"I'm Going Home" from Ten Years After's previous release put them on the charts, at least in the U.K. (the band's U.S. breakthrough was at Woodstock a year after its release), but the four-piece was already experimenting with ways to expand their basic boogie rock template. Stonedhenge was the result, as producer Mike Vernon helped steer the band into a more jazz- and blues-oriented direction. That's especially evident in the swinging "Woman Trouble," but this set is generally more prone to broadening the sound without losing TYA's basic concept. It doesn't always gel – the four short pieces that feature each musician alone on their instrument is an interesting idea that ends up as a distraction – yet the album boasts some terrific performances by a group that was hitting its peak. Canned Heat, who TYA supported in America and who were also trying to push their own boogie envelope, were a big influence, born out by the very Heat-sounding "Hear Me Calling." Alvin Lee keeps his fleet fingers in check, preferring to work his style into a more organic fusion.

A great album and the release that made Roberta Flack a major soul and R&B artist in the early '70s. She had a soft, compelling, alluring voice, and was able to convincingly switch gears and also convey anger, regret, hurt, or despair. Those who thought Flack was a one-hit wonder, or didn't think she could make the transition from doing mostly jazz to other styles, were convinced otherwise.

The appearance on disc of Antoine Dauvergne's opera-bouffon of 1753, Les Troqueurs is at once a happy occasion and a frustrating one. For while we can rejoice at the chance to make the acquaintance of this charming little intermede, it also serves to remind us that there are an awful lot of French comic operas from the second half of the eighteenth century that remain unheard. This is repertory that is both interesting and important to the history of opera in general, and Les Troqueurs is the work that stands at its head, for following as it did on the heels of the influential Paris performances of Pergolesi's La serva padrona it was the first real attempt at a wholly French comic opera in the same modern, dramatically light-footed mould.

Lynne Dawson proclaims her distinction as a Handel singer – if anyone doubted it – in the opening moments of this CD: Alcina’s aria, where her full, warm and intensely musical voice floats over the orchestra so appealingly. She has the grand manner necessary for this piece but also thedelicacy of nuance to make the music saymuch more than the mere notes indicate.

Throughout his life, the oboe played a key role in the music of Georg Friedrich Handel. For no other instrument did he compose such passionate, dramatic and virtuosic music. On this disc, the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle presents a selection of Handel's most beautiful works featuring the oboe. Xenia Löffler, member of the Akademe für Alte Musik Berlin, is the soloist. Vocal parts in the arias with oboe are sung by the young coloratura soprano Marie Friederike Schöder, a shooting star of the baroque music scene.

Following the success of Piledriver, Status Quo opted not to change a thing, unfurling the mind-numbing boogie attack of Hello! The strategy worked, resulting in the group's first number one album and in "Caroline," its first top-five single. Mostly, the album succeeds in spite of itself. "Roll Over Lay Down," not immediately impressive, builds into a tizzy over the course of five minutes. It is one-upped by "Caroline," the definitive Status Quo rock song, a not particularly hard or fast four-on-the-floor stomp saved by a massive, deceptively simple guitar hook. "Forty-Five Hundred Times," less catchy but harder rocking, is brutally long, but is rescued by its placement as the album's closer.

Bob Dylan returned from exile with John Wesley Harding, a quiet, country-tinged album that split dramatically from his previous three. A calm, reflective album, John Wesley Harding strips away all of the wilder tendencies of Dylan's rock albums – even the then-unreleased Basement Tapes he made the previous year – but it isn't a return to his folk roots. If anything, the album is his first serious foray into country, but only a handful of songs, such as "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," are straight country songs. Instead, John Wesley Harding is informed by the rustic sound of country, as well as many rural myths, with seemingly simple songs like "All Along the Watchtower," "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine," and "The Wicked Messenger" revealing several layers of meaning with repeated plays. Although the lyrics are somewhat enigmatic, the music is simple, direct, and melodic, providing a touchstone for the country-rock revolution that swept through rock in the late '60s.