Running for My Life is Judy Collins' 15th album for Elektra Records (not counting three compilations) in 19 years, and by now the 40-year-old singer knows what she wants in putting together an LP, which may help explain why this is her first album on which she alone is credited as producer. She still retains her affection for traditional folk music, which she demonstrates with a version of "Bright Morning Star." She continues to champion songwriters whose work she helped to popularize in the past, here taking another pass at Jacques Brel's "Marieke" and, as she had with Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns," bringing the Broadway composer's work into the pop realm by performing both "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" and "Pretty Women" from his 1979 Broadway musical Sweeney Todd. Another songwriter she has called attention to recently is Hugh Prestwood, and she sings his "Almost Free," which, with Larry Gatlin's "I've Done Enough Dyin' Today," shows her continuing affinity for country music.

#8 is a 1983 album by J. J. Cale. It was his eighth since his debut in 1972. Twelve years and eight albums into his recording career, Cale's approach has changed little, and here is another collection of groove tunes that act as platforms for the artist's intricate guitar playing. He is sometimes accompanied by a female vocalist, co-writer Christine Lakeland.

The Best of A Flock of Seagulls is an excellent 12-track roundup of A Flock of Seagulls' best material. Their catalog wasn't particularly deep outside of the hits "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" and "I Ran (So Far Away)," but they did do some good new nomantic synth pop, particularly on cuts like "Nightmares," "A Space Age Love Song," and "Telecommunications," all of which are here. As a matter of fact, this really does contain all of the group's best material, and while new wave fetishists will likely go for the actual albums anyway, most listeners will be more than satisfied with this.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bishop and Grammy-winning harmonica great Musselwhite join forces for a fun and historic collaboration of front porch blues. Among the most famous bluesmen in the world, with over five decades each of recording and performing, Elvin and Charlie have scanned over 600,000 units combined, despite over two dozen of their releases coming before the advent of Soundscan. Elvin and Charlie are joined by guitar and piano master Bob Welsh (of Elvin's Big Fun Trio) for an infectious set of warm, funky, down-home blues. The relaxed, spontaneous nature of the recordings reveals a unique musical chemistry on nine originals and three well-chosen covers, as the two trade licks and vocals on one of the finest, most memorable recordings of either artist's career.

The Greatest Hits Volume III album includes hits from 1983 to 1997. Two previously unreleased studio tracks are included, "To Make You Feel My Love" and "Hey Girl", while the third new track, "Light as the Breeze", was originally recorded for a Leonard Cohen tribute album known as Tower of Song in 1995. All three tracks are newly recorded covers (a rare occurrence in his catalogue). Chronologically, Greatest Hits Volume III overlaps slightly with Volume II, as the first two tracks, "Keeping the Faith" and "An Innocent Man", first appeared on his album An Innocent Man.

This five-disc set, contained in a cardboard sleeve that bundles standard jewel cases, consists of Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes' four albums for Flying Dutchman – Astral Traveling (1973), Cosmic Funk (1974), Expansions (1974), and Visions of a New World (1975) – along with their first for RCA, Reflections of a Golden Dream (1976). Some of the albums were intermittently elusive, at least when it came to the CD format, throughout the years, so this was a convenient – and affordable – way to get them in one shot. However, it went out of print quickly after its 2009 release.

Sergiu Celibidache's penchant for meticulous orchestral balances and spacious tempi threatens to embalm Iberia's swaggering rhythms. On the other hand, the late conductor's patient, sumptuous detailing makes for one of the most riveting (and longest) versions of La Mer on disc. Every Debussy lover should try to hear it.

Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony have done Taneyev a superb service with these thoroughly prepared, expertly recorded performances. The music itself may be too firmly tied to academic apron-strings to be viable in the concert hall, and the composer’s verdict in not releasing them was surely the right one. But these are still need-to-know pieces for anyone interested in the Russian symphonic repertoire.

This recording presents Kaija Saariaho's works for choir, a cappella and with electronics, and displays her virtuosity in the treatment of texts, which she endows with the full range of verbal expression. At least one of these works is also a discographic premières. Nuits, adieux, presented here both in it's a cappella version and with electronics, could be described as a lullaby, not so much for a sleeping child as for an elderly person sleeping out of our world. Funny and very serious at the same time, Horloge, tais-toi was conceived for a children choir.

Thibaut Garcia pays tribute with El Bohemio to the Paraguayan guitar virtuoso and composer Agustín Barrios (1885-1944). As Garcia explains, “Barrios is an essential composer in the guitarist’s repertoire. His music can be described as a skilful mix of South American popular music – inspired by the jungles of Paraguay – and the Romanticism of Chopin and Schumann, composers he idolised.” El Bohemio duly complements 16 varied works by Barrios himself with three of his transcriptions of famous pieces by Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven. In addition, the album includes readings of two of Barrios’s poems: ‘Bohemio’, which lends the album its name, portrays the composer as a wandering troubadour; ‘Profesión de fé’ (Profession of faith) honours the Guarani, the indigenous people of Paraquay.