The Spencer Davis Group were one of several excellent British R+B bands of the sixties. Best remembered in Britain for Keep on running (one of the best songs of the sixties, regardless of genre), by the time they started to make an impression in America, they were on the verge of losing their key man, Steve Winwood…

In 1987, John Hiatt, clean and sober and looking for an American record deal, was asked by an A&R man at a British label to name his dream band. After a little thought, Hiatt replied that if he had his druthers, he'd cut a record with Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums…

After satisfying all of their classical music kinks with keyboard player Jon Lord's overblown Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Deep Purple's soon to be classic Mark II version made its proper debut and established the sonic blueprint that would immortalize this lineup of the band on 1970's awesome In Rock…

The better-than-usual repertoire (including the calypso "Duke or Iron," "Dancing in the Dark" and the Warren & Dubin number "I'll String Along with You") makes this outing by Sonny Rollins's usual band (with trombonist Clifton Anderson,, keyboardist Mark Soskin, electric bassist Jerome Harris and drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith) one of the more interesting Rollins albums of recent times. Although not up to the level of his best live performances, this studio album is quite enjoyable and gives one a clear idea as to how Sonny Rollins sounded in the 1980s.

These recordings by Evgeny Mravinsky and his Leningrad Philharmonic, taped in the autumn of 1960 while they were on tour in London, are among the absolute classics of the catalog. They are readings of hair-raising intensity–the finale of the Fourth is marked allegro con fuoco, and if you want to know what con fuoco means, all you have to do is listen for a moment. No one else has ever had the nerve, or the ability, to play the music this way. The treatment is very Russian: the extremes are more extreme, the passions more feverish, the melancholy darker, the climaxes louder. In that department, the development section of the first movement of the Pathètique has to be heard to be believed.

Time Honoured Ghosts continued Barclay James Harvest's development away from the orchestral sweep of the earlier albums, although there's a little more filler than usual here. "In My Life" emphasizes BJH's penchant for ghostly descending vocal choruses and features an angular lead guitar part that would be recycled several years later in "Loving Is Easy."…

The group's first album for Polydor is several steps above their EMI work. Most of the psychedelic-era influences are softened here and broadened, and transmuted into something heavier and more serious, even as the Beatlesque harmonies remain intact…

For his second solo album, Mick Jagger teamed up with producer Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), turning in a more adventurous and ambitious record. Of course, "adventurous" and "ambitious" are relative terms. In comparison to the carefully constructed, state-of-the-art pop/rock of She's the Boss, Primitive Cool sounds lively, as Jagger puts some genuine conviction behind the funky "Peace for the Wicked" and the country stylings of "Party Doll." Nevertheless, the album, like She's the Boss before it, is designed to establish Mick Jagger as a solo star in his own right, and Primitive Cool is filled with attempts at contemporary rock and dance-pop…

Founded in 1957 by John McNally (guitar/vocals), the Searchers were originally one of thousands of skiffle groups formed in the wake of Lonnie Donegan's success with "Rock Island Line." …

Charles Mouton’s music is rarely heard on CD, this being the only recording devoted exclusively to him. Stylistically Mouton was heir to the well-established Parisian tradition of Francois Dufaut, Denis Gaultier, and his cousin Ennemond (all of whom Smith has featured in full-length CD programs for Astrée–all unfortunately deleted), where lute composition and performance first attempted to mirror or at least programmatically allude to extra-musical subject matter. Hence, selections here such as “La belle homicide”, “Le Dialogue des graces sur Iris”, “La Bizare”, and the brief self-portrait selection “Le Mouton; Canarie” imply that the composer not only wished to enchant the ear, but also invited listeners to muse over the sources of his inspiration. Whether or not these intended allusions are made, Mouton’s pieces here are always well-crafted, quintessentially elegant, and ceaselessly nostalgic–the anachronistic epitome of late-17th century French style.

Stereotomy is the ninth studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1985. Although sometimes considered better musically than its predecessor, Vulture Culture, it was not as successful commercially, perhaps due to many fewer vocals from Eric Woolfson (he only appears on a small section of the title track). The album is structured differently from earlier Project albums, containing three lengthy tracks - ""Stereotomy" at well over seven minutes, "Light of the World" at well over six minutes, and the instrumental "Where's the Walrus?" running just over seven and a half minutes (making it the longest instrumental the Project ever made) and two minute-long songs at the end.

Except for "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" which is in stereo, this is a great and inexpensive way to get the best of the early 63-66 Hollies in pure monoponic sound…