Alice Cooper wasted little time following up the breakthrough success of Love It to Death with another album released the same year, Killer. Again, producer Bob Ezrin was on board and helps the group solidify their heavy rock (yet wide-ranging) style even further. The band's stage show dealt with the macabre, and such disturbing tracks as "Dead Babies" and the title track fit in perfectly. Other songs were even more exceptional, such as the perennial barnstorming concert standard "Under My Wheels," the melodic yet gritty "Be My Lover," and the tribute to their fallen friend Jim Morrison, "Desperado."

This is as close to Latin purist Mongo as we have heard in recent years, an eight-piece salsa band – including several members of the 1997 Tito Puente ensemble, like trumpeter Ray Vega, altoist Bobby Porcelli and tenorman Mitch Frohman – playing a brace of Mongo classics and Latin jazz pieces live before a hushed crowd in Seattle's Jazz Alley. There are no pop covers, one electric instrument (a bass), lots of extended jazz solos (Porcelli and Frohman really burn on the pioneering Afro-Cuban classic "Manteca"), and an unusual (for Mongo) emphasis on the timbales on many tracks, which shoves the rhythms closer to the salsified Puente manner.

During her years with Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie only recorded one album. It was released in 1984, after Mirage had run its course and the band was taking an extended break. Given its release date, it's not surprising that Christine McVie sounds like it could have been recorded during the Mirage sessions – it's a collection of soft rock/pop and ballads that are pleasantly melodic and ingratiating. Only a handful of cuts, such as the wonderfully catchy, lightly bouncy hit single "Got a Hold on Me," work their way into the memory, but nothing on Christine McVie is anything less than agreeable. The record simply suffers from a rather predictable fate – it's a little too sweet and laid-back to be consumed in one sitting, and its best songs would have sounded even better if they were balanced by Lindsey Buckingham's insular, paranoid pop genius and Stevie Nicks' hippie-folk mysticism.

Excellent early-70's Italian progressive trio (still around today) with classical stylings, featuring keyboards to the fore and a unique dreamy/powerful style. Le Orme was one of the three major Italian groups, the other two being PFM and Banco. This band is usually considered as the Italian Emerson, Lake & Palmer and even Banco del Mutuo Soccorso by the Italian singing. Its music is based upon organ developments and soli reminding Seventies groups which works are essentially built upon keyboards parts.
The band's truly classic period begins with their third next releases. "Uomo Di Pezza" (1972) is one of Le Orme's definitive Italian progressive rock albums…

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 55 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has recorded songs in at least six other languages. She is regarded as a folk singer, although her music has diversified since the counterculture days of the 1960s and now encompasses everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music. Although a songwriter herself, Baez generally interprets other composers' work, having recorded songs by the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan and many others.

Ten songs totalling 30 minutes of music from the eve of Steve Howe's emergence as one of the world's most famous guitar players. The singing isn't much, and the songwriting (apart from the excellent "Black Leather Gloves," written by Clive Skinner, and the group composed "Tired Towers") lacks some lyricism and tunefulness, but Howe's playing is filled with virtuoso melodic flourishes that almost make up for this shortcoming. His guitar carries songs like Curtis's "I Want You," and if you close your eyes on some of the other cuts, it's easy to imagine some of his work grafted onto songs from his first two Yes albums; one can also imagine some of this as demos by Peter Banks' group Flash. But overall this CD reveals Bodast as a band that needed something distinctive besides its axeman, and didn't have it, either in its personnel or their songwriting abilities.

PROVIDENCE were formed in 1985. For some years around their foundation they had changed the members or produced some demo tapes but they could not appear upon major scene in those days. In 1989 they saw the light with solidifying their members and recording their debut album 'And I'll Recite An Old Myth' (released in the following year), in that Madoka TSUKADA (keyboards) composed all songs. This album has got renowned also with the collaboration of Christian Beya (ex-Atoll). After replacing some members in 1991, PROVIDENCE had got more active on stage or production. In 1996 they released their second work 'There Once Was A Night Of Choko-Muro The Paradise'. PROVIDENCE had gigged in Japan actively until 2002 but sadly been disbanded without any notice.

While this CD didn't have the vibe of our first record together, it was vastly superior to the second CD. There was a lot of raw energy coupled with orchestration finesse. That's what Clarke/Duke is about - sweet and sour! ~ George Duke

Armchair Theatre is the first solo album by Jeff Lynne, released in 1990. The album reunited Lynne with Electric Light Orchestra's keyboard player Richard Tandy and featured fellow Traveling Wilburys member George Harrison.

A decent 12-song compilation of the group's singles, several of which, including "My Tani" and "Frogg," were never on their individual albums. The mix of tempos and sources encompasses everything from the two moody singles "Greenfields" and "The Green Leaves of Summer" to playful songs such as "Frogg," gospel material ("Nobody Knows"), and robust, stomping pieces ("I Am a Roving Gambler," "Nine Pound Hammer"). The sound is decent, but there's no annotation on this low-priced CD, a straight conversion of a 1967 album.

"Txai" is described as a term of respect for those who are allies of the forest – and such is the focus of this concept album, the end result of a fact-finding voyage through part of the northern Brazilian watershed. Utilizing forces ranging from a simple dialogue between Milton Nascimento's baritone and percussion to a large orchestra and chorus (often arranged by Wagner Tiso), Nascimento shares his thoughts about the rivers and nature, ultimately warning us not to let the forces of capitalism destroy the Amazon rain forest (reinforced by a spoken passage written and narrated by actor River Phoenix). The songs are separated by wild-sounding interludes of folk music from the peoples of the region, and there is a fascinating vocal/percussion arrangement of Heitor Villa-Lobos' "Nozani Na."

This showcase for different varieties of blues, from the acoustic harmonica/guitar work of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee to the electric band work of Ray Charles and Arbee Stidham, is more substantial than its 23 cuts, divided between five performers, would lead one to expect. There's no shortage of Lightnin' Hopkins recordings - and even of great Lightnin' Hopkins recordings - but he is in such fantastic form on the first four cuts of this multi-artist collection that it's worth the price of admission just for his acoustic playing on "Buck Dance Boogie," and when he jumps to electric blues on "Hello Central," his work is even more impressive. Ray Charles may only do three numbers, but he shows off some surprising attributes, his singing overpowering everything around him for the first two tracks, "Why Did You Go?" and "I Found My Baby There"…