One of the great bands of the rock & roll era, the Kinks pioneered hard rock with such wild early ravers as "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," singles that inspired such peers as the Who and David Bowie while also pointing the way forward for punk and metal. That turned out to be the first act in a career that ran into the 1990s, making them the only British Invasion band outside of the Rolling Stones to last that long. Where the Stones always occupied center stage, the Kinks operated on the margins, both by accident and design. Lead singer/songwriter Ray Davies fashioned himself as an observer of human behavior, developing a gift for character and commentary that flourished on such mid-'60s singles as "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and "Sunny Afternoon."

Recorded live at Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA, USA, May 1, 1970
(soundboard recording of very good to excellent quality)

SUPERB TRIPLE DISC SET OF LIVE BROADCAST RECORDINGS FROM THE 1970s Formed in 1967 as Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago shorted their name in 1969, and throughout the 1970s and 80s were a regular fixture on both single and album charts universally. One of the world's best-selling groups of all time, having sold more than 100 million records, in 1971, Chicago was the first rock act to sell out Carnegie Hall for a week. To date, Chicago has sold over 40 million units in the U.S., with 23 gold, 18 platinum, and eight multi-platinum albums. They have had five consecutive number-one LPs on the Billboard 200 and 20 top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1974 the group had seven albums, its entire catalogue at the time, on the US albums list simultaneously.

Rock's longest, strangest trip, the Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love, and mind expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three decades. The object of adoration for popular music's most fervent and celebrated fan following – the Deadheads, their numbers and devotion legendary in their own right – they were the ultimate cult band, creating a self-styled universe all their own; for the better part of their career orbiting well outside of the mainstream, the Dead became superstars solely on their own terms, tie-dyed pied pipers whose epic, free-form live shows were rites of passage for an extended family of listeners who knew no cultural boundaries. The roots of the Grateful Dead lie with singer/songwriter Jerry Garcia, a longtime bluegrass enthusiast who began playing the guitar at age 15. Upon relocating to Palo Alto, California, in 1960, he befriended Robert Hunter, whose lyrics later graced many of Garcia's most famous melodies; in time, he also came into contact with aspiring electronic music composer Phil Lesh.

Purely a touring ensemble by 1991 - their final studio album, 1989 s Built To Last was no classic - Grateful Dead were nevertheless as active as they d ever been, and indeed between 1990 and 1995 the band earned $285 million, second only to The Rolling Stones in tour revenue for the period. Their show at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, on 27th October 91, featuring both Carlos Santana and Gary Duncan on a brace of tracks, was, as-almost-ever, considered extraordinary by fans. Emotional is indeed the word here to describe this show; there is a voodoo to a great many of these songs in terms of their placement and interpretation - Sugar Magnolia to open, a just-ironic-enough Touch of Grey to close the first set. 2nd set is top notch; Gary Duncan's playing is much more prominent than Santana's in the extended Mona-jam, which evokes some great multi-dueling-guitar moments.

MESMERISING SECOND\-ALBUM\-TOUR BROADCAST FROM PETER GABRIEL\nThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was Peter Gabriel final album with Genesis, but tensions increased during this period as Gabriel wanted to write all of the lyrics himself, and he split with the band after director William Friedkin had invited him to work on a screenplay. The project dissolved, and Gabriel returned to work with Genesis, but was late to deliver the lyrics and relied on contributions from Banks and Rutherford.\nDuring a stop in Cleveland, while on the Lamb Lies Down tour, Gabriel informed the band of his intention to leave at its conclusion.

Tom Petty straddled the divide separating classic rock and new wave, revitalizing and reinvigorating the big jangle of the Byrds and the garage rock roar of the Rolling Stones with his earliest records with the Heartbreakers in the late 1970s. Over the next decades, Petty expanded and refined this blend, almost always with guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench – the musicians who had played with him since the early '70s, when they all were in the rambling country-rock outfit Mudcrutch – by his side.

Tom Petty straddled the divide separating classic rock and new wave, revitalizing and reinvigorating the big jangle of the Byrds and the garage rock roar of the Rolling Stones with his earliest records with the Heartbreakers in the late 1970s.

Almost from the start of their career, Deep Purple played sessions for the newly formed Radio 1, where they were championed by DJs such as John Peel, Tommy Vance and Pete Drummond, late night and weekend jocks who would feature underground music from the UK and overseas. Disc One here contains a number of sessions Purple recorded for the BBC between 1968 and 1970, during this era. Between ’70 and ’72, the band released three of their most renowned and heavy albums, Deep Purple In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head, all of which were huge successes in both the UK, and in the USA where they had now attracted a major following. On March 9th 1972 however, they were back in London, recording a final concert for Radio 1, at the Paris Theatre which was subsequently broadcast on the station, and now features in its entirety on the second disc of this new 2CD collection.

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED RADIO SESSIONS 1966 - 1972 While David Bowie s early career was somewhat fragmented, a little disjointed and often sporadic, he was rarely off the wireless. And the sessions he recorded for radio across this period, makes for a fascinating body of work. This 2 x CD collection features nearly 2 hours of such FM sessions, previously unreleased on CD and in near perfect quality. Including cuts originally recorded for shows such as Top Gear, Sounds Of The Seventies, The Sunday Show and a number of other programmes, this set will delight Bowie fans as it completes the availability of material originally intended to be heard only via the airwaves.

Bruce Springsteen, Greatest Hits Broadcast Collection. Since the age of 15, Springsteen's life has been focused on rock 'n' roll. He's always been a leader, and it was during his teens he headed a series of bands such as Child and Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom. Springsteen soon became a local bar favourite, and even played as far afield as the Fillmore in San Francisco. He was also making regular runs into Manhattan, appearing as both a bandleader and soloist in Greenwich Village clubs, learning his craft in the most basic and diverse way possible. Although the more intimate surroundings of New York's Bottom Line was a sanctuary for the singer/songwriter.

Bruce Springsteen once said he intended to make an album with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector with vocals like Roy Orbison's, a nifty summary of many, but not all, of his artistic ambitions and a key to his appeal. Unlike any other singer/songwriters saddled with the appellation of "the new Dylan" in the early '70s, Springsteen never hid how he was raised on '60s AM radio. He loved rock & roll, whether it was the initial blast from the '50s or the mini-symphonies from the days before the Beatles or the garage rockers that surfaced in the wake of the British Invasion, and all this could be heard within his wild, wooly collective E Street Band, a group who debuted on his second album, 1973's The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, and who would support him throughout most of his career.

For years the star cellist and Opus Klassik laureate Raphaela Gromes has taken up the cause of women composers. Three of her albums, acclaimed by critics and listeners alike, have featured music by unknown women composers, and she maintains a long-term working relationship with the "Frau und Musik" Archive in Frankfurt. So it is only natural that her new double album, FEMMES, should lend a voice to outstanding women from nine centuries of music history. No fewer than 23 woman composers found their way onto the double album, from Hildegard of Bingen to Clara Schumann all the way to Lera Auerbach and Billie Eilish, not to mention such famous operatic figures as Susanna from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro or Bizet's Carmen.

Six CD set. Five albums from the early days of Magnum - four studio recordings and the live 'Marauder' album. Covering releases from 1978-1983 plundering their archives with plenty of rarities and B-sides, demos and live tracks. Magnum originally formed in Birmingham in 1972 around guitarist and songwriter Tony Clarkin and singer Bob Catley.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer were progressive rock's first supergroup. Greeted by the rock press and the public as something akin to conquering heroes, they succeeded in broadening the audience for progressive rock from hundreds of thousands into tens of millions of listeners. They created a major radio phenomenon as well, penning classic rock radio staples like "Lucky Man," Still…You Turn Me On," and "Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, Pt. 2," and issuing hugely influential albums like Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery.