In 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival were one of the most popular bands in the world. Since releasing their debut album just two years prior, the group had been on a nonstop tear of writing hits and prolifically releasing new material, consistently landing in the upper reaches of the charts as the Woodstock generation came into being. By the time CCR embarked on their first European tour in April 1970, their last two albums had cracked the Top Ten in the U.S., they had multiple singles getting constant radio airplay, and the Beatles had just announced their breakup, making room for this hardworking group from El Cerrito to take their place as the biggest band in all of rock.

Originally this compilation was released in 1964 as "The Beatles Featuring Tony Sheridan - The Beatles' First." The title of this compilation has varied many times over the years but they are all based on the original 1964 Polydor release with the same track listing and running order. Most of the tracks feature vocals by Sheridan. The album includes all eight of the Beatles' first pro recordings made in '61 and '62 in Germany as Tony Sheridan's backing band plus four of Tony's tracks with the Beat Brothers!

The Music for Lovers series from EMI and Blue Note spotlights the balladic nature and romantic side of artists who have recorded for its associated labels. Nancy Wilson may not get her due as a jazz vocalist, but as a romantic balladeer she has few peers, with a voice that communicates romance and sensuality. The 12 selections come from her best albums, including 1961's The Swingin's Mutual! (with the George Shearing Quintet), Yesterday's Love Songs/Today's Blues from 1963, and But Beautiful from 1969.

Whether you view them as dynamic rock & roll rulers or overblown Radiohead knock-offs, it's hard to contend with Muse's strength as a live act. H.A.A.R.P. shows the band strutting its stuff in front of a sold-out audience at Wembley Stadium, with a set list that relies heavily on 2006's Black Holes and Revelations but still dips into the band's back catalog. The accompanying DVD gives a flashy, glitzy face to the music, and the refreshing lack of lightning-fast camera editing helps boost it above the band's previous CD/DVD combo, Hullabaloo Soundtrack. Still, the audio disc holds up quite well on its own, both for its crystal clear sound quality as well as the band's confident performance. Muse's intricate, electronics-laced material isn't the easiest thing to replicate in a live setting, but H.A.A.R.P. sounds as sharp as the band's studio albums, with Matthew Bellamy often adding different guitar flourishes…

"The Musician's Musician". "The Master of the Eclectic". There are probably a dozen more titles by which this "guitar player" is known. To even refer to him as a guitar player is probably a gross mislabeling of this musician. He defies any sort of categorization; this is his greatest strength and for some his weakness. The theme for these nine cuts is rhythm of all different ilk. I won't even give the parameters because he seems to have none. I wondered how many different instruments he played on this album (I thought I counted five different types of guitar); it only says guitar and vocal for his credits. Listen to his version of "All Shook Up," more bop and rhythm than Elvis could put into four of his songs. It seems musicians line up to play with him, and they feel he did them a favor by letting them play on his albums. He always gives them plenty of space to do what they do. This CD will make the dead start tapping their toes.

Pianist Gene Harris' 1992 quartet (with guitarist Ron Eschete, bassist Luther Hughes, and drummer Harold Jones) explores ten wide-ranging selections on this CD. But despite the very different chord changes, they are able to infuse the music with so much soul that the results are consistently bluesy. Among the tunes that Harris and his group explore are Horace Silver's "Strollin'", "Until the Real Thing Comes Along," "Jeannine", "You Make Me Feel So Young", and "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams". An excellent effort.

“For Mahler,” Sir Simon Rattle has said, "the symphony is where you can tell the most important truths.” The composer’s works have been crucial to his career – indeed, it was the epic Symphony No. 2 that first inspired him to become a musician. Spanning nearly two decades, these recordings of the complete symphonies, including Deryck Cooke’s completion of No. 10, were made with the two ensembles most closely identified with Rattle’s name: the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Think of Bowie channeling Sinatra, fronting Blood, Sweat & Tears (playing Chicago covers) and you might get an idea of what Kush sounded like! Fronted by the androgynous and enigmatic Jeff Duff and backed by a startlingly original progressive octet, Kush's 1974 debut album is one of the all-time classic Australian LP's (includes the singles 'Easy Street', 'McArthur Park' and 'Wait' - and the epic 'Christopher John'). One of the most requested titles in the Aztec Music reissue series, Kush Presents Snow White. And the Eight Straights has been digitally remastered from the original tapes and boasts 8 bonus tracks: including 3 amazing live in the studio Chicago covers, 4 non-LP sides and an hilarious 1973 interview with Jeff Duff. This deluxe reissue is packaged in a 6 panel digipak, with a 24 page book containing many rare photos and extensive liner notes by Ian McFarlane.

Sublime sonics from Detroit dub techno lord Rod Modell and Taka Noda aka Mystica tribe operating in a somewhat melancholy ambient mode. This is the forlorn sound of wandering rainy city streets at night, lights reflecting in puddles and shiny surfaces. There's an ever-present radiant luminescence punctured by environmental sounds, field recordings and ghostly brittle rhythms that emerge and retreat. If you dig Modell's Shorelights and Waveform Transmissions projects, then make some time for "Glow World". Pure bliss.

Neon Lights is Simple Minds' covers album. Frankly, these projects often serve little purpose beyond announcing that the artists concerned have run out of original ideas. With the Simple Minds' new album of freshly composed material, Our Secrets Are the Same, now shelved due to legal complications, the Minds have opted to doff their caps in the direction of the heroes of their youth, such as David Bowie, Lou Reed, and the Doors. This is the material the band performed when they were scrawny Glaswegian punks called Johnny & the Self-Abusers. The arrangements here are slightly dated techno-rock efforts, albeit without the expansive pomp and bluster of their stadium-straddling 1980s heyday. Even so, Neon Lights is probably too respectful. Many of these numbers–Echo & the Bunnymen's "Bring on the Dancing Horses," Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World"–are identikit presentations, while electro-rock assaults on Them's "Gloria" and the Doors "Hello I Love You" are monotonous and misguided. A very interesting revision of Pete Shelley's "Homosapien" and a faithful, powerful reading of the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties" are much better.

Emboldened by the popularity of Inner Mounting Flame among rock audiences, the first Mahavishnu Orchestra set out to further define and refine its blistering jazz-rock direction in its second – and, no thanks to internal feuding, last – studio album. Although it has much of the screaming rock energy and sometimes exaggerated competitive frenzy of its predecessor, Birds of Fire is audibly more varied in texture, even more tightly organized, and thankfully more musical in content.

Gilberto with Turrentine is an album by Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto and American saxophonist Stanley Turrentine featuring performances recorded in 1971 released on the CTI label.