UK four CD set containing digitally remastered editions of the first four legendary albums by Tangerine Dream, originally released on the Ohr label in Germany between 1970 and 1973. These albums are known by fans as The Pink Years albums. Electronic Meditation was recorded in Berlin in October 1969 and featured the first Tangerine Dream line-up of Edgar Froese (guitars, organ, tapes, sound effects), Klaus Schulze (drums, percussion) and Conrad Schnitzler (cello, violin, typewriter). Upon it's release in 1970, the album would define a genre of music and herald the massive creative musical explosion that would emerge in Germany in the early 1970s.

Richard Perry's 1978 production of the self-titled Leo Sayer album is one of the artist's most serious and heartfelt, though it only generated a minor hit in the cover of the Boudleau Bryant/Felice Bryant tune "Raining in My Heart." With Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham on electric guitar, Waddy Wachtel on slide guitar, and Ben Benay on acoustic, the performance and production of that particular song offers much on an album that is equally impressive. James Brown/Russell Smith's "Dancing the Night Away," with David Lindley's important and unobtrusive fiddle and steel guitar, and "Stormy Weather," the Tom Snow/Leo Sayer collaboration which opens the album, all work in unison, providing evidence that Sayer had superstardom just within his grasp.

Timeless collection featuring the most beloved songs sung by legendary artists. 100 songs on 5 CDs.
The Great American Songbook is the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs & Jazz standards from the early 20th century. This 100 song collection presented on 5 CDs contains the most beloved songs sung by legendary artists. Includes standards recorded by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jr, and more.

The Complete Hits of Linda Scott contains all 12 of her Billboard chart hits in addition to ten other recordings from her early-'60s heyday. Mastered from the original tapes and with all but one of the tracks presented in true stereo, no illegitimate import can approach the sound quality and presentation of this package. "I Told Ev'ry Little Star" is Scott's biggest and best-known hit (and one of only three that cracked the Top 20), but her other efforts boast inventive arrangements, a greater measure of vocal talent than the average teenage thrush, and a handful of songs written by Scott herself. With a photo-filled booklet and informative liner notes, The Complete Hits of Linda Scott is the ultimate tribute to a minor but worthy star.

2012 collection from the Easy Listening/Pop crooner. Spanish Eyes features the original versions of his biggest selling singles alongside unique renditions of some of the most loved songs of the 20th century. The singer started his recording career way back in 1958 and has remained at the top of his profession for over 45 years selling over 130 million units. This collection features 11 UK Top 20 hits including no less than seven UK Top 5s. Spectrum.

While there was certainly little to complain about on the original issue of the soundtrack for Standing in the Shadows of Motown, for those who truly sought the magic of the Funk Brothers, this deluxe edition is what they longed for all along. This two-disc collection contains the soundtrack of the Allan Slutsky/Harry Weinger film – plus three bonus tracks – from that historic night at the Royal Oak Music Theater just outside of Detroit. It pairs what was left of the original Motown session gang and their heirs with a host of vocalists, including Joan Osborne, Chaka Khan, Bootsy Collins, Montell Jordan, Me'Shell NdegéOcello, Ben Harper, and Gerald LeVert interpreting the classics. The extra soundtrack cuts feature John Lee Hooker, Jackie Wilson, and Dennis Coffey with the Detroit Guitar Band. But on disc two, the entire grail becomes attainable. Here are 15 musical tracks, the original instrumental sides from "the Snakepit" of the Motown studios, with little or no vocal accompaniment, remixed from the ground up. The producers broke down and mapped out each verse, bridge, chorus, and vamp on paper first. Phone calls were made to the living members and then each tune was knotted together from the recorded evidence, using the input of the Funks and the added guitars of Dennis Coffey and Wah Wah Watson.

Grover Washington, Jr., has long been one of the leaders in what could be called rhythm & jazz, essentially R&B-influenced jazz. Winelight is one of his finest albums, and not primarily because of the Bill Withers hit "Just the Two of Us." It is the five instrumentals that find Washington (on soprano, alto, and tenor) really stretching out. If he had been only interested in sales, Washington's solos could have been half as long and he would have stuck closely to the melody. Instead he really pushes himself on some of these selections, particularly the title cut. A memorable set of high-quality and danceable soul-jazz.

If you’re a Neil Diamond fan, the latest entry in our songwriter series is a no-brainer must-have. For starters, it collects 11 of the songs Neil wrote during the 1963-1969 timeframe that is its purview, but has never himself recorded. Among the numbers he gave away are the Monkees’ ‘Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)’ (heard here in the unique mix used on the original television broadcast) and Jay & the Americans’ ‘Sunday And Me’.

Hilary Hahn's latest album, Eclipse, celebrates the power of authenticity. Recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and its Music Director (2014-2021), Andres Orozco-Estrada, it sees the triple Grammy-winning violinist deliver interpretations of three works charged with universal emotions yet rooted in their composers' musical heritage: Dvor k's Violin Concerto, Ginastera's Violin Concerto, a strikingly original 20th-century gem, and Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy.

Like the Motown Sound of the mid-60s, the Philly Sound of the 70s did not suddenly appear overnight with the establishment of Philadelphia International Records and the rise to international stardom of acts such as the O Jays, the Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. This new Kent release Nothing But A House Party focuses its attention on the years 1967-1971 and provides a first-class overview of how recording in Philadelphia moved on from the lightweight Cameo-Parkway sound of the early 60s to become considerably more inventive and sophisticated. Most of the musicians heard on these tracks became part of MFSB, the musical backbone of nearly every black American recording that came out of Philly between 1971 and 1976. Many of the songwriters and producers also went on to far greater fame in the 70s, after honing their craft with these and many other classics. Some artists featured here had fallen by the wayside by the turn of the 1970s, while others had moved their recording base elsewhere but all played a significant role in developing Philadelphia's standing as one of one of soul music's most significant cities of the 20th century. With the kind of copiously annotated and illustrated booklet and top-notch mastering you would expect from Kent, this is a release no serious soul fan should overlook.

Cosmic Wheels was Donovan's first album in three years to be aimed at mainstream listeners (as opposed to the audience of children and parents for HMS Donovan). For most onlookers, the passage of time meant that this record should have differed considerably from its predecessor, but no one could have expected what was on Cosmic Wheels, at least on side one - a suppression of all of the flowing lyricism that had been a hallmark of Donovan's previous work. In its place were awkward self-consciously heavy prog rock/hard rock stylings juxtaposed with sound effects, and all woven together in a loud and mostly tuneless and unmemorable first side. Starting with the title track, little of the new-style material worked, and the first six numbers here seem like the musical equivalent of a train wreck in slow motion - the presence of such notable names as Suzi Quatro and others in the contingent of participating musicians notwithstanding…

Internationally acclaimed Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski is known as a fervent champion of Polish music. In this album Jablonski returns to some of his dearest piano music – Chopin’s Mazurkas. For Chopin, the Mazurkas became a deeply personal, intimate statement of his feelings as an émigré Polish composer living in Paris. From some of his very first compositions to his last, it is the only form that Chopin composed regularly throughout his life. Similarly, Chopin’s Mazurkas have followed Peter Jablonski throughout his entire career as a pianist in nearly every solo recital.

Flip Phillips and his Orchestra, featuring: Charlie Shavers, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Barney Kessel, Buddy Rich, Max Roach.
It is interesting that one of the selections in this “Swinging With Flip” album is entitled “Salute to Pres”. Although Flip Phillips is not at all similar to Lester “Pres” Young in style or concept he certainly is aware of the debt all modern saxophonists owe to “Pres” - hence the title; it’s an original, of course, by Flip himself, one of two in this collection.
The other Phillips original is “Blues for the Midgets” (and just where this title came from no one is quite sure). There is in the playing of Flip Phillips a genuine puckishess which might well be expressed in writing a blues for midgets (whose blues are no different than anyone else’s)…

Continuing the twisted pop explorations of Here Come the Warm Jets, Eno's sophomore album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), is more subdued and cerebral, and a bit darker when he does cut loose, but it's no less thrilling once the music reveals itself. It's a loose concept album - often inscrutable, but still playful - about espionage, the Chinese Communist revolution, and dream associations, with the more stream-of-consciousness lyrics beginning to resemble the sorts of random connections made in dream states. Eno's richly layered arrangements juxtapose very different treated sounds, yet they blend and flow together perfectly, hinting at the directions his work would soon take with the seamless sound paintings of Another Green World…

Mixed chamber music programs are altogether rarer than those which include a series of pieces in the same genre. Thus it is more common to encounter an entire CD devoted to Mozart's string quartets or to his chamber works featuring winds. The Lindsay's, however, offer us one of Mozart's best-known quartets coupled with the gorgeous Oboe Quartet and still-underappreciated Horn Quintet.