Gone Digital: Rhinoceros, New Monkees, Tasmin Archer, Red Fox, and Big & Rich

If it’s Tuesday, then it must be time for Gone Digital, our weekly look at five recent additions to Rhino’s digital catalog. As ever, the types of music we’ll be covering will be all over the place, but that’s Rhino for you: we’re all about variety!

• Rhinoceros, THE ELEKTRA ALBUMS (2020): Best known for their 1969 single “Apricot Brandy,” Rhinoceros released three albums over the course of their career at Elektra Records – their self-titled 1968 debut, 1969’s SATIN CHICKENS, and 1970’s BETTER TIMES ARE COMING – and they’re all included here. Alas, better times were not coming for the band: they broke up in mid-1971. There was a belated happy ending, though: original members John Finley, Michael Fonfara, Alan Gerber, and Danny Weis got back together in 2009 for the Kitchener Blues Festival in Ontario.

• New Monkees, NEW MONKEES (1987): We’re not even going to try to explain the story of this band in this short little space, but we’ll happy steer you to their Wikipedia page, which provides you a decent synopsis of their story. Beyond that, all we’ll say is that we wonder if history would’ve been any different if they’d released “Do It Again” as a single rather than “What I Want. “What might’ve been...

• Tasmin Archer, SWEET LITTLE TRUTHS: 1992-1996 (2020): Best known for her lone American hit, “Sleeping Satellite,” this collection provides a handy-dandy introduction to Archer’s entire EMI career. That’s not to say that she stopped recording after leaving the majors, but it’s a good place to start if you want to find out more about her music, which is pretty amazing.

• Red Fox, AS A MATTER OF FOX (1993): Born in Jamaica West Indies, Gareth Shelton, a.k.a. Red Fox (so not the comedian, obviously, since he spelled his last with two X’s and also is dead), earned a spot in music history  in 1990 by being the first dancehall artist to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he appeared with Wailing Souls. In turn, he managed to secure a deal with Elektra, resulting in this album. Although it ended up being a one-off, Red’s still at it, having just released a new album with Screechy Dan called – appropriately enough – RESET.

• Big & Rich, SAVE A HORSE: THE WARNER SINGLES COLLECTION (2020): If you’ve listened to country radio for even a few minutes over the course of the last several years, then it’s unlikely that you could’ve avoided being introduced to the duo known as Big & Rich. If you were swayed into their camp by the catchiness of their brand of country and western, good news: this is chock full of hits and available for your purchasing pleasure.