While Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the 1968 album that made Cash a household word, spent only two weeks at No. 1, this 1969 follow-up topped the charts for 20 weeks. As with Folsom, the San Quentin LP had to be edited due to space limitations. Now, 31 years after the fact, the show can at last be heard in true perspective. All the original performances hold up, including the album's hit single: Shel Silverstein's "A Boy Named Sue," presented unbleeped for the first time. Equally impressive are the eight restored tracks and unexpurgated between-song patter. Cash's opening renditions of "Big River" and "I Still Miss Someone" are bracing. So are four closing songs teaming Cash with his complete performing troupe (the Carter Family, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers). Their gospel performances ("He Turned the Water into Wine," "The Old Account," and an early version of "Daddy Sang Bass") are electrifying, as is a concluding medley featuring everyone. Cash is presented here at his roaring, primal best.

Guitar God Yngwie J. Malmsteen adds the title of "Guitar Maestro" to his resume in the magnificent "Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra". Filmed in 2001 with The New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Malmsteen melds his guitar prowess with some of the finest classical music composed in this concerto written by Yngwie.

Shimmering columns of light will guide you, a grand synesthesia riding on a kaleidoscope, oscillating between hushed moments, where sound unfolds the firmament, unfurled like a cloak upon the shoulders of the real world. Listen: this is not a “track”, a circular appendage looped around a spindle and activated by some muscular stone on stylus. Too many people bled for the diamond there, too many questions remain trapped in the groove. What to do then, besides move the listener beyond the traps of expected sonics and into a menagerie, away from the strange hook of the promise of shelf-space or the obsessive atonal drone of, in fact, obsession? Here it is: live on wax, as it were, a breathing, living thing, pulsating on its own, lifting into the ether to announce itself, to nestle into the crevices of your dusty IKEA storage units. Move this mysticism in!

In 1998, Columbia reissued a bunch of CDs by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, often adding one or two previously unissued selections to the sets. Buried Treasures: Recorded Live in Mexico City, however, is something different, for none of the music had been out before. Recorded live in 1967 during a tour of Mexico that also resulted in the album Bravo! Brubeck!, the set features the classic Brubeck Quartet (with altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello) performing seven selections they had previously recorded, which was probably why this particular music stayed in the vaults for decades. The quality is certainly quite high, with Brubeck and Desmond really digging into such songs as "Koto Song" (coming up with some inspired ideas over its vamp), "You Go to My Head," a lengthy "St. Louis Blues," and a fairly concise version of "Take Five," one of the few versions by Brubeck of the hit song that does not have a drum solo. Suffice to say, Dave Brubeck fans only need to be notified of two things: they do not already own this music, and the Quartet is heard throughout in prime form. Recommended.

Filmed against the stunning backdrop of Denmark's Ledreborg Castle in summer 2006, this spectacular concert combines the power and artisrty of Procol Harum performing live with the symphonic splendour of the Danish National Concert Orchetra and Choir. The show features songs spanning Procol Harum's four decades of music making, from A Whiter Shade of Pale to An Old English Dream, all given a new dimension by the combination of rock band and orchetra…

On August 21, 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd took the stage at Knebworth Park in England as part of a daylong festival. With Ronnie Van Zant on vocals and the Rossington/Collins/Gaines triple guitar attack, Lynyrd Skynyrd delivered an electric performance in front of a crowd estimated between 150,000 and 200,000, which has gone down as one of the band's greatest performances…

If you played in a hard rock band during the '70s, what were you likely to be doing circa 1978? Why, recording a live album, of course. Preferably a double vinyl set, and in Japan to boot. The Scorpions were no exception, and in fact, their Tokyo Tapes were captured only days after Cheap Trick's At Budokan in April 1978…

Pet Shop Boys announce the release on DVD and 2-CD of their “Discovery: Live in Rio 1994” concert, recorded towards the end of their 1994 tour of Singapore, Australia and Latin America.

Several 1970 Doors concerts were officially recorded for use on the Absolutely Live album, including both of the shows they gave in Boston on April 10 of that year. This three-CD set has the early and late sets from Boston in their entirety, adding up to about three hours of music, all but two of the tracks previously unreleased…

Most famous for his vocal and guitar work in the group Ten Years After, Alvin Lee had a long solo career after the band dispersed, still working in the hard rock, rockabilly, and British blues style that TYA did until his sudden death in Spain in the spring of 2013. This set captures his last live show, a concert held in Raalte, Holland, on May 28, 2012, with a crisp rhythm section of Pete Pritchard on bass and Richard Newman on drums. The show was recorded, and although it wasn't recorded to be an official release, Lee was pleased with the performance and authorized its release, not knowing, of course, that it would be his swan song.