Sterling Koch returns with a new album "Let It Slide," the follow up to his very successful 2011 release "Slide Ruler." "Let It Slide" includes 13 songs, 8 originals and 5 covers, of varying blues and blues/rock styles. The cover songs include songs by Elmore James, Doyle Bramhall (I and II) and Rick Vito (Fleetwood Mac) as well as the single "Mercury Blues" by K.C. Douglas. "Let It Slide" features Gene Babula on bass and John Goba on drums taking over for Tommy Shannon (Double Trouble) and Chet McCracken (Doobie Brothers) from the "Slide Ruler" album. Sterling only began to play the lap steel in 2004 as the result of a neck injury, a herniated disk. He had previously played the conventional 6 string guitar for 35 years. Sterling specializes in playing slide guitar blues on the lap steel guitar and is widely acclaimed as one of the foremost propnents of the lap steel guitar.

On Gary Hoey's American Made, the guitarist's talent is once again confirmed as he tackles everything from blues to prog rock to metal. He has the most success when he lets his guitar do his talking for him, not because his voice is unpleasant; on the contrary, Hoey can master multiple styles vocally, but his guitar playing trumps his other talents (especially on "Gonzo Guru") and really deserves center stage. Hoey gives an edge to the Tom Cochrane and Red Rider one-time minor progressive rock hit "Lunatic Fringe" and takes his solos to beautiful new levels on the instrumental tracks, "Tribal Mania" and "The Deep."

Born Marion Susan Maughan but dropping her first name, Susan's big hit was a cover of Bobby's girl. Originally an American hit for Marcie Blane, Susan took the song to the top three in the British charts. Neither singer had much success after that although as I explained in a review of a Marcie Blane compilation, Marcie really wasn't interested in a recording career, or indeed a singing career of any kind, and contented herself with a normal life away from the spotlight. As a contrast, Susan has built a singing career on the strength of Bobby's girl, performing on cruise liners, at seaside resorts and elsewhere on the cabaret circuit.

Viktor Lazlo (real name: Sonia Dronier) is a French-Belgian singer of Grenadian and Martiniquan descent. She studied in Belgium, where she is primarily known. Her biggest hit was "Breathless" in 1987. That year she also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 1987 held in Brussels. Dronier took her stage name from Paul Henreid's character Victor Laszlo in the 1942 film Casablanca. She sings in French, English, Spanish and German. Most of her albums were released in an English/international and a French version. Also, numerous compilation albums have been released.

Sic Vikki releases ‘The Early Years‘, an album that epitomizes the hair-metal, glam-band era full of sex appeal, and power pop tunes with great hooks…. Available now thru FnA Records! Take a little bit of Steve Plunkett (Autograph) and a little bit of Bill Aucoin (Kiss) and you get a recipe for a whole lotta Success!

Blues Section is considered a seminal and ground-breaking band in Finnish rock music. They started in 1967, formed around the vocalist Jim Pembroke, a British expatriate song-writer now living in Finland. The other members of the band were Eero Koivistoinen (saxophone), Ronnie Österberg (drums), Hasse Walli (guitar), and Måns Groundstroem (bass). Their influences came above all from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Jimi Hendrix, who had played a gig in Helsinki in May 1967. One can also hear in Pembroke's British-flavoured song-writing some echoes from The Beatles and The Kinks. Their debut album from '67 transcends R&B, beat & psychedelia… with awesome songwriting, and a trail-blazing amalgam of styles.

EU-only four CD set containing eight albums from the legendary crooner: Because of You, Cloud 7, Alone at Last with Tony Bennett, Tony, the Beat of My Heart, Long Ago Far Away, Strike Up the Band and Hometown My Town.

This recording, whose title is here embodied in an instrumental version by Georg Böhm of the renowned chorale Vater unser, brings together sacred works and Lutheran cantatas for the alto voice. The concertante role allotted to the instruments is particularly important in these works and contributes to their deeply expressive character; these works were heavily influenced by Italian styles of the period. All of the instrumental works are closely linked to sacred music, the majority of them being constructed around chorale melodies.

Calling all patriotic Canadians… Universal Music Canada will issue Canada 150: A Celebration of Music at the end of this month; a multi-format release issued on the eve of Canada’s sesquicentennial (yes, that’s a word – it means 150th anniversary), which includes a six-CD super deluxe edition that comes complete with a ‘coffee table’ book.

While the global pandemic has been a challenging time in-particular for artists around the world, it has afforded new opportunities for creativity. If art imitates life, then our Feature Album this week on ABC Jazz certainly lives up to that age-old philosophy. Stuck at home during lockdowns in the UK, saxophonist Trish Clowes turned her home into both a studio and a performance space. This afforded her the opportunity to collaborate with her band 'My Iris', giving her the space to flesh out a series of new tunes that were workshopped over a series of live streams and online jams. The result? Her new album A View With A Room. It's an intrepid recording, cut with bandmates Ross Stanley on keys, guitarist Chris Montague and drummer James Maddren.

Soulcrane was formed at the beginning of 2015 by trumpeter Matthias Schwengler. The Trio performs its own compositions and its musical direction is constantly being reshaped in response to new ideas. All three musicians bring their own influence to the band to create a collective and innovative sound, a blend of novelty and tradition. For their second album “Another Step We Take”, Soulcrane invites Matthew Halpin on saxophone. He greatly contributes to the intimate atmosphere created by the band and shifts seemingly from soulful balladesque to harmonically complex. The four Cologne-based musicians are working and composing together, preserving the warm and chamber music character of their work.

So consistent have Dark Tranquillity's albums been throughout the years, that it ironically takes an especially spectacular effort like 2010's We Are the Void to make one realize that the prior few - specifically 2005's Character and 2007's Fiction - had actually left something wanting. Yes, both of those releases boasted several standout songs, yet, as a whole, they retroactively seem somewhat unexciting as compared to We Are the Void‘s significant boosting of DT's alchemical interaction between death metal ferocity and melodic sensitivity. For as foreign as the notion of "hooks" may be to extreme metal's fundamental principles, the fact is that this latest long-player is just dripping with them - whether they take shape as contagious guitar lines, plaintive synthesizer figures, or even Mikael Stanne's fearsome death growl…

This Soundtrack not only has a fantastic duet of John and Olivia, titled "Take A Chance" but it also has what I think to be one of the best singles from Journey titled "Ask The Lonely". David Foster adds his talents as does Chicago.
This Soundtrack Rated #26 in the US Nov.'83,
The single- Twist Of Fate b/w Take a chance placed #5 in the US Nov.'83 as well as #57 in the UK Oct. '83.
Livin' In Desperate Times placed #31 in the US Feb.'84.
Shakin' You was not released as a single but is an awesome song and a great addition to the soundtrack as well as to Olivia's Love Song's. [ olivianewtonjohn.us ~ Chart Info ~ Biography ~ Discography ~ Singles and more.. ]
John and Olivia duet ranks up there with their 1978 duets. Perfect for the collectors. A Must have for ALL Olivia Newton-John fans!

A&M's 1977 collection The Best of Joan Baez doesn't chronicle her most influential work, but that doesn't mean it's not without merit. Far from it, actually. This is a concise recapping of her poppier recordings for A&M, which include such classic Baez moments as her original "Diamonds and Rust" and a definitive reading of Robbie Robertson's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The rest of the album splits the difference between covers (including Stevie Wonder's lovely "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" and Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate") and originals, providing an entertaining, enlightening encapsulation of her '70s recordings.