Island's single-disc Sandy Denny compilation does its best to offer a compact overview of the iconic singer's work. Focusing on the four records completed before her death in 1978, the 17-track Listen Listen winds comfortably through career highlights like "The North Star Grassman and the Raven," "Blackwaterside," and the gorgeous title track. Fans will contest the omission of tracks like "Carnival" and "It Suits Me Well," but for such a slim collection – considering Denny's invaluable work with Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, and the Strawbs – Listen Listen is a fine introduction to the artist's later days.

Is a four-CD box set of Fairport Convention 1967-1974 BBC recordings excessive? After all, even the Beatles only got two CDs of Beeb tracks into official release. But it really isn't too much for fans of the band, for the quality of most of the stuff here is truly good, even if the very best of it was already issued on the Heyday compilation…

Universal will issue a seven-CD Fairport Convention box set in July that features ‘key album tracks’, non-album singles, radio sessions and previously unreleased live recordings from all of the classic line-ups. This collection celebrates Fairport’s first 10 years, beginning with their eponymous debut for Polydor in 1968, through all of their albums for Island Records and finishing with tracks from their two albums for Vertigo, The Bonny Bunch of Roses and Tippers Tales.

Highlights: Arthur Brown, the first "Shock Rocker" is outrageous . Dave Swarbrick of Fairport Convention is on fire tearing it up on violin. Earthy Melanie and Terry Reid are VG. Rare Traffic with Dave Mason was spirited…

Fame and Glory collects together all the tracks Fairport Convention recorded for Alan Simon’s rock operas Excalibur, Gaia and Anne de Bretagne. The band previously made this compilation available to its fans, but this mainstream release adds three tracks including a previously unreleased studio recording Goodbye My Friends.

Fairport Convention's only concept album was built around the story of John "Babbacombe" Lee, a convicted killer who survived three attempts to hang him. Cut by the four-man Fairport lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, and Dave Pegg, the original album was a self-contained work with a specific beginning and ending. It's also never been much more than cult item in the group's early catalog, despite some spirited playing on "Little Did I Think," "I Was Sixteen, Pt. 2," "St. Ninian's Isle/Trumpet Hornpipe," and "Sailor's Alphabet." The slipcased "Island Remasters" keeps the concept and the original album's content intact – with killer sound as expected, and each song now getting its own index number – and appends a pair of bonus tracks that justify the purchase. The first is "Farewell to a Poor Man's Son," a "lost" song by the group from the BBC program on John Lee that was the inspiration for the album, and "Breakfast in Mayfair," both from an earlier lineup of the band featuring Jerry Donahue.