The ersatz blues story of the film gives Ry Cooder leeway to turn in an impressive blues-derived soundtrack featuring Sonny Terry along with his usual collaborators Van Dyke Parks, Jim Keltner, Nathan East, and others. But it's Cooder's guitar playing that highlights the album.

Bobby Caldwell has been a favorite among fans of sophisticated R&B and contemporary jazz since 1978, the year the singer, songwriter, and guitarist hit the Top Ten of Billboard's Hot 100 and R&B charts with "What You Won't Do for Love." Originally from Manhattan and later raised in Miami, Caldwell was exposed to a wide variety of musical influences by his parents, hosts of the television variety show Suppertime. Only a few years after he started studying piano and guitar, he opted to enter the music industry, but it wasn't until the following decade that he signed to the T.K.-distributed Clouds label and broke through with What You Won't Do for Love, his first of several albums.

In 1986, Duane recorded with Art of Noise, a collaboration that brought a new twist to his 1960 best seller, "Peter Gunn." The song was a Top Ten hit around the world, ranking #1 on Rolling Stone Magazine's dance chart for six weeks that summer. As further confirmation of it's success, "Peter Gunn" won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental of 1986. The following year, a new album, the self-titled Duane Eddy, was released on Capitol. As a tribute to his influence and inspiration to so many young players, a crowd of unbelievable talent came along to be a part of this project. Tracks written by Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne, and Ry Cooder were recorded. The "band" included Cooder, McCartney, George Harrison, John Fogerty, James Burton, David Lindley, Steve Cropper, and original Rebels, Larry Knechtel and Jim Horn.

The Very Best of Chris Rea is the third compilation album by British singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in 2001. The last track "Saudade" was originally written and recorded in 1994 as a tribute to the formula 1 racing driver Ayrton Senna who died in a crash at Imola on 1 May that year. The word Saudade in Portuguese language roughly means the feeling, emotions and euphoria of a certain moment in time. It reached #69 position in UK album charts, and was certified Gold in 2004.

Where most trip-hop artists downplay melody as a matter of principle, Olive (keyboardist / trumpeter / producer Tim Kellett and vocalist Ruth-Ann) embraces it almost defiantly, maintaining the rhythmic interest of electronica and the generally dark undercurrents of trip-hop while simultaneously delivering tunes that are swooningly lovely without ever sounding quite commercial. The lead track on the band's Maverick debut is perhaps its best: "Love Affair" glides on an updraft of sampled strings and a subtly jungle-flavored breakbeat, while the sung melody (especially in the chorus, where the chord progression takes an unusual and delightful turn) climbs from peak to emotional peak. The rest of the program is almost as good, from the slow and funky "Trickle" and a tweaked and bleepy version of the 10cc classic "I'm Not in Love" to a slightly Latin-tinged kiss-off song titled "Creature of Comfort." (Several minutes after the end of the album's last track is a hidden song called "Take My Hand").

Long May You Run is not a Neil Young solo album. It is credited to "The Stills-Young Band," which is to say, Stephen Stills and his band with Young added, and the two divide up the songwriting and lead vocals, five for Young, four for Stills. The pairing, though it proved short-lived and had, in fact, ended before this album was released, must have seemed commercially logical. Like Young, Stills had seen his record sales decline after a successful period following the 1970 breakup of CSNY. So had erstwhile partners David Crosby and Graham Nash, but they had returned to Top Ten, gold-selling status in the fall of 1975 with their Wind on the Water duo album. Why couldn't Stills and Young do the same thing? Maybe they could have (and, actually, this was the first gold album for either in two years) if they had made a better record together…

You don't have to imagine any image of the mellow and full voices of Jazz divas. Just open your ears and enjoy it with ease. The four-dimensional floatation of electronic particles insinuates and creates the vivid appearances for the improvisation sound in modern times. Nu-Jazz Divas takes perfect interpretation of voices and extraordinary recording quality as main considerations and displays the absorption and remake of traditional Jazz in electronic generation. The two CDs contain the nuances between "Happy Hour" and "After Hour". The Cha Cha beats mixed with Funk, the inseparable House and Soul, even the blood linkage of Fusion and Urban, they all exquisitely express the variable characteristics of Jazz, which can be uplifting and exultant or soothing and enchanting. Artists include Alice Russell, Parov Stelar, Dephazz, P-Jay, Mo'Horizons, Nils Krogh, the Quantic Soul Orchestra and many others.

Geordie's second album, 1974's Don't Be Fooled by the Name, was a bit of a letdown after their debut, which merged the swagger of hard rock with the tuneful bombast of blue-collar glam acts typified by Slade. In some respects, Don't Be Fooled suggests Geordie were aiming for something a bit more mature and adventurous than they achieved on their debut, and they didn't entirely fail – they reveal a tough, bluesy side on their cover of "House of the Rising Sun," a number that suits Brian Johnson's industrial-strength pipes, and the "St. James Infirmary" lift in opening cut "Goin' Down" leans toward the same direction.

From the huge amount of bands participating in the rebirth of UK prog rock in early-80's, Abel Ganz can place themselves among the best ones. Formed in 1980 in Glascow, Scotland, under the forces of bassist Hugh Carter and keyboardist Hew Montgomery, they started playing live around Glascow, having Malky McNiven on guitars and Kenny Weir on drums. The growing fame brought singer Alan Reed on the band, a bit later to be found on Pallas line-up. The quintet recorded their debut ''Gratuitous flash'' in 1983, originally released on cassette in 1984. The 70's feeling ofGenesis blended with the new digital technology is the main characteristic of this album. Most of the compositions have an evident symphonic approach, not far from what IQ were creating around the same time. McNiven's style includes lots of Steve Hackett-inspired guitar hooks mixed with some intricate melodies in the typical British prog style of the 80's…