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This live double album, recorded in 1981 but not released until five years after Randy Rhoads' death, showcases a hard rock guitarist whose all-around ability was arguably second only to Eddie Van Halen…
For this Pablo album, the great tenor Zoot Sims (who doubles on soprano) interprets five pretty melodies plus his own "Pomme Au Four" with a quartet comprised of pianist Richard Wyands, bassist Frank Tate and drummer Akira Tana…
Released the year that Loverboy decided to go their separate ways, Big Ones is about as thorough a hits compilation as one could expect from the group. There are a few singles missing – like "Queen of the Broken Hearts," "Dangerous" and "Lead a Double Life," as well as Mike Reno's duet with Ann Wilson, "Almost Paradise" – but the core hits are all here: "Turn Me Loose," "The Kid Is Hot Tonite," "Working for the Weekend," "When It's Over," "Hot Girls in Love," "Lovin' Every Minute of It," "This Could Be the Night," "Heaven in Your Eyes," and "Notorious." Even though the subsequent Loverboy Classics covered more ground, Big Ones is a good, basic collection, ideal for any fan of the group.
Sardinas led a trio through a high-energy set of rocky roadhouse blues-rock on his second album. Given how tired the format sounds after being exploited by innumerable performers for many years, and also how much better the best of such practitioners are at the format, it's questionable whether another entry in this overcrowded field was unnecessary. Sardinas' skills as a technically accomplished, if somewhat bombastic and unimaginative, blues guitarist are undoubted. His hoarse, blustery vocals are another matter, as is the over-the-top macho posturing of his original songs. It's better when, as the cliché goes, he just shuts up and plays his guitar, as on the instrumental "Texola," or when he tones down the throaty strain of his vocals at least a little, as on the uncharacteristically laid-back closer, "8 Goin' South."
This is a collectable, limited edition collection of released and unreleased tracks spanning Blues diva Candye Kane's 20 year career. Songs from her earliest, out of print releases including "Homecookin'," "Knockout," and "Swango." Her songs of empowerment have inspired people around the globe. This is the the best collection to date of Candye's personal favorites from her impressive catalogue of ten albums. This collection was compiled for her stage play "The Toughest Girl Alive" which had its world premiere debut at the Moxie Theater in San Diego on January 15, 2011.
The ceaselessly innovative and searching composer and Butch Morris died yesterday in New York. He had been under treatment of cancer for several years. Morris was 65. He developed an approach to big band music that he called conduction. It made demands on musicians by insisting on intensive, intuitive listening, reaction and interaction. The effort involved adjustment to Morris’s highly personalized methods of conducting while simultaneously composing and arranging through a system of cues and hand motions.
A Catalan contemporary of Scarlatti, Manuel Espona (1714-1779) is known now, if at all, as the teacher of Antonio Soler, one of the fathers of Spanish keyboard literature. Melani Mestre’s recording, the only modern album dedicated to this composer, reveals that Espona was a fine composer in his own right.
1826. The Chopin family lives in Warsaw. Frederic is still a young man, just on the edge of adulthood. His catalog is already rich with some piano pieces, rondos, variations, waltzes, mazurkas and polonaises. Living in a certain material comfort and having taken refuge in relative solitude – he who desired so much to drop out of school – Chopin studies counterpoint - only counterpoint because he already masters piano technique to perfection - with Józef Elsner (1769-1854), at the Higher School of Music. He also registers at the University of Warsaw, as an auditor, to history and literature classes. The two subject matters are tinted by the two major influences of their time, Enlightenment on the one hand and Sturm und Drang on the other. Both nourish the new Polish literature that in turn, with revolutionary energy, feeds into proud nationalism.
A fresh new recording of Jean Sibelius early breakthrough work by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Hannu Lintu. This recording with two male choirs, the Estonian National Male Choir and the Polytech Choir, brings up the full drama of this gigantic 70-minute work which during Sibelius lifetime was often referred to as a symphony. The work tells the story of Kullervo, a tragic hero drawn from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. While a student in Vienna, Sibelius started planning to write a large work that would crystallize the rising Finnish national feeling in music.
Most of Nancy Wilson's late '60s releases contained four or five good tunes and the rest would be filler from the day's batch of B-grade pop material. Her 1967 date Welcome to My Love, though, is an exception. It offers a consistent selection of high-quality standards and strong contemporary material impressively set off by Oliver Nelson's soulfully urbane arrangements. On the subdued end there are straightahead ballads like "May I Come In" and "It Never Entered My Mind" as well as more soul-tinged numbers such as "Welcome to My Love" and "Let's Make the Most of a Beautiful Thing." Wilson's smoky, whispered voice imparts just the right amount of tender drama here while Nelson's dark and restrained string charts keep things from getting syrupy.