On their first album of new material since 1991, The Well's on Fire is a return to form for Procol Harum. The band has shed most of the production gloss that dated The Prodigal Stranger and gets back to a beefier rock-based sound, resulting in their finest album in nearly 30 years. By the time you get to the chorus of "An Old English Dream" (the album's first track), you know you've locked onto the classic Procol arsenal - capable of packing plenty of keyboard, drums, and guitar punch. The band is comfortable and unashamed to be working within the classic rock idiom, and their unique blend of progressive and R&B influences is still evident. The playing is tight and lively. "Every Dog Will Have His Day" shows they haven't lost their sense of playful humor, while truly revelling in bouncy R&B rock. Some songs - like the regal "A Robe of Silk" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" - are more than respectable throwbacks to Shine on Brightly and Home-era material…

"Wandering Blues," the driving opener throughout which Hooker keeps time loudly with his foot, should give listeners a sense of what to expect from Sings Blues. These spare, raw recordings, originally made for the King label (the subtitle reads "19 selections - every one a pearl"!), are Hooker at his finest. Hooker's primitive gutbucket electric guitar is the main ingredient here, and it is his hard-edged boogie playing that fuels the fire.
Though somewhat less of a growl than on later recordings, Hooker's voice is no less soulful or urgent. It seethes with dark energy on such cuts as "Heart Trouble Blues" and the pulsing "Nightmare Blues." This work is vintage electric-blues, as cuts like "Thinking Blues" and "Blue Guitar Blues" will attest. Taken together, the tracks on Sings Blues are excellent examples of the gripping synthesis of folk blues and electric power that marks Hooker's early work.

This lavish reissue of Vaughan's 1957 double LP displays a Gershwin different in tone from Ella Fitzgerald's better-known one. Naturally more elastic in her interpretations than Fitzgerald, Vaughan also manages a more intimate tone perhaps better suited for the later hours of late-night listening. Hal Mooney's arrangements wisely alternate between full-blown orchestral backing and a more rhythmic emphasis, as on "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," which would have fit right in with the singer's string of pop hit singles. Most impressive, though, are Vaughan's intuitively touching readings of ballads like "I've Got a Crush on You," "The Man I Love," and "A Foggy Day": no matter how many recordings of them exist, these must stand near the top of the stack. The original album is augmented here by 13 incomplete takes from one of the sessions.

Kin Ping Meh are not your typical Krautrock band. Although they're quite frequently labelled as such, theor sound is more akin to Art Rock, or "Hard Prog," like in the case of Birth Control. Kin Ping Meh, whose name was of Chinese origin, was founded in 1970 in Mannheim as a quintet featuring Joachim Schaffer, Werner Stephan, Torsten Herzog, Kalle Weber, and Joachim Schafer. In their early years, Kin Ping Meh performed many covers by bands like Blood, Sweat & Tears, Deep Purple, The Steve Winwood Group, etc… Soon, they were discovered by Polydor records, who signed them immediately. Schaffer left before the first album was recorded, but was replaced by Willie Wagner, who wrote perhaps their most famous track, "Fairy Tales."
This box set edition presents 4 1/2 hours of only unreleased stuff, which should be interesting not only for KPM fans…

Between 1974 and 1982, Frenchman Richard Pinhas recorded at least twelve LPs either under the Heldon name or his own, alternating between guitars and keyboards himself and accompanied by a variety of associates on guitars, drums and analog synthesizers. This double CD reissue includes Heldon's very first release, Electronique Guerrilla, and their third, It's Always Rock 'n' Roll (itself a double LP originally). These releases are sometimes referred to as Heldon I and Heldon III (Heldon II, otherwise known as Allez Teia, was recorded earlier in 1975). In spite of the rather aggressive album titles, these early recordings are mellow to the point of ambient, and inscrutably (or perversely), there's very little music in the entire program which would be considered rock & roll by any stretch of the imagination. (Very unobtrusive drums appear only on several of the later tracks on the Rock 'n' Roll reissue)…

Luigi Zenobi, a virtuoso cornetist known as Luigi del cornetto, was born in Ancona in the mid-sixteenth century. He later moved to Vienna, where he entered the service of the Emperor Maximilian II. His reputation grew and he subsequently worked for the Este family in Ferrara, where he was the most respected and best-paid musician at court up to that time, so sought-after were his talents. Luigi was also a painter, poet, miniaturist and music scholar. An eyewitness recalled the delicacy of his playing: softer than the harpsichord when its lid is closed. Giovanni Sansoni, a composer and cornetist probably originally from Venice, was born around 1593. He was engaged by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Graz in 1613 and followed him to Vienna when he became Emperor in 1619.

Nikolay Myaskovsky was one of the most prolific and influential composers in 20th-Century Russian musical life. These two works come from the beginning and end of his distinguished career: the warmly expressive First Cello Sonata recalling the style of Rachmaninov, and the equally romantic Second Cello Sonata revealing the subtle influence of folk music typical of Myaskovsky's later years. Alexander Glazunov both absorbed and continued the great Romantic lineage with his poignant Chant du Ménestrel and the Iberian evocations for the Sérénade espagnole from Two Pieces.

In Gustav Mahler's first four symphonies many of the themes originate in his own settings of folk poems from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn). A case in point, Symphony No. 4 is built around a single song, Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life) which Mahler had composed some eight years earlier, in 1892. The song presents a child's vision of Heaven and is hinted at throughout the first three movements. In the fourth, marked ‘Sehr behaglich’ (Very comfortably), the song is heard in full from a solo soprano instructed by Mahler to sing: ‘with serene, childlike expression; completely without parody!’