songs and maybe only one or two of those songs yet unrelased to the public. We, the faithful, would be able to continue collecting Matt's music. I have all of Matt's songs converted to MP3 and saved in a folder on one of my hard drives. When I obtain a new song, I re-create an MP3 disk that I can then play with one of the MP3 players. I have a database program to organized all my music, and once and a while I produce a report of Matt's music. It reports all of the cds that contain a song - "From Russia With Love" is reported on 11 cds. A lot of the songs are duplicated an average of five times.
Also, do you know why Capitol released "My Way" album in the Philippines and not in the states? That contains a lot of the missing songs.

Jan Iverson

[Glenn]

Excellent idea Jan -

Although I am a great fan of Matt's it is very annoying that every time a new release by EMI comes out, most of the tracks can be found time & time again on other CD's - but I have to buy it to get hold of the odd one or two 'new' songs that I wish to add to my collection.

Michelle, as you have told us there are many of your Dad's 'new' recordings sitting in the the vaults at EMI, how about an album (or better still, box set along the lines of 'The Singers Singer') where ALL the tracks are previously unreleased ones?

With Matt being so popular at the moment I'm sure this would appeal to both faithful fans, and people who have only just come across his music. Please don't put those new fans off by continuing to repeat the same songs over & over.....

#There are glad songs
There are sad songs
Choose, my darling choose#

[mmonro]

I am really sorry about the repeats. It is something EMI insists upon. They feel that if we release a new album it has to contain some of the most popular tracks of dad. That part is outside of my control.

The good news is that next year we are releasing Ultimate 11 which will contain some newer tracks as well as some of the more popular songs, but obviously not anything that was on The Ultimate Matt Monro. Following that we will be releasing "The Rare Monro" this will be an album of either unreleased tracks or songs never used on CD before.

The main reason for the poll is so that you can makea difference to the tracks included in the new albums. In a couple of months the tracks will be changed again for new voting possibilities but it is very important that you go to the Polling Booth and vote for what you want.

There will also be a very special CD release on the website at Christmas. I personally am very excited about this as it is being done independantly of EMI and will be a great addition to fan's collections.

With regards to downloading tracks I think it is possible with I Tunes, some of dad's albums are listed there and you can purchase individual tracks.

I will try and keep you posted with all the new developments.

God Bless
Michele

[Terence Lee]

Hi Michele

Please try to include the STEREO versions of The Music Played and Honey On The Vine on the new cd. This request comes from 8 Asian fans here in Malaysia. I am the only one writing as they are computer illiterate. But they all love Matt's music with passion.
For some strange reasons, these 2 songs are Matt's signature songs to us. EMI has always served us MONO versions on cd so far. Stephen Woof has written to me that EMI does indeed have the stereo master for The Music Played. He cannot fathom why EMI has always used the mono master. Perhaps it is time to remedy this.

[grandpajan]

Terrance,
When I received my "This Is The Life/Here's To My Lady" cd, was I surprised and disappointed. It was in mono. Fortunately, I have the two Capitol albums in stereo, so I have copied all the songs over to my computer, cleaned them up and converted them to MP3. I have "Honey On The Vine" in stereo. If you will send me your email address, I will be happy to send you the song in stereo, in MP3 format, as an attachment (you can convert it to a cd after that). Here is my email address: jiverson33@comcast.net.
This is only because you have already purchased the mono version of the song. I don't have "The Music Played". I don't know when it was released, or on what albums.

[Terence Lee]

I think it was only released as a vinyl single. Later it was included in The Best Of Matt Monro album on Capitol in USA. That album was my introduction to Matt's music.

[Lee Wilkins]

Terence is quite right. It was released as a vinyl single (along with All That Remains) in May 1968 (Capitol CL15551). It was also later included on the compilation CD, By Request, which was released in November 1986. The Spanish version of the song, Alguien Canto, appears on Matt's Complete Heart Breakers (released 25 October 1996) and Singer's Singer (released 05 November 2001) CDs, amongst others.

[grandpajan]

Ah, Hah! Also, the song "The Music Played" (Alquien Canto), was released on the Spanish LP "Todo Pasara", which I have in my possession, and I think it is in stereo. The LP is designated as "Latin International, DLIS 5045", and has other fine Spanish renditions of "Walk Away" (Vete Por Favor), "Born Free" (Libre), and "All Of A Sudden" (Todo Pasara).

[Terence Lee]

Was this album released on cd at some point?
Did I miss it?

[grandpajan]

Terence - "Toda Pasara" was also released on LP under the name of "Alguien Canto" with the same song listings. I can't find any evidence that this album was ever released to cd. Although, some of the songs were released on the four cd disk "Singer's Singer" album.