Dee Dee Warwick spent most of her career in the shadow of her significantly more famous sister, Dionne Warwick, and that's a shame, since Dee Dee was a very gifted soul singer with a style quite different than that of her sibling. Dee Dee Warwick had a stronger and more forceful instrument than Dionne, revealing a clear gospel influence, and she could belt out deep Southern soul with passion and authority. Dee Dee's first album for Atco, 1970's Turning Around, is a small triumph; produced by Dave Crawford with Jim Dickson and the Dixie Flyers backing her up, this is top-notch Southern soul with a bit of rock & roll flash in Charlie Freeman's guitar and no shortage of groove in Sammy Creason's drumming.

One of Wither's most underrated sets, a nice effort from the latter part of his Columbia career. The set has the sort of modern soul polish throughout that separates these CBS sides from his earlier grittier work for Sussex, and though the sound has a little more commercial and mainstream appeal than some of the funkier folksier early albums, it's aged a lot better than we might have predicted upon its release. Overall the vibe is a lot like the excellent Menagerie album which immediately preceded this, with some nice jazzy touches, and even though it didn't produce a big hit like "Lovely Day", it does features some arrangements by Wade Marcus that contribute to the warm, polished production. Titles include "Love Is", "All Because Of You", "You Got The Stuff", "Don't It Make It Better", and "Look To Each Other For Love".

Issued mere months after the death of Donny Hathaway, this 1980 album was the second full-length collaboration between Roberta Flack and the troubled soul singer/pianist. Although the record is arguably eclipsed by Flack and Hathaway's initial duet outing in '72, it features a number of outstanding tracks, including the disco-tinged, Stevie Wonder-penned 'You Are My Heaven' and the funky 'Back Together Again,' the uplifting theme song to their well-received reunion.

For a later album it shows that Flack still showed great creative flare. The songs stand out and are memorable. A brilliant album from an artist who didn't have a powerhouse voice, but could still make your spine tingle with her striking words of love and loss. A totaly enjoyable disc filled with excitement and joy.

The long-overdue full length debut from Phillip Mitchell an artist who cut some great singles over the course of the 70s and also wrote a fair bit of classics for other, bigger name acts! Phillip did some of his earlier work of the decade in both Memphis and Muscle Shoals but he also had a key relationship with Norman Connors as well, who helped Mitchell take his southern roots into even more sophisticated soul territory! Mitchell produced the album himself and arranged with Paul Riser and McKinley Jackson and the overall sound is a wonderful blend of deeply personal vocals with smoother mellow soul grooves a really top-shelf affair all the way through, and the kind of album that’s only finally getting its due many years later.

On his sixth album in seven years, Luther Vandross sounds a bit fed up. As the most powerful and popular balladeer of the Eighties, he has doggedly defended romantic bliss, or at least the hope for it. Any Love might mark the end of that cycle, however, as some doubts start to creep in.

This was Margie Joseph's third album for Atlantic. Like the first two, Arif Mardin was the producer, arranger and conductor, but it was to be the last time that Arif Mardin was Margie's producer. The album yielded two minor hits, these being Words are impossible and Stay still. Covers of songs by Carole King (Believe in humanity, After all this time) and Bill Withers (The same love that made me laugh)sit comfortably among originals including two that Margie co-wrote with Arif (Sign of the times, Stay still). Margie Joseph was an excellent performer, but that big hit eluded her, so she never made the big time. Nevertheless, she made some excellent music of which this album is typical.

Don Covay rides his most creative crest as a solo artist with this hearty collection of songs. The settings are simplistic for Atlantic Records, which recorded similar artists in lusher settings. But rawness is what makes these recordings arresting. A guitarist as well as a singer, Covay's pickings aren't buried in the mix, and you don't need a Geiger counter to detect the grooves. Most impressive are "See Saw," "Mercy Mercy," "Sookie, Sookie," and "Boomerang," a call to dance with the feeling of Major Lance singing a Curtis Mayfield song. On "Fat Man," you wonder if he's singing about his old Washington, D.C., buddy Billy Stewart. The two began their careers with the Rainbows.

Never Let Me Go, like most Luther Vandross albums, is a flawless display of technique blessed with exquisite singing, well-crafted arrangements and a mix that has been tweaked to perfection. Unfortunately, the end result is more soporific than soulful meaning that all Vandross ends up with is the quiet-storm equivalent of elevator music.

For more than 30 years, the career of composer Étienne Moulinié was inseparably linked with the patronage of Gaston d'Orléans (1608-60), brother of Louis XIII. Moulinié provided the music for the prince’s family from 1627 to 1660, leaving a varied and original oeuvre. Although his secular music is well known, his sacred output, most of it contained in a collection published in 1658 from which this recording presents some of the finest pieces, is still neglected, despite its great beauty, its individuality, and its importance for the development of mid 17th-century French music.

David Bates leads La Nuova Musica in 'Sacrifices', a programme of intensely dramatic oratorios from the mid Baroque. Three poignant tales of denail and sacrifice: St Peter's denial of Christ; Abraham's [narrowly averted] sacrifice of his son Isaac; and the Old Testament story of Jepthe, the hero commander who, before leading the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites, vows to God that if he is victorious, he will sacrifice the first living thing he meets upon his return.

"The Americans expect great things of me,’ Dvorák wrote in November 1892 to his friend Josef Hlávka, ‘and the main thing, so they say, is to show them the way to the promised land and kingdom of a new and independent art, in short, to create a national music."

Born into a musical family, he began to study the cello at the age of six. He refined his skills with Antonio Janigro, and in 1997 he won the First Prize at the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris.

Craig Hella Johnson leads Conspirare, soprano Estelí Gomez, baritone David Farwig, and the Victoria Bach Festival string orchestra in this first recording of three choral works by Robert Kyr (b. 1952). Exploring the relationship between human and divine love, his cantatas 'The Cloud of Unknowing' (2013) and 'Songs of the Soul' (2011) transfixed audiences and critics alike when Conspirare premiered them.

This disc is an invitation to explore one of the great attractions of Venice in the Baroque era, the famous 'ospedali'. These were establishments that took care of and educated children and adolescents. In the early 18 century almost all the leading Venetian musicians were linked with the musical activities of one of the ospedali. The best-known among them was Antonio Vivaldi: just 25 when he was hired as violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà.