The songs on this album were recorded around 1964 to 1966 before Jimi headed off to London and blew into the scene.

Surprisingly, Warner Brothers never released a live Black Sabbath album in the U.S. during Ozzy Osbourne's years with the band. It wasn't until 1982's double-LP Live Evil (which featured Ronnie James Dio instead of the Oz) that Warner finally put out a live Sabbath album in the U.S. Released in England in 1980, Live at Last is a single LP that was recorded before Osbourne's departure but didn't come out until after he had left…

This is a 1980 album where a live album and a studio album were packaged as one double record set: Live In Concert (songs 1-9) and All Of Me (songs 10-18). The CD version omits two songs from Live In Concert, "Ladies Night" and "Girl Of Mine". The disc is not dated for the reissue but it's most likely sometime between 1986 and 1989.

Listen to the very first cut on Freefall and you'll understand the basic problem with the Alvin Lee Band: the track is a nice piece of mid-tempo rock, rather catchy, but is Alvin Lee in there anywhere? Repeated listenings reveal that he might be singing background vocals, and that guitar lead sounds like a slick studio player who listened to a few Ten Years After records one afternoon…

Klaatu gained international attention by remaining hidden for two albums, the first of which was rumoured to be a hidden Beatles reunion album. Their first album 3:47 EST indeed was superb enough to qualify as a Beatles album, with some very skilful songwriting, excellent production and splendid execution. One could fault their inspiration, since they are definitely Beatles-esque, but they manage this better than any other group ever had or has since this album. By the time their stunning follow-up album Hope was released, it was clear they were not the Beatles, but nevertheless the songwriting, execution and inspiration remained flawless…

7th Wonder were a soul-funk group from Alabama with a style similar to Earth Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang, a self-contained vocal and instrumental unit whose versatility yielded splendid funky dance tracks and melodic balladry of the Southern Soul genre. Having made their chart debut on Abet Records from Nashville in 1973 with their version of Kris Kristofferson's ballad For The Good Times, the group signed with Parachute in 1978 to score R&B hit singles with Words Don t Say Enough and My Love Ain't Never Been This Strong both featuring on the Words album, recorded mainly at the renowned Muscle Shoals Studio with their house musicians, then moved to the dedicated soul sister-label Chocolate City in 1980, where I Enjoy Ya and The Tilt both also reached the R&B top 50 and featured in their second album, Thunder, recorded at the Malaco Studio in Jackson, Mississippi.

"Amy Holland" is singer Amy Holland's self-titled debut album. The album was released on LP record in 1980, and was produced by Amy's future husband Michael McDonald. One of the songs on the album "How Do I Survive" (a song originally sung by The Paul Bliss Band) became a big hit and made it to the Top 30 chart. Amy Holland would often perform "How Do I Survive" live on music TV shows such as Music Fair (a Japanese music show) and Young Oh! Oh!. Those live performances of the song can be found on YouTube. Holland mostly recorded some song covers for this album, with one of them being Annette Hanshaw's 1928 jazz-standard Forgetting You The success of the song How Do I Survive helped Amy earn a Grammy Nomination for Best New Artist in 1981, but she did not win the award however. Some of the songs on the album have been written by Michael McDonald such as "Here In The Light" and "Show Me the Way Home". "How Do I Survive" was a hit peaking at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100. Three years later Amy would release another studio album called "On Your Every Word".

This album, originally released in 1980, perfectly captures both the searing electric and raw acoustic blues stylings of the legendary John Hammond. His close-to-the-bone vocals, masterful fingerstyle and slide guitar, and piercing harmonica keep the flame alive on this collection of blues roots classics by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Robert Johnson.

1980 album from Dionne, orginally released on Arista, features the title track hit and "We Never Said Goodbye". This album is now back in print re-released in tandem with Soul Music Records and Sony Legacy in an expanded edition with additional tracks.

"The Wanderer" is the 8th studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer. It was released on October 20, 1980. The inaugural release of the Geffen Records label, it became a Top 20 album in the United States, with the title track reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

One of the rarest French prog LP original insert at only 500 copies at that time. Arc is a forgotten French progressive rock band that released their only album Maquette in 1980. The music is an earnest attempt to recreate the dramatic French language prog music of Ange, Mona Lisa, or Synopsis with lots of vocals and keyboards. It is also similar to other such efforts like Elohim's.

Eric Delaunay was a French drummer/percussionist that very little is known about. He was an early member of a band called Asia Minor, but left the band before they recorded anything. Somehow, he was able to find a label that would market his very non-commercial music and released one album in 1980 called "Antagonisme!" with himself providing the drums, Paul Amar on bass, Philippe Bambuk on guitar and Jean-Marc Thiebaud on keyboards.
Unfortunately, after this album, the band basically disappeared and none of them was hear of again except for Eric Delaunay, who went on to form the mostly instrumental fusion band called Tiemko in the 1980's. When that band was disbanded in the mid-1990's, he joined another band named Deboco, but sadly, he died from an illness in 1996 before that band's album was finished, and he only appears on a couple of tracks…

"Aretha" is the 26th studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin. It was released on September 30, 1980, by Arista Records. This was the 2nd album with this title to be released by the artist, and her first for Arista Records after a 12-year tenure with Atlantic Records. Franklin's first Arista single release, "United Together", reached #3 on the Soul chart and crossed over to #56 on Billboard's Hot 100. The album itself peaked at #47 and spent 30 weeks on the Billboard album chart. The album's opening track, "Come to Me", appeared again on Franklin's 1989 album, "Through the Storm."

Nautilus was a Swiss Band, that combined the talents of Urs Lerch on bass, Dieter Ruf on guitars, Peter Fibich on drums, Ralph Stucki on keyboards, and Christian Bauer on guitars. Ruf, Stucki, and Bauer all contributed to the vocals. They only released two albums (1978's "20,000 Miles Under the Sea" and 1980's "Space Storm"), and not much is actually known about them.
Space Storm is abruptly performed and gravely recorded and the vocals are, well, rough. It's one of those records so late to the party (and without any wine) that no one cared.

This was the charismatic southpaw's debut album back in 1980, and remains his best to date. He rocks like Chuck Berry used to (but no longer can) on "I Wouldn't Lay My Guitar Down," and tears up the West Side-based "Bad Dream" and "Blues for a Living," imparts a hard-driving Chi-town shuffle to "Find You a Job" and "I'm Tore Up," and gives "Lazy Woman" a decidedly un-lazy Latin tempo. One of the best Chicago blues LPs of the 1980s.