There are almost more Petula Clark collections than there were actual songs (that's saying something), and Sanctuary's three-disc Songs of My Life: The Essential Petula Clark is one of the better ones. Split into three themes, "Swinging Times," "Mellow Moods," and "Beautiful Sounds," Songs of My Life relies heavily on the English pop sensation's peak '60s and '70s output. All of the key radio hits are here ("Downtown," "I Know a Place," "My Love," "This Is My Song"), as well as countless ballads, uptempo pop gems, and choice covers. Fans looking for a decent career overview (sadly, none of Clark's vast arsenal of French hits are here) may find the 78 tracks that populate Songs of My Life a bit overwhelming, but they're well worth spending some quality time alone with.

Robert Cray adds a bit more soul to the mix on this album, which features the Memphis Horns most prominently. Most of the songs are Cray doing what Cray does best–slow, soulful, done-me-wrong (or, alternatively, I-done-wrong) songs chock full of great guitar. No complaints there, and when he adds a bit of vocal growl here and there, as on the album opener "The Forecast (Calls for Pain)" (also featuring some excellent bass from Richard Cousins), and the slow shuffle "Holdin' Court," it keeps things interesting. This album indicates a slight shift in Cray's direction; although he's always included a touch of soul in his blues, here it's more pronounced than before, a tendency he continued in subsequent recordings.

Volume Two (three CDs) in this series reissuing all the material found on the long out of print Ultimate Edition box sets (for more background on the series as a whole, see La Vie Electronique 1) is much more interesting than volume one, and the pick of the first six volumes. The music comes from 1972-1975 (but mostly 1972-1973), a rich period of experimentation, as Schulze was gradually forging what would be known as his "classic" sound, nearly palpable by "Blaue Stunde," the 38-minute piece from 1975 concluding the set. This second installment contains more finished works than the drafts-and-jams-packed volume one. "Das große Identifikationsspiel" (42 minutes) is a very good suite of rather experimental music written for a science fiction radio drama by Alfred Behrens. The 27-minute "Titanensee" was done with a ballet in mind, never to be produced; again, it is a strong work in Schulze's experimental vein. However, the undisputed highlight of volume two is a whole album's worth of collaborations with Hans-Jörg Stahlschmidt, a project that had been brought to completion, only to gather dust on a record company's shelves.

Verve's Great Songs/Great Performances series is yet another attempt in a seemingly never-ending stream of them to repackage – and hopefully resell – their vast catalog of jazz and blues. They're super cheap in both cost and presentation, but the music is almost always stellar. Jimmy Smith's Plays the Hits volume is no exception. These eight selection are covers of tunes by the Rolling Stones ("(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"), Fats Domino ("Blueberry Hill"), Don Covay ("Chain of Fools") James Brown ("Papa's Got a Brand New Bag"), Otis Redding ("Respect"), Al Green ("Let's Stay Together"), and others. It's a groove lover's cheap dream. Dana Smart's track selection here is terrific, and whether the producer is Creed Taylor, Esmond Edwards, or Eric Miller, whether it was a small-band jam or an orchestral session arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson, the result is the same – funky soul-jazz that was a couple steps away from the Blue Note hard bop and early soul-jazz sound, toward something Smith heard in rock and soul music and big-band charts of '60s pop tunes.

2009 collection of heart-warming tracks by the UK's finest Pop/Reggae outfit. UB40 Love Songs brings together 20 of their best loved tracks that showcases the bands softer more sophisticated side. Featuring the huge #1 singles 'I Got You Babe' and '(I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You', Love Songs also features many more UB40 favorites including 'Please Don't Make Me Cry', 'Homely Girl', 'Breakfast in Bed', 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight' and 'Don't Break My Heart'. Formed in Birmingham in 1978, and featuring the same line-up of 8 musicians from 1978-2008, UB40 have placed more than 50 singles on the UK charts, and achieved massive international success selling millions of albums around the world.

Gary Brooker wrote music and lyrics for all the songs on his second album and acted as his own producer, resulting in perhaps his most personal statement as an artist. Unlike No More Fear Of Flying, on which he sometimes just seemed to be the singer on his own record, here Brooker delivered his songs with feeling, enabling him to overcome the star power of his backup musicians, who included Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and Phil Collins. This was partly because Brooker no longer felt the need to separate himself from The Procol Harum sound that was so much a part of his natural musical identity. Brooker's lyrics weren't as philosophical as longtime writing partner Keith Reid's, but they could be just as intriguingly oblique.

Nine Objects of Desire is Suzanne Vega's fifth studio album, released September 10, 1996. It peaked at number 92 in the Billboard 200.

Colors of Love is a Grammy Award winning 1999 album of contemporary choral music by Chanticleer to a concept designed by Frank Albinder. The album won Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards. On COLORS OF LOVE the versatile 12-voice mail vocal ensemble Chanticleer - exclusive to Teldec - sings eight distinctive works by contemporary composers. Five of the compositions were written specifically for Chanticleer, notably John Tavener's "Village Wedding," a frequent encore and one of the group's favorite works. Prominent composers from both Eastern and Western traditions are represented, including Steven Stucky, Zhou Long, and the young America woman composer, Augusta Read Thomas.

Songs of Experience is the second studio album by American composer and producer David Axelrod, released in October 1969 by Capitol Records. It was composed, arranged, and produced by Axelrod, who worked with session musicians such as guitarist Al Casey, drummer Earl Palmer, and conductor Don Randi. As with his 1968 debut album Song of Innocence, Axelrod composed musical interpretations of English poet William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, an 18th-century illustrated collection of poems. A jazz fusion album, Songs of Experience explores darker sounds than its predecessor, as the poems Axelrod drew on for inspiration dealt with the darker side of humanity. Its music was partly inspired by composer Gunther Schuller's Third Stream concept. Axelrod composed Baroque orchestrations with rock, R&B, pop, and folk music elements. Songs of Experience received retrospective acclaim from music critics, who found Axelrod's compositions musically varied and innovative. Contemporary musicians praised it as a source for sampling in hip hop production. Some of its songs have been sampled frequently by hip hop artists and producers. In 2000, the album was reissued by EMI.

What these sound recordings attempt to do is to bring you face-to-face — or, perhaps more appropriately, sound to-heart — with actual works of the troubadours and, occasionally, of others in their circle of influence. The task is daunting for so many reasons: songs got written down decades, even centuries, after their dates of creation; only about ten percent of the original melodies survive; and most direct knowledge of how performers worked out their interpretations at the time has been lost. We know nothing whatsoever about the singing style, or about the techniques of instrumental accompaniment that may have been employed. These performances, therefore, of necessity, reflect a confluence of musicological and philological knowledge with performers' instincts and intuitions, as all of these tendencies interacted with each other at a specific moment in history, the late twentieth century.

Two CD compilation featuring the complete Capital Records recordings from this Bay Area band. Recorded between 1970-72, this set includes their three albums Joy Of Cooking, Closer To The Ground and Castles. Joy Of Cooking were formed in Berkeley (San Francisco Bay Area) during the hippie era (1967). Their fusion sound, incorporating folk, rock, jazz, gospel and blues, had little in common with acid-rock: it heralded a new era of "creativity" and of stylistic re-evalutation. One of the first bands led by female musicians, and one of the earliest to deal with feminist issues within popular music, the Joy Of Cooking were led by pianist Toni Brown (who had graduated in creative writing) and guitarist Terry Garthwaite (a folk-singer and an aspiring sociologist). The three-unit rhythm section, on the other hand, was entirely male.

Eric Clapton was already an acknowledged master of the electric guitar in January 1992 when he traded his signature Stratocaster for an acoustic Martin to record Unplugged. The live album captured the legendary guitarist, backed by a small band, performing acoustic versions of his own songs and several blues standards. Released later that same year, the album was an unqualified blockbuster, selling more than 19 million copies worldwide and earning six Grammy Awards, sweeping the top honors, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year. Reprise Records celebrates Clapton's electrifying acoustic performances with a new 2-CD/DVD collection that includes a remastered version of the original album along with six unreleased outtakes on two CDs. The DVD features a newly restored version of the concert, as well as more than an hour of previously unseen footage from the rehearsal.

This is a good collection of piano-accompanied vocals sporting bluesmen who worked the lumber camps and oil fields of rural Texas, as well as the red-light districts of cities like Galveston and Houston. Big Boy Knox shows a strong city influence in his decorative right-hand work, as does Robert Cooper, whose playing points to the influence of Fats Waller. Joe Pullem is on board with his hit, "Black Gal," which is perhaps overstated by three takes and a variation. The vocals are good, however, and the piano playing is uniformly excellent. Stylistically, this music falls somewhere between ragtime, blues, and vaudeville.

40 Great Original Hits By Original Artists: Vera Lynn, Fred Astaire, Gracie Fields, Harry Roy, Al Bowlly, Joe Loss, The Andrews Sisters, Jo Stafford, Noel Coward, Geraldo, and many more.

There could be no better introduction to the sound of the Boston Symphony, in the repertoire in which it became most famous, than this French collection with Charles Munch. Sometimes wild and unpredictable in concert performances, Munch's conducting here is both visceral yet elegant, full of mystery when called for and unbridled in its passion at other times. 1962 Recordings.