Best known for co-founding soft rock hitmakers Bread, singer/songwriter James Griffin also won an Academy Award for co-authoring 1970's smash "For All We Know".

This matchup between pianist Oscar Peterson, bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and drummer Louis Hayes directly precedes Peterson's recordings for Pablo. The pianist is in typically brilliant form on the LP, performing six standards (including "Soft Winds" and "On the Trail") along with his own "Wheatland." From the results here, it couldn't have been too surprising that Peterson would want to record frequently with Pedersen in future years.

Although this was Bob Welch's last album with the band he had worked with since 1971, it sounds like he's at his peak. Pared down to a foursome for the first and (as of 2002) only time since the addition of Danny Kirwan, both Welch and Christine McVie contribute some of their finest songs. Bolstered by sympathetic self-production and imaginative, often aggressive arrangements that include brassy horns on the title track (a blatant but failed attempt at a hit single), the album is one of their most cohesive yet diverse…

Aquelarre (meaning witches nocturnal meeting with the devil) was formed after the dissolution of the band Almendra in 1970, as its bass player Emilio del Güercio and drummer Rodolfo Garcia joined up with guitar player Héctor Stark and keyboard player Hugo González Neira joined up. They performed in B.A.Rock II festival 1971, and their first studio album "Aquelarre" was released in 1972. It's cover was drawn by the band's bass player, who became graphic designer later. Their music is sophisticated psychedelic rock with very impressionistic moments, artistic arrangements, surrealistic themes and they have a jazzy rhythm section…

The Doobies team up with the Memphis Horns for an even more Southern-flavored album than usual, although also a more uneven one. By this time, Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, and company had pretty well inherited the mantle and the core (and then some) of the audience left behind by Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty, with Johnston songs like "Pursuit on 53rd Street," "Down in the Track," and "Road Angel" recalling pieces like "Travelin' Band," while Simmons' "Black Water" (their first number one hit) evoked the softer side of the "swamp rock" popularized by CCR…

Supertramp came into their own on their third album, 1974's Crime of the Century, as their lineup gelled but, more importantly, so did their sound. The group still betrayed a heavy Pink Floyd influence, particularly in its expansive art rock arrangements graced by saxophones, but Supertramp isn't nearly as spooky as Floyd – they're snarky collegiate elitists, an art rock variation on Steely Dan or perhaps a less difficult 10cc, filled with cutting jokes and allusions, best heard on "Bloody Well Right."…

After the righteous anger and occasional despair of the socially motivated Innervisions, Stevie Wonder returned with a relationship record: Fulfillingness' First Finale. The cover pictures his life as an enormous wheel, part of which he's looking ahead to and part of which he's already completed (the latter with accompanying images of Little Stevie, JFK and MLK, the Motor Town Revue bus, a child with balloons, his familiar Taurus logo, and multiple Grammy awards)…

Golem is widely regarded to be a lost psychedelic masterpiece among the sorts of people who are interested in such things, numbering David Tibet, Steven Stapleton, and Julian Cope among its more outspoken champions. This German band was produced by Klaus Schulze. Their sole album Golem, was released in 1974. The music is somehow folk, but also cosmic rock inspired, reminiscent of Ash Ra Temple and Cosmic jokers, thanks to Schultze's influence who mixed it using "Artificial Head Stereo Sound", the aim was "to get an illusion of perfect surrounding space. The idea was brilliant but unfortunately not the sound." The album has indeed been pressed again three times, as the band was not satisfied with the result.

The press may have dubbed Barry White "the walrus of love," but he was certainly the guru of something for many star crossed lovers across his Love Unlimited Orchestra output. While White rocketed up the charts with his solo "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More" in 1973, it was that same year's smash single "Love's Theme" that shot Love Unlimited Orchestra right up alongside him. Mostly instrumental, all orchestral, and packed with "that" tchka tchka guitar and full-fledged disco sound well before the genre reached maturity, Rhapsody in White set the stage and showcased the sounds that would shortly inspire a generation of producers, arrangers, and performers to start a million mirror balls spinning the world over. This album, in all its admitted smarminess, is a triumph.

Chris Neal is an Australian composer and multi instrumentalist who has done most of his tune smithing far from the world of progressive rock. His focus has been on soundtracks for movies and television for much of his 40 plus years in the music business. What brings Chris Neal to the attention of the progressive rock community is the album "Winds Of Isis", an Australian rarity from 1974. In this work Neal offers up large doses of Mellotron vibes, plus gives us passages where he could be mistaken for Mike Oldfield or David Greenslade or Keith Emerson in the given moment as he takes on playing duties for almost all the instruments used. "Winds Of Isis" is largely a keyboard-driven work, though Neal proves he is a bona fide guitarist and drummer as well as someone prepared to put almost anything through the Mu-tron synthesiser.

Originally released in 1974, two years after the greatest comedy rock band in history discovered that, contrary to the title of their reunion album, they couldn't make up and be friendly, The History of the Bonzos has long been one of the most fondly remembered compilations of the age. Like the Beatles' red and blue collections, the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks, and the Who's Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, albums that so effortlessly absorbed the oeuvre that a discography seems incomplete without them, the two-album History of the Bonzos was conceived, designed, and universally lauded for delivering precisely what it promised, a seamless history and a priceless artifact…

French violinist Franck Pourcel is best-known for his jazzy string arrangements of pop hits, as well as his lush easy listening arrangements and film scores. Initially, Pourcel studied classical violin at the Paris Conservatoire, but he found the allure of jazz irresistible. In particular, he was an idol of Stephane Grappelli. Following his studies, he joined a number of jazz combos, which led him to his role as the leader of the French Fiddlers, whom he joined in the late '40s. The French Fiddlers were a group of violinists that performed jazzy versions of classical numbers or classical arrangements of pop and jazz tunes. They signed to Pathe-Marconi and continued to refine their sound so they could reach a broader audience. The group earned their first hit in 1952 with a version of "Blue Tango"…