Rhino looks back at some of Graham Nash‘s best-known recordings from the past 50 years in a new anthology featuring more than a dozen unreleased demos and mixes…

Vienna, Rome, Seoul… Iiro Rantala and Ulf Wakenius are musicians who travel the world, always on tour as leaders of their own projects. So it was something of a fluke that this duo was able to come into existence at all. The idea first emerged in October 2015, when Rantala and Wakenius stopped off at the Philharmonie in Berlin. Siggi Loch, curator of the “Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic” concert series, had brought them together on stage for the “Tears for Esbjörn” concert. “We were part of a larger ensemble on that occasion”, Rantala remembers, “but it was clear to both of us straight away that we would want to form a duo.” This has to be seen as a very smart move, given the rarity of the piano-guitar duo in jazz – a fine exception being that of Brad Mehldau with Pat Metheny.

By many measures, Jack Jones was the most popular crooner to emerge between the heyday of Elvis Presley and the rise of the Beatles. In the span of two years, he snagged two Grammys for Pop Male Performance "Lollipops and Roses" in 1962 and "Wives and Loves" in 1964 which was enough to lay a foundation for a career that lasted well into the 21st century. Although his charting hits dried up in the early '70s prior to that, he was a fixture on the Adult Contemporary charts, racking up the number one hits "The Race Is On," "The Impossible Dream (The Quest,)" and "Lady" between 1965 and 1967 he continued to perform in Las Vegas and on the road, making the occasional foray into pop culture, like when he sang "The Love Boat Theme" in 1980.

A 1960s and '70s pop singer fluent in Broadway standards as well as AM pop hits, Lana Cantrell was born in Sydney, Australia. She was exposed to music at an early age, since her father was a jazz musician. Cantrell made her singing debut at the age of ten, and by her teens she had become a well-known TV personality in Australia. At 19 she traveled to the United States to do everything "humanly possible," which meant trying her hand in film and on-stage.

George M! is a Broadway musical based on the life of George M. Cohan, the biggest Broadway star of his day who was known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway." The book for the musical was written by Michael Stewart, John Pascal, and Francine Pascal. Music and lyrics were, of course, by George M. Cohan himself, with revisions for the musical by Cohan's daughter, Mary Cohan. The story covers the period from the late 1880s until 1937 and focuses on Cohan's life and show business career from his early days in vaudeville with his parents and sister to his later success as a Broadway singer, dancer, composer, lyricist, theatre director and producer.

Machito played a huge role in the history of Latin jazz, for his bands of the 1940s were probably the first to achieve a fusion of powerful Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz improvisation. At its roaring best, the band had a hard-charging sound, loaded with jostling, hyperactive bongos and congas and razor-edged riffing brass. Machito was the front man, singing, conducting, shaking maracas, while his brother-in-law Mario Bauza was the innovator behind the scenes, getting Machito to hire jazz-oriented arrangers.

The Living Strings were group of string instruments, including the Living Voices, Living Trio, Living Pianos etc. The arrangements they did were breathtaking and picturesque. A background of splashes of water and seagulls accompany their version of "La Mer or Beyond The Sea." Although from England, the Living Strings did versions of many American musicals and popular songs like "Moon River" etc. There were many similar artists that composed for the Beautiful Music category, once a regular sound on fm radio everywhere. The Living Strings was and remains to be an enjoyable alternative, to the big band sound and quiets the nerves better than any music of today.

O.C. Smith began as a jazz vocalist and later moved into country and R&B. The Louisiana vocalist was hired to replace Joe Williams in Count Basie's band in the early '60s after cutting some unsuccessful records for Cadence and others in the '50s. He sang with Basie's band from 1961 to 1963. Following a period where he sang country and even had a hit with "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp," Smith moved into soul. His biggest hit was "Little Green Apples," which was number two on both the pop and R&B charts in 1968. His other big R&B single was "Daddy's Little Man," which reached number nine in 1969. Smith stayed on Columbia until 1974, but didn't score any more big records.

Although the name suggests otherwise, this was not a group. By contrast it was named for Teri Nelson, a young female vocalist from Harlem, New York, who was managed by Steve Camhi. During the late 1960s, the Super K Production company offered the then eighteen year old soloist a one year contract. After recording a few singles, Nelson's studio sessions were compiled into an album, which the Kama Sutra label released in 1968 purportedly without her knowledge and promoted it as a group effort (comparatively, the artists pictured alongside Nelson on the album's cover are backing vocalists (actually The Crystals) from the recording sessions). Nelson withdrew from her arrangement thereafter.

Armando Trovajoli (also "Trovaioli") was an Italian film composer with over 200 credits as composer and/or conductor, many of them jazz scores for low-budget exploitation films. He collaborated with Vittorio De Sica on a number of projects, including one segment of Boccaccio '70.

Maria Dallas was discovered at a talent contest in small town of Morrinsville, New Zealand. Her first single "Tumblin' Down", written by Jay Epae, released in 1966 and made it to #11 in the charts. It also won her a Loxene Golden Disc award. She released several albums and singles and starred in the New Zealand television series Golden Girl before moving on to Australia in 1967 and then to Nashville. She returned to New Zealand in 1970 and scored a #1 hit with the song "Pinocchio". In total, Dallas produced at least 10 albums and 25 singles.

White is self accompanied except for one tune with piano. His sound is a bit faster, and he understands the importance of a good beat. "Parchman Farm Blues" is the tale of his time there, also known as the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Parchman is legendary in blues circles as well as Grisham novels as a huge farm collective prison. Many men incarcerated there were allowed to record.

The legend of R & B and pop music Usher unexpectedly released an album fully produced by Zaytoven. “A” is the first letter of the name of the city of Atlanta, in which the singer grew up. The disc is completely built on the traditions of the sound of ATL and is a tribute to native places. Here, the 39-year-old artist is experiencing a second youth. He sings a falsetto, shares his sensual thoughts about women, but all this is accompanied by rattling trap-instrumentals that add freshness to his sound. Not surprisingly, Future and Gunna were the only guests on the album.

Deep in the forest outside of Berlin, one of rock and roll's most under the radar yet omnipresent figures is putting the finishing touches on his latest solo record, but in fact traces of Mark Sultan can be found around the world. Cosigned by celebrated labels In The Red, Last Gang, Crypt, Fat Possum, Dirtnap, Goner, Sub Pop, Vice, Bomp!, Norton, Sympathy For The Record Industry, and Wick (Daptone Records), you're bound to have come across something with Sultan's name on it. For this most recent effort, written, recorded and produced in his own Personal Imperfection studio in Germany, Sultan once again ups the ante, working to implement a full band and fully fleshed out instrumentation.

"Each record I make is more of an amalgamation of who I truly am," says John Grant. "The more I do this, the more I trust in myself, and the further along I go." Even when the Michigan-born man released his debut solo album Queen Of Denmark in 2010, Grant laced sumptuous soft-rock ballads with an array of spacey, wistful synthesiser sounds, increasingly adding taut, fizzing sequencers, nu-synth-disco settings and icy soundscapes to the mix on 2013's Pale Green Ghosts and 2015's Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, the latter The Guardian described as, "variously agonising, hilarious, uplifting and moving: another bravura display from a unique song writing talent.