Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble formed the most impressive blues act of the 1980s, which made Vaughan's death in a helicopter crash at the start of the '90s all the more tragic. He grew up in Dallas, the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan (cofounder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds). Stevie began playing in clubs at 12, and by 17 had dropped out of high school and moved to Austin. There followed years of struggling until April 23, 1982, when Vaughan and his group, Double Trouble, played a private audition for the Rolling Stones in New York. The gig led to an invitation to appear at the Montreux Jazz Festival, at which Vaughan was seen by David Bowie, who hired him to play guitar on his Let's Dance album, and Jackson Browne, who offered the free use of his recording studio. Vaughan took up that offer after being signed by legendary talent scout John Hammond to Epic, recording his debut album, Texas Flood, in the fall of 1982. ..

I think that purists will object to the very Slavonic approach to Brahms in these readings. I do not fall into this category and found them immensely enjoyable. The Borodin Trio and Rivka Golani convince one that they are authoritative players even if their bias is rather too much towards succulent sonorities and an overtly emotional use of tone. They do not fall into the trap of over-projecting the music and without denying their own temperaments are still able to offer a definite style of interpretation.

A Kind of Magic is the twelfth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 3 June 1986 by EMI Records in the UK and by Capitol Records in the US. It was their first studio album to be recorded digitally, and is based on the soundtrack to the film Highlander, the first in a series directed by Russell Mulcahy. A Kind of Magic was Queen's first album to be released since they had been acclaimed for their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. It was an immediate hit in the UK, going straight to number one and selling 100,000 copies in its first week. It remained in the UK charts for 63 weeks, selling about six million copies worldwide. The album spawned four hit singles: the album's title track "A Kind of Magic", "One Vision", "Friends Will Be Friends", and "Who Wants to Live Forever", which features an orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen, while the last track, "Princes of the Universe", is the theme song to Highlander.

Several years after the original art rock supergroup Colosseum disbanded, drummer Jon Hiseman formed Colosseum II, a more jazz fusion-oriented outfit featuring guitarist Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy) and keyboardist Don Airey. Their eclectic debut, Strange New Flesh, shows some impressive chops from all involved, with an emphasis on Moore's soulful guitar leads. Vocalist Mike Starr, while not an immensely engaging singer, does a nice job keeping up with Hiseman and bass player Neil Murray. Highlights include the technically showy but blissfully irreverent ode to Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moog," a nice version of Joni Mitchell's "Down to You," and the funky "Gemini and Leo."

This 1960 recording of the Great C Minor Mass is here released under the Deutsche Grammophon Originals umbrella, and is thoroughly deserving of the accolade. This is an account of the work which is completely uninfluenced by authentic practice–if you're already curling your lip, then please stop here–but which establishes its own terms of performance with such assurance that it's almost impossible to resist. The forces (both orchestral and choral) are large but by no means unwieldy, and directed with infectious and spirited enthusiasm by Fricsay. The effect is one of solidity and grandeur, but without any hint of pomposity: indeed, the jubilant choruses of the Gloria have an almost childlike glee about them.

Five years after the disappointing The Magazine, Rickie Lee Jones returned to form with Flying Cowboys, which shared much of the playful, childlike charm of her debut, Rickie Lee Jones, and some of the musically diffuse, lyrically ambitious form of its follow-up, Pirates. From the opening track, "The Horses," which suggested a mother's delight with her child as much as a lover's devotion, Jones reintroduced the joyous tone of her early work as well as establishing the Western theme that would run through the album - cowboys, rodeos, horses, deserts - without adding up to an actual storyline. The easy rhythms and lazy, flexible singing on the first few songs were reminiscent of Laura Nyro's work with Labelle on their Gonna Take a Miracle album, after which Jones branched out into reggae and folk-blues, coming up with an affectionate bluesman voice on "Ghost Train"…

After a three-year wait, this album was a bit of a disappointment. Musically, it is his best yet, but it lacked a certain energy that the others had. The songs seemed to replace vivacity with length. The album didn't do very well on the charts; the number 13 single (U.S.), "Everlasting Love," was the biggest hit. Ironically, the best song on this album, "Out of Thin Air," does not use a single synthesizer but instead is a solo piano piece performed by Jones himself. After all those years of electronic music, a song featuring a real instrument is a welcome relief.

With a career spanning over 40 years and over 30 million album sales, Chris Rea’s distinctive husky-gravel vocal and incredible body of work has seen him become one of the most loved solo artists the UK have ever produced. Each set of reissues comes with the original album fully remastered alongside a second disc of live performances, b-sides and previously unreleased versions of tracks from the accompanying album.

After being intermittently active during the mid-'80s, Ian Hunter returned full force to the world of rock & roll with this 1989 album. As usual, Mick Ronson plays an important role, making a substantial contribution to the songwriting and supplying an array of tasty guitar licks. The result is a strong outing that brings Hunter's classically styled rock up to date: the standout example of this is "American Music," a heartfelt tribute to the music that inspired "Hunter" as a child that combines power chords with a slickly harmonized chorus to create a punchy slice of pop-flavored rock & roll. YUI Orta is the slickest-sounding album in Hunter's catalog thanks to the efforts of Bernard Edwards, the producer best known for being half of the creative brain trust behind Chic and producing slick outings for the Power Station and Robert Palmer. This pairing might seem odd in concept but it results in an effective sound that rocks hard but offers enough ear candy elements to make the whole package listener friendly. For instance, Edwards adds a serpentine horn riff to "Cool" that cleverly enhances its soulfulness without taming the song's hard rock edge.

Phil Collins - Face Value (1981). Phil Collins' first solo album, 1981's Face Value, was a long time coming, but it proved worth the wait, both for the Genesis drummer/vocalist himself and fans of thoughtful, emotionally charged pop. He'd been wrestling with the idea of doing a solo record for years, finding great inspiration in the pain caused by an impending divorce and craving artistic independence after years of collaboration. Many of the songs ended up on Genesis' 1980 album Duke - and "Against All Odds" was pocketed for later use - but he kept enough to make an album that stands as a classic moment of '80s pop/rock. Collins produced the album himself and played keyboards and drums, calling in friends and the Earth, Wind & Fire horns to fill out the songs…

With a career that spans nearly 25 years, IQ remains one of the biggest names in the world of Progressive Rock. Getting their start in Southhampton England back in 1981, IQ was often compared to two other great Prog bands from the UK, Marillion and Genesis. For years the band struggled to create their own identity. And they did so by outlasting the glory days of Fish’s Marillion and Gabriel’s Genesis. Here again is IQ with their classic line-up of Peter Nicholls, Martin Orford, Mike Holmes, John Jowitt and Paul Cook. Originally released in 1989, Are You Sitting Comfortably? features Paul Menel on vocals, coalescing in Britain's foremost prog rock groups since the '80s. There is not a bad track on this album; lush soundscapes, thought provoking lyrics, brilliant musicianship, it's all here. Take a chance on this one, it is a classic and well worth investing in!