title: Pictures

text:
Pictures is a great album. I have the japanese import with 2 bonus tracks on it.
When you taught me how to dance & the closest thing to crazy acoustic for ten bucks.
What a steal!


title: Epic Fail

text: just because you have an overrated and overhyped album doesn't mean its deserve to be reissued. never seen an artist so desperate to keep her career intacted to make music look less irrelevant. Now can we just ban her off radio for good ?


title: Title Sums It All Up

text: the title of this song sums it all up. bye bye bye as in good riddance to n suck !<br />You will not be missed.


title: Worth owning this combo set.

text: Worth owning this combo set. Amazing job on the packaging.<br />You will not be disappointed.


title: The Bear Song

text:
I have this single. It has 4 remixes on it. Most of them are the same execpt the last one its 6 minutes long.
The cover for the bear song is very cool and only released in germany.

Here's the tracklist
1. Bear Dance - Jens Gad Psycho Radio Remix 3:13
2. Bear Dance - Jens Gad Radio Remix 3:13
3. Bear Dance - Jens Gad Video Remix 3:13
4. The Bear Trance Dance - Extended Psycho Remix 6:41
5. The Bear Song - Album Version 2:42


title: A True Classic

text:
2nd album from tiny tim should of been a smash hit!
It has hit songs on it from great balls of fire to as time goes by
The people couldn't wait for the follow up so they bought the unofficial release
Hugs and kisses : concert in faiyland live album instead.
Overall the 2nd album is a true classic just like the first one.


title: Hey Avril Its Not Rock N Roll

text: Nice try Avril but its not rock n roll. Sounds like a lame pop song.<br />Just as usual like your other songs. pure awful at best.


title: Vote Bean!

text:
Surprise ! Many people didn't know that this single acually excist !
This is a alice cooper cover.
performed by bruce dickinson & smear campaign feat. mr.bean
Go see the music video of I want to be elected on youtube.
There's also a spoken word track by mr.bean titled the manifesto
I have the cd version of the single not vinyl.


title: Leader Of The Gang

text:
Here's a lost recording from green jelly with hulk hogan.
A remake of gary glitter's leader of the gang.
The song is great , the remix is pretty good.
The b side Thing-A-Ma-Bob is an awesome track from green jelly.
Can't believe that track didn't make it on any of there albums
or released in the states.
Then the last song on this cd single Hulkomaniac.
This has to be the most chessy dull boring song ever recorded.
As for hogan's sake ? he can't sing in a bucket.
Never want to hear that song again !
3 out 4 songs on this cd is a must have.
As for the last track awful.


title: Beatallica !

text:
Excellent job on these tunes and a few originals fits right in with this ep as well.
I bought this on itunes couldn't beat the price. if you love all there albums from beatallica.
then this is a must have.


title: Let There Be Love

text:
Let there be love another great remake from Melanie C.
This one now added as a bonus track on the sea on itunes its so good.
The b side stronger also amazing. 5 stars.


title: Super What?

text: Never heard of Nicki Minaj until I heard this song.<br />Getting overplayed.


title: Imperfect Harmonies Best Buy Edition

text: Happy to get this edition at best buy. The live in london dvd is great.<br />Serj should of put the charade on this album but still worth getting. 4 stars


title: Teenage Nightmare

text:
I thought this song would just go away and stop hogging all the airplay.
This is not a dream its a nightmare. Completely bland and annoying.
She must be stopped !


title: Tiny Tim - Rock

text:
Here's An Underrated Album By Tiny Tim Released In 1993.
There Is Only 5 Tracks And Its A Very Long Album , 76 Mins !
The Tracklist Are  1. Highway To Hell  2. You Give Love A Bad Name  3. Rebel Yell
4. I Love Rock N' Roll (Medley) 5. Eve Of Destruction


title: Party On AWK !

text:
This is a great ep from Andrew W.K.
All the songs are great. Favs on this cd are
I sold my soul , Head bang , We're all women , Title track and
the Freddie Mercury cover I was born to love you , better than the original.
Its released only in japan , worth the price tag.


title: Get This Album You Need To Own This Gem!

text:
2008 is a great year for Chad Frey releasing his 3rd album.
Appeared on a mixtape , samplers and a split.
11 amazing tracks , Each one of these songs are like topics.
My favorites are Kill The TV , Audiorape , Survival , What's Left & The Wicked Witch
This is an album you need to own. Buy the cd or download it!

attachment_type: IMAGE


title: Ozzfest 2004

text:
This is the best Ozzfest sampler i ever put my hands on !
Every song on there is awesome !
The only problem with the sampler is the main stage acts
only Black Sabbath. Would be nice if they added
Judas Priest Slayer Dimmur Borgir & Black Label Society.
Get a copy of this if there's any left.


title: Part 2

text: If your sick of nothing good on the radio.<br />Give this a try. Greatly recorded and what can I say Next Big Thing ?


title: The Beginning Of Something Big


title: Nothing new here. Just a re-do and a defective disc 4 to boot!

text: Has the same as Green Flower Street plus a couple of other FM broadcasts released before. They fixed the 3 sec gaps on the Green Flower re-do, but this is missing the live "FM".  Disc 4 won't play all the way through, and I read of at least another buyer on Amazon.uk who had a bad disc 4 also.  I ended up getting a refund and keeping this CD set.  Seller in UK. Also these are on CD-R recordable CDs. No warning about that.


title: Fun aural presentation of a minstrel show passing through town

text: Recorded in Nov 1958, released in 1959, Bill Cullen of game show fame presents a minstrel show to behold. "Hey how 'bout that music, banjo music.. wild.. back in grandpappy's day" and so it goes. Fun to listen to! If you can find a copy in Stereo all the better. A very early stereo recording. They were having fun with the stereo effects. Also, for those that grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the '60s-early '70s, you will instantly recognize tune #2, "Didn't He Ramble" otherwise known by locals as the theme from Icky Twerp and Slam Bang Theater, which appeared on Channel 11.


title: One of the Finest Jazz Masterpieces

text:
This out of print vinyl record (Capital Records T1108) contains 12 jazz standards recorded with musical instruments of the 18th Century -hence the title of the work. Each musician plays both with virtuosity and creativity and every piece swings.  The slow pieces such as Invitation, have a haunting, fantastic magical atmosphere. Here are the songs in order:
Side 1:
01 Have You Met Miss Jones ?
02 I Didn't Know What Time It Was
03 Star Eyes
04 It Might as Well Be Spring
05 I've Told Ev'ry Little Star
06 Jeepers Creepers

Side 2:
07 My Heart Belongs to Daddy
08 Supposin'
09 Isn't it Romantic
10 Invitation
11 Sweet Georgia Brown

I first heard this record on FM radio (the first station in NY) back during the early 1960's and it haunted me ever since. I searched for it vainly for many years, until I finally found it on eBay around 2005.

The arrangements by Jack Marshal are just incredible and work absolutely beautifully with these 18th Century instruments. The Sextette consists of:

Jack Marshall on Guitar & Lute
Harry Klee on Flute, Bass Flute, and Recorder
Edgar Lustgarten on Cello
Milt Raskin on Harpsichord
Red Mitchell on Contrabass
Shelly Manne on Percussion

 Don't walk, run to your computer, search and find yourself a copy. This is, sadly, one of a kind.  There is no comparison, but if you like the Jacques Loussier Trio, or the Swingle Singers, then you will probably like this also and vice versa. Keep in mind that while the former is classical music in jazz style, these are jazz standards, played in jazz style with classical instruments. Good Luck !


title: BY FAR THE BEST FROM HERMANOS!!!!

text: this debut by LOS HERMANOS is by far their best album...got the mega hit ANNA JULIA and the sound of the band was a hardcore with some ska...after this they totally changed their sound to a more samba thing, and that really made me lose my interest on hermanos...


title: TITANOMAQUIA

text: Titanomaquia is the best album by Titãs. I like some previous albuns by them, but this one from 1993 is great. They really went heavy. I mean, this is a metal album with portuguese lyrics. There are classics here, like hereditário, Mary Poppins and Será que é disso que necessito. One of the best metals in portuguese of all time!


title: Want more of it

text: The Locket and The Choice.  Two CLASSIC 'Scape episodes.  Old Crichton in both of them. LOL  And a great part of why the episodes ARE so great is this CD.  I mean, the acting is great, the story is great, but without the music...it's sort of that John Williams epicness on TV.  Agree or disagree with me on that point, however, Guy Gross, and to a good extent Subvision, captured the feel of Farscape.  Personally, I feel Gross is the better of the two.  Subvision did a wonderful job for the types of episodes in season one, but I don't think they got great til Gross came along.  He was able to capture a little more of the "feel" of the show, much in the same way John Williams did with movies such as the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.  Both composers understand the genre they are writing for and the relative scale of the individual medium (movie vs TV).  Any rate, can't go wrong with this CD.  Enjoy the music from two classic episodes of a classic show.


title: Love it

text: This is great for one reason: Revenging Angel.  Eat Me, while a good episode, isn't the best soundtrack I don't think.  It's a little too repetitive for me.  Not that it's bad, it's just my opinion.  Revenging Angel on the other hand is in the grand tradition of the Roadrunner cartoons.  Being a fan of the wonderful Bugs, Roadrunner, et al cartoons, I love this.  This CD is very definitely worth picking up, even if you only get it for Revenging Angel.


title: A cross of Julie London and Sade . . .

text: Souza’s jazz vocals are a cross of Julie London with Sade, a sultry, Latin-lounge lick at the earlobes.  Her main claim to fame has been smoldering covers of songs by artists normally light-years away from this genre, e.g., Culture Club, R.E.M., Kim Carnes, U2, Duran Duran, etc.  I was never sure how successful such long reaches would be, given the small subset of music fans adventurous or curious enough to inhabit both the lounge-jazz and pop-rock camps.  Wouldn’t “Creep” with a jazz fluffing lose the interest of both Radiohead and Diana Krall fans?  On Language of Love, Souza plays things a bit safer, serving up songs by George Benson, Dan Fogelberg, Tom Petty, and Leonard Cohen, along with several originals.  Some tracks even sport brassy arrangements that approach Michael Bublé territory.  Granted, the same breathy nuances are still there, but they sound less forced.  Highlights are the gypsy vibe of the title track, the sassy flair of “Someone Brought Me Wine,” the breezy bossa and cosmo string accents in “This Masquerade,” and the wine-by-the-fireplace medley of “Autumn Leaves” with “Dance Me to the End of Love.”  Throughout, Souza’s song-whisperer warmth envelops your ears like heated earmuffs.


title: Pleasant but unassuming . . .

text: Perhaps best known for his seminal albums The Yearning and The Dreamer, built on the moody mystery of Tim Wheater’s alto flute and Hoppé’s ethereal synthesizer pads, composer / keyboardist Michael Hoppé is an unabashed romantic.  He is also prolific.  Amistad, his 30th album, is themed on friendship; on 11 of the 14 tracks, Hoppé’s piano and keyboards spotlight his friends’ craftwork on violin, harmonica, or guitar, respectively.  To a one, the instrumentals echo any of the pristine Windham Hill wind-chime works heard in nearly every quaint New Hope shoppe-with-a-“pe.”  The tender, guitar-headed tracks, “El Jardin” and “Embers,” warrant repeats, but in the end, Amistad is a pleasant but unassuming collection that may leave you yearning for another Wheater dream collaboration.


title: A testament to legacy . . .

text: Actor Peter Stormare (Fargo), assembling and releasing this tribute, filled a promise made to his mother, who gave him a copy of  Lady Sings the Blues, Billie Holiday’s autobiography, to help him as he mourned the death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970. The list of session musicians herein is a who’s-who of current jazz circles, including Dave Koz, Gerald Albright, Nathan East, Rick Braun, Vinnie Colaiuta, and Abe Laboriel, Jr.  The list of guest vocalists is stunning, and even sometimes surprising.  Patti Austin melts “Body and Soul.”  Esperanza Spalding blends a bittersweet bossa for “I’ll Look Around.”  Boz Scaggs tints “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me” with old-school blues.  Rickie Lee Jones is suitably sassy in “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”  Erin Boheme fingersnaps a flirty “Them There Eyes.”  And Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds’ “Strange Fruit” is a harrowing haunt that mesmerizes, while simultaneously celebrating Billie Holiday’s courage to release her original graphic recording back in 1939.  Tying everything together as a single listening experience, Angela Bassett tags many of the songs with touching, first-person narratives of Billie’s heartbreaks and artistry.  The set closes with Brownstone’s searing, soulful “God Bless the Child.”  Lady Day lived and sang the blues; this tribute testifies her legacy.


title: Gonna be big . . .!

text: While you’re cooling your heels, waiting for the next Corinne Bailey Rae album, this newcomer’s sampler will have you at the first song.  Springs sprung “Love Got in the Way” on Jay Leno; her firecracker singing and Little-Feat-inspired Rhodes comps are a funky retro blast.  “West Coast” and “Meet Me in the Sky” are equally as cool and compelling, the latter track evoking an early Dianne Reeves.  However, Springs is not all retro soul.  On the closer, “Forbidden Fruit,” Springs takes on a Billie Holiday aura and draws you deep into the folds of temptation and redemption.  It’s irresistible.  To this ep, add Springs’ cover of Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me,” currently active on Youtube (a clip that caught Prince’s attention), and there’s no doubt that Springs’ full-length debut, slated for later this year, is going to be a monster.  Don’t miss this.


title: ... suffused with a summer-in-a-hammock atmosphere ...

text: Recently "birthed" via kickstarter.com, Carter's Both Sides ... is an instrumental trio set whose guitar work recalls the simple, economical lines of pickers as varied as Tony Mottola, George Benson, or Jacob Young.  Per the album title, Carter covers a cross-section of seven Brazilian tunes (e.g., Jobim's "Mojave," Milton Nascimento's "Porta de Areia"), four American standards (e.g., Frank Loesser's "I've Never Been in Love Before," Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debby"), plus two originals.  Every track is suffused with a summer-in-a-hammock atmosphere, an easygoing backpat.  Bassist David Finck and percussionist Ze Maruicio provide a solid foil, playing just enough to show they have nothing to prove.  Likewise, Carter's command of his instrument is impressive, in a Bill Evans kind of way, i.e., if two notes convey the feeling, toss the other twenty-two.


title: Weathered ruminations . . .

text: And we call him a musician, a raconteur, a character, an independent rascal, and a tireless promoter, as Russ even guested at my own CD release party a few years back.  Finally, we have a hardcopy available of many of the songs with which Russ Edwards has entertained and regaled us over the past number of years.  We Call Them Cowboys is a testament to the laconic, quiet loners who carry a story in every cracked callus, every sun-driven crows-foot, every stored trinket from romances and friendships that took unexpected turns, both good and bad.  Edwards' band of South Jersey locals brings just the right amount of acoustic sawdust to his weathered ruminations.  "Third Stool from the Payphone" is typical of the tales Edwards spins, as a marital, post-fight, barroom sulk includes delusions of forgiveness by the narrator.  "Look Who Wants It Now" captures the bittersweet moment of triumph on proving who's right, long after the love is gone.  But no "Hey, Big Mister?"  I guess, just like in real life, you can't have it all.


title: Hialeah Florida- 1962 What a time it was!

text: u wanna get down Hialeah style like they did in '62? BUY THIS


title: kook y ol style metal like we luv it

text: I do not know if this is primal scream, the brits who did Screamadelica or what? Sounds like ol skool slayer meets painliller era judas priest. Kool cover too


title: epic slice of salsa funk

text: Sounds great 2 these ears. Found my copy in a stash of vinyl I found that someone threw out w their trash. 1 mans trash is anotha manz trea-sha tho.


title: nice mix

text: Really interesting compilation. This is an import released by a u.k label, castle. It has some interesting deep cuts mixed in ther w. The typical jefferson starship hits (Jane, Runaway, Find your way Back etc). What makes this a worthwhile inclusion in your collecion is the deep cuts on here, such as the 3 songs takien from the first album released under the Jefferson Starship moniker, Blows Against The Empire ( those tracks are XM, Starship, & Have You Seen the Stars ?


title: wsick ass sampler of live dead nugs

text:
This gets played a lot in the car by me. LOVE IT

P


title: who needs Robbie anyway, Kneegrowz?..?

text: Love this muzik, Kneegrowz! Especially disc 2 (especially Java Blues!) I rank this up there with Rock of Ages


title: 81 set doesnt dissappoint!

text: A true testament to the underrated, but iconic nevertheless, Brent Mydland led lineup of The Grateful Dead


title: The original 99 problems

text: Hi KneeGrowz...anyone rememba dis track from 1993's Home Invasion album?? 99 Problems- the same track Jay Z ripped off and released as his own years later. It's sad that his most well known track is actually one he stole from Ice T...Also features Brother Marquis from South Florida's own Two Live Crew...I just have 1 question for "Hovah", If New York East Coast rappers are such badasses (or if he's marketing himself as such a badass) How come your most famous song was ripped off from a Miami rapper?? Hmm...


title: some cool old stuff

text: Hawaian slack key guitar on here is very cool, old timey stuff...


title: '74 dead is always good 4 tha soul!

text: This is a fine show from early '74. i have copies of the original soundboards and Dave Lemieux did a fine job remastering and restoring the original recordings. The Dead had some of their finest moments at the Winterland Arena, so don't miss out on this fine show!


title: They give good Dead

text: i just got it in the mail a couple of days ago. Disc 1 is great 1st set stuff like Cold Rain & Snow, Jack A Roe, Brown Eyed Women, Mexicali, & one of my faves, Big Railroad Blues. The 2nd disc has a very cool Rhythmn Devils/Space segment, Deep Elem, and Woman Smarter are highlights. oh yeah, great Terrapin Station too and what is for my money, one of the best live Shakedown Streets (i can only think of one better, from the Dick's Pick that's from Nov '79 in Oakland). Third disc has a killer version of Other One, although it is a bit shorter than us Dead lovers are accustomed to. I have always kinda had a low expectation for these early to mid eighties shows since those are the years that led up to Garcia's health issue that almost killed him in '85 but, surprisingly, this recording is proof positive that there are plenty of strong shows that were performed during this era.


title: already diggin it...

text: I listened to Disc 3 on the way 2 work. Playin is a revelation!. Some of the best live Dead ever recorded!. Uncle John's Band is excellent as well. There's also a beautiful Wharf Rat on Disc 3 and Not Fade Away has some tasty piano fills by Keith G. Disc1 has one of the best Black Throated Wind's that i've heard & nice versions of all yer 1st set faves from '72 (ie Sugaree, Jackstraw). Disc two has plenty of gems like Brokedown Palace, a great version of The Other One is on here. D2 opens with a fierce version of Around & Around. This show is as strong as any given show from the European Tour from that year.


title: Hear it is...

text:
Ginger Baker at His Best was part of a set of double albums of the individual and collective output of the three members of Cream, released in 1972. The Cream album was entitled Heavy Cream, and featured illustrations of Eric Clapton, Baker and Jack Bruce. The three albums devoted each member had their individual illustration, each album entitles At His Best. Baker's is drawn from Ginger Baker's Air Force, Ginger Baker's Air Force 2 and Blind Faith. Between Baker's and Clapton's At His Best albums the whole of the original Blind Faith album is covered in these best of albums.

Track listing[edit]

Side one[edit]
 1."Let Me Ride" (Roebuck Staples) - 4:22 From Ginger Baker's Air Force 2 (1970)

2."Had to Cry Today" (Steve Winwood) - 8:43 From Blind Faith (1969).

3."I Don't Want to Go On Without You" (Bert Berns, Jerry Wexler) - 3:56 From Ginger Baker's Air Force 2 (1970).

Side two[edit]
 4."Do What You Like" (Ginger Baker) - 15:21 From Blind Faith (1969).

Side three[edit]
 5."Da Da Man" (Harold McNair) - 7:12 From Ginger Baker's Air Force (1970).

6."Sweet Wine" (Ginger Baker, Janet Godfrey) - 3:34 From Ginger Baker's Air Force 2 (1970)

7."Well All Right" (Norman Petty, Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin) - 4:28 From Blind Faith (1969).

Side four[edit]
 8."Can't Find My Way Home" (Steve Winwood) - 3:13 From Blind Faith (1969).

9."Aiko Biaye" (Remi Kabaka, Teddy Osei) - 12:58 From Ginger Baker's Air Force (1970).


title: If some one tells ya they're from Hialeah and they don't know bout dis joint and they lived in late seventies early eighties...

text: THEY Lyin then! Classic a$$ album wit El Negro & Divertido. Takes me back to alot of em backyard parties in West Hialeah (also in East Hialeah) Dale' que tu puede!


title: sick azz FM concert

text:
Live recording @Record Plant Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)Sep 19, 1974
Bob Welch was an incredible vocalist and guitarist and gelled well with the three Brits in the band @ the time (Mcvie, Mcvie, and Fleetwood). Great instrumental jams and killer songs. Way better than hearing Don't Stop, Dreams, Rhiannon, and Go Your Own Way for the millionth time. Note: i have noticed some releases of this recording have only first six tracks. I have an mp3 of the entire recording. If you find the recording in it's entirety, it's well worth it especially for the performance of the old Peter Green era blues number, I Loved Another Woman. Bob Welch's voice sounds a lot to me like Peter Green's voice and also I dug the song Bermuda Triangle. So if u dug the original version of the band, U should check out the Bob Welch lineup cos they kicked a$$.

1Introduction / Coming Home04:06
2Sentimental Lady03:13
3Future Games06:10
4Bermuda Triangle09:14
5The Green Manalishi04:52
6Why03:33
7Homeward Bound04:31
8Angel05:45
9I Loved Another Woman09:36
10Spare Me A Little Of Your Love04:04
11Oh Well03:10
13Spare Me A Little Of Your Love (OT)


title: Besides Exile- This is the most sick ass Stones record from the Seventies

text: I think this is better than Sticky Fingers and at least as good as Exile On Mainstreet. I am reviewing this edition cos I don't own the deluxe (yet). Faraway Eyes is hilarious. Check their smokin cover of the Tempts' Just My Imagination Runnin Away With Me-it's better than the original version by the Temptations. When the Whip Comes Down is classic as is Shattered and Beast Of Burden and I also dig the title track, Some Girls.


title: nice ass show from '80

text: excellent collection. love the version of Cassidy on here (possibly my favorite) good Drums/Rhythm Devils/Space segment. Ramblin Rose, Big River, Me and My Uncle. U will dig it the most :-)


title: Righteous Dead

text: Lately, i've been diggin a lot of 1970 Grateful Dead. What's there not to like? The setlist has a lot of tunes The Dead rarely played.


title: this was a killer birthday present...to myself

text: Got this one because i've wanted it for awhile. Although I'll be honest wit ya: I got this because da new dave's pick at fox theatre had sold out. The Dead never dissappoint my friends! One more thing, guys, Get this if u can on Dead.net. It's $34 out tha door (includes shipping) Dont pay fifty something dollars to these price gougers out there!


title: Another solid effort, courtesy of Mojo magazine!

text:
This was given away as a free cd by UK magazine Mojo. Bob Dylan has some killer taste in music!

SONNY TERRY & BROWNIE McGHEE You'd Better Mind (2:07)
JULIA LEE Mama Don't Allow It (2:53)
LIGHTIN' HOPKINS Baby Please Don't Go (2:48)
MUDDY WATERS Rollin' Stone (3:05)
KAREN DALTON How Did The Feeling Feel To You (2:50)
RICHIE HAVENS High Flying Bird (3:33)
JOSH WHITE Good Morning Blues (4:24)
HANK WILLIAMS Lost Highway (2:40)
THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN House Of The Rising Sun (3:22)
CISCO HOUSTON Dark As A Dungeon (2:50)
CHARLIE POOLE White House Blues (3:26)
THE STAPLE SINGERS Uncloudy Day (2:57)
THE HIGHWAY Q.C.'s Working On The Building (2:23)
BIG BILL BROONZY When The Sun Goes Down/Going Down This Road Feeling Bad (7:24)
THELONIOUS MONK Ruby, My Dear (7:44)


title: dis wuz da sick-azz electro Be 4 the Ultra bullsh..

text: I laugh when people tell me stuff like DJ Tiesto is great. Tiesto sucks!! Try trackin dis compilation down, kiddies, if u wanna know what real dance music is: C4 & Bnice, Dj Sharpe, Dj R fresh -True-ass South Florida breakbeat/electro legends.


title: '78 is pretty great

text: The key thing to remember about listening and appreciating GD live is that you will not always "get it" on the first listen. I have been playing this for a few days now (received it about a week ago) and it's great. Especially disc two: Scarlett/Fire and one of the best post-Pig Good Lovins out there. First set cd (disc 1) is good but the vocals are a little low in the mix. Disc 3 has a killer Drums/Space on it and a cool encore, Warren Zevon's Werewolves Of London (the beginning sounds a little like a St Stephen teaser). If you have this show from '78 and are digging it, check out the free downloadable audience recordings of GD on Archive.org. There are a lot of good audience recordings for that year and also for 1980.


title: this is one sick-ass collection-U must get this bad boy!

text: I am really digging these shows from late '69 and early '70! love their "two drummer lineup with Pigpen on vocals! check out the Hard To Handle from the Fox theatre show(Btw, the other Hard To Handle from Dec 26 sounds great as well. Great interplay between Jerry and TC on this earlier version of HTH). Also, this is a great pick if u r a TC fan. TC is all over this! Especially interesting to hear them play Workingman's Dead Material and songs like Me & My Uncle with TC on the keys. There's a really nice China Cat/I Know You Rider on the late December set. China/Rider was already sounding more like the versions that would be played in subsequent years and less like the studio track on Aoxomoxoa. The Saint Stephen on here is killer! The bonus cd starts with a slow cookin blues jam, Howlin Wolf's ol blues chestnut, Smokestack Lightnin, sung wit extreme grittiness by our boy, Pigpen Mckiernan. Another great China Cat Sunflower is part of the bonus disc. also, the Good Lovin, Drums,Other One jam is stellar. And a solid Dire Wolf also graces the bonus disc. Btw, don't b down bout the inclusion of 2 Dark Stars and 2 Turn On Your Lovelights, they're both worth every cent u invested in this diamond of a pick-easily one of the most listened to Dave's Pick that I own!


title: here's da track listing for dis UNHEARD FALL '76 SOUNDBOARD

text:
From Dead.net:
We're dipping into that Golden Decade of the '70s one mo' time as we unveil Dave's Picks Volume 4: College of William & Mary, 9/24/76. That's right, rabid collectors -- you read that date correctly. We have located the uncirculated soundboard master reels of this highly regarded show and are pleased as (psychedelic) punch to send it your way for your listening and dancing pleasure!

The Grateful Dead had played a pair of fine shows at William & Mary three years earlier (9/11-12/73), and obviously dug the vibe enough to warrant a return during one of their "comeback" tours following their hiatus. The concert at William & Mary Hall was the second show of the Dead's brief fall East and Midwest swing, and it stands as one of the strongest outings from this period -- its best moments up to the level of the following 9/25 and 9/28 shows that made up the superb Dick's Picks Vol. 20 (released in 2001) and the October 9 and 10 Oakland Stadium shows that became Dick's Picks Vol. 33 (2004).

As always, the original tapes have been lovingly mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman, and the beautifully designed package includes a colorful booklet with photos and a historical essay -- in this case by the esteemed curator of the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz, Nicholas Meriwether.

As most of you know by now, subscriptions aside, we have only a few thousand copies of the 3-CD Dave's Picks Volume 4 for sale individually. Dave's Picks Volume 4 ships November 1st, but you can pre-order it now. Jump on it pronto or you might just forever be filled with that awful feeling of regret...

Disc 1

1 Promised Land [4:41]
2 Deal [5:07]
3 Cassidy [4:34]
4 Sugaree [10:25]
5 Looks Like Rain [7:53]
6 Row Jimmy [9:48]
7 Big River [5:33]
8 Tennessee Jed [8:55]
Disc 2

1 Playing In The Band> [11:53]
2 Supplication> [4:55]
3 Playing In The Band [4:43]
4 Might As Well [7:36]
5 Samson and Delilah [7:02]
6 Loser [8:06]
7 New Minglewood Blues [4:30]
Disc 3

1 Help On The Way> [5:06]
2 Slipknot!> [5:07]
3 Drums> [5:36]
4 Slipknot!> [5:28]
5 Franklin's Tower> [8:12]
6 The Music Never Stopped> [5:49]
7 Stella Blue [7:35]
8 Around and Around [6:54]
9 U.S. Blues [5:56]


title: the one star rater on here is a fool

text:
Disc 1

01. Groovin' - The Young Rascals
02. Leaving on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul & Mary
03. Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts
04. Crystal Blue Persuasion - Tommy James and the Shondells
05. Sunshine - Jonathan Edwards
06. I Got You Babe - Sonny & Cher
07. How Can I Be Sure - The Young Rascals
08. Hello It's Me - Todd Rundgren
09. I Started a Joke - Bee Gees
10. Daydream Believer - The Monkees
11. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? - Chicago
12. The City of New Orleans - Arlo Guthrie
13. Listen to the Music - The Doobie Brothers
14. Tired of Waiting for You - The Kinks
15. Never Ending Song of Love - Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
16. Both Sides Now - Judy Collins
17. Lucky Man - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Disc 2

01. The Beat Goes On - Sonny & Cher
02. A Beautiful Morning - The Rascals
03. Blowin' in the Wind - Peter, Paul & Mary
04. Crimson and Clover - Tommy James and the Shondells
05. Ride Captain Ride - Blues Image
06. Blinded by the Light - Manfred Mann's Earth Band
07. Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum
08. You're So Vain - Carly Simon
09. You Really Got Me - The Kinks
10. In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly
11. Long Train Runnin' - The Doobie Brothers
12. Beginnings - Chicago
13. People Got to Be Free - The Rascals
14. Wild Thing - The Troggs
15. Alice's Rock & Roll Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie
16. Me and You and a Dog Named Boo - Lobo
17. Amazing Grace - Judy Collins

HERE R DA SONGZ! U B DA JUDGE OF WHETHER IT SUX OR NOT! DA SONG SELECTION LOOKS GOOD 2 ME!


title: lovin dis joint from '73!

text: The segue from Playin to Uncle Johns Band to Morning Dew and back to Playin is epic! great version of Here Comes Sunshine as well on here. Dave's Picks have yet to dissappoint me!


title: Primo GD concert recorded in Hollywood Florida in '69

text: Back in '69, Da uptight "gringos" runnin all types of performance halls in South Florida tried to ban "undesirable elements"  (ie hippies) by refusing to book "hippy" bands, such as the Dead. Remember, earlier that year, Jim Morrison of the Doors was arrested for allegedly doing bad things onstage at the Doors' disasterous gig at Dinner Key Auditorium. Luckily, the local Seminole Indian tribe were cool cats and they had a cool azz concert featuring awesome bands like the Dead, the Youngbloods, and Johnny Winter. The sound quality is awesome quality. '69 Dead rules!!


title: Dis is a slice o' cheez I can handle!

text:
On the surface, 1981's Rock N Roll Again by Beach Boys frontman Mike Love and Jan & Dean vocalist Dean Torrence, with special guest appearances from The Association, The Rip Chords, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, and produced by Curt Boettcher, is all all out cheeze-fest. A lot of Casio-like early eighties keyboard arrangements. This album's full of really cheesy covers, and it's kind of awesome. This album was an exclusive release for Radioshack.

Tracklist:
1. Lightning Strikes
2. Walk Away Renee (with The Association)
3. The Letter
4. Locomotion
5. Sealed With A Kiss (with The Ripchords)
6. Sugar Shack
7. 96 Tears (with Paul Revere and The Raiders)
8. Baby Talk
9. Wild Thing
10. Da Doo Ron Ron
11. Her Boyfriend's Back


title: I have to concur wit saint steven on this one...

text: Cannot think of what to add that hasn't been said. A five star show. 1972 was one of the finest years for live Dead stuff. The Morning Dew on dis is a monster! There's also a supa bad-azz, supa spacey Dark Star. Another favorite moment is Pigpen's Two Souls In Communion, heck, there's alot of good Pigpen moments on here: Chinatown Shuffle, Mister Charlie, Next Time You See Me, he especially kills it on Good Lovin! There's a monster Big Railroad Blues as well. a great Playin In The Band, that's when they really started expanding dis joint into the improvisational vehicle it evolved to. Get this!


title: Review for the bonus disc! to be continued...

text:
I have only heard only the bonus disc. It hasn't left my CD player. nuff said??

BONUS MATERIAL (from 10/21/71)
Truckin'
Big Railroad Blues--killer version of BRB on this set!
The Frozen Logger
Dark Star >
Sitting on Top of the World > This is an especially badazz version. love this
Dark Star > awesome
Me and Bobby McGee
Brown Eyed Women _ Good version. One of my favorite GD tunes from that era
St. Stephen > YES! nice version
Johnny B. Goode


title: pretty nice '74 set. bonus disc is just ok

text: Good solid '74 set although I think I like the '74 installment of Road Trips a little better though. There's a cool version of Bertha on here that doesn't sound like the way it was played in prior years (Isn't that usually the case with GD? They were always changing arrangements and changing the game. period.)I really like the version of Row Jimmy on here. Keith Godchaux's keyboards sounds particularly good on this release (the Dead's rotating cast of keyboardists all brought some great elements into the mix during their respective tenures.) There's a great version of Other One on the bonus disc which imo is that disc's highlight)Prior to its official release, this recording was a much sought after tape per The Deadhead's Taping Compendium, In-Depth Guide to the Music of the Grateful Dead on Tape. I am partial to the Dead's sixties and seventies recordings versus the eighties and nineties. Jerry's voice and guitar just sound so much better.


title: This kicks serious good ol GD butt!

text:
Prices on here are astronomical for these discs! Some of these sellers on Amazon and Ebay selling it for over $100 must by smoking crack or something But, do yourself a favor look for it anyway. Don't let these price gouging sellers dictate whether or not u indulge in this music (or find a generous deadhead out there in the world wide web that has it and will give it to you for free) It will be so worth it. Special thanxx 2 kool-azz Ramrod, the GD's roadie who stashed these seminal tapes till his death in '06.
Disc One Live @Yale Bowl, New Haven, Connecticut, July 31, 1971:
1."Big Railroad Blues" (Noah Lewis) - 4:46
2."Hard to Handle" (Otis Redding, Al Bell, Allen Jones) - 7:54
3."Me and Bobby McGee" (Kris Kristofferson, Fred Foster) - 6:22
4."Dark Star" (Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Bob Weir, Robert Hunter) - 22:48
5."Bird Song" (Garcia, Hunter) - 7:59
6."Not Fade Away" (Buddy Holly, Norman Petty) - 4:44
7."Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) - 9:24
8."Not Fade Away" (Holly, Petty) - 3:13
9."Uncle John's Band" (Garia, Hunter) - 6:39
10."Johnny B. Goode" (Chuck Berry) - 3:52
Disc Two Live @Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, August 23, 1971:
1."China Cat Sunflower" (Garcia, Hunter) - 5:09
2."I Know You Rider" (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) - 6:02
3."Truckin'" (Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter) - 8:51
4."Sugaree" (Garcia, Hunter) - 7:11
5."Cryptical Envelopment" (Garcia) - 2:02
6."Drums" (Kreutzmann) - 4:26
7."The Other One" (Weir, Kreutzmann) - 13:00
8."Me and My Uncle" (John Phillips) - 3:04
9."The Other One" (Weir, Kreutzmann) - 7:32
10."Cryptical Envelopment" (Garcia) - 5:14
11."Wharf Rat" (Garcia, Hunter) - 8:53
12."Sugar Magnolia" (Weir, Hunter) - 5:46

Bonus Disc for Road Trips Volume 1 Number 3'Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, California, August 6, 1971:
1."Bertha (Garcia, Hunter) - 7:04
2."Mr. Charlie" (McKernan, Hunter) - 3:57
3."Cumberland Blues" (Garcia, Lesh, Hunter) - 5:50
4."Brokedown Palace" (Garcia, Hunter) - 5:39
5."Hard To Handle" (Redding, Bell, Jones) - 8:20
Yale Bowl, New Haven, Connecticut, July 31, 1971:
6."Sing Me Back Home" (Merle Haggard) - 9:33
7."Big Boss Man" (Luther Dixon, Al Smith) - 6:26
Terminal Island Correctional Facility, Santa Ana, California, August 4, 1971:
8."Not Fade Away" (Holly, Petty) - 5:37
9."Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) - 8:39
10."Turn On Your Lovelight" (Joseph Scott, Deadric Malone) - 14:35


title: cool stuff...but you are not gonna hear it all the time

text: The Beatles - The Lost Pepperland Reel CD of Alternates ,Demos , Home Demos , Studio Experiments 1- All You Need Is Love 2- Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds 3- Good Morning Animal Noises 4- Intro To Sgt Pepper 5- Billy Shears Applause 6- Yellow Submarine 7- It's All Too Much 8- All Together Now 9- Only A Northern Song Rarities 10- Hey Bulldog 11- Mellotron Music No 4 12- Penny Lane Overdub Session 13- Good Morning, Good Morning 14- Breakdown 15- She Can Talk To Me 1 16- She Can Talk To Me 2 17- Across The Universe 18- You Know My Name 19- Chi Chis 20- Mellotron Music No 5


title: not bad for being a freebie

text: has Rumble by Link Wray alongside Scorpio by Dennis Coffey, plus a bunch of cool 60s garage mixed with country blues by John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf. How can you go wrong??


title: excellent

text: Yknow there's always those cases when dodgy semi official Russian releases outshine the widely availiable official release equivalent. 'Rolled Gold' was a double lp retrospective of the Rolling Stones best songs from '63-'70. to my knowledge, a cd edition has never been release, at least not in the u.s. the gravy is the 'bonus' tracks/rarities. highly recommended. whaddaya waitin for? comb ebay for dis & go get 'stoned', not literally, well. ya know what i mean...


title: epic milestone in the genre of acoustic blues

text: no, i don't hear this album alot but it's definitely unique and special. i spin it sparingly, saving it for just the right moments (ie a long drive etc). johnson had both a good singing voice and great blues guitar playing. there's a darn good reason for referring to him as "the king of the delta blues singers" he really was.


title: it would b nice if sum wun listed da traxx!!

text:
1 George Jones - White Lightning
2 Webb Pierce - There Stands the Glass
3 Hank Williams - Your Cheatin' Heart
4 Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel
5 The Everly Brothers - Bye Bye Love
6 Don Gibson - Oh Lonesome Me
7 Stonewall Jackson - Waterloo
8 Ray Price - Heartaches by the Number
9 Kitty Wells - It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
10 Marty Robbins - A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)
11 Patti Page - Tennessee Waltz
12 Eddy Arnold - Cattle Call
13 Ferlin Husky - Gone
14 Jim Reeves - Four Walls
15 Hank Locklin - Send Me the Pillow You Dream On


title: still the definitive Lennon collection as i as i'm concerned...

text: doesn't get any better than this three cd compilation of John's music from 1970-1980. i think the track exclusions only amount to about three tracks and truthfully i don't miss em! and of course, you just get john's tracks from all albums released as john and yoko (i have to admit while i'm not a huge Yoko fan, some of her tracks aren't all that bad~Check out a song by her called Open Your Box~far-out stuff!)


title: cool early stuff by joel...but...

text: trax 1-8 are cool but the rest, trax 9-14 should've been released as a separate album called 'ear diareahha'. trax 9-14 don't even sound like they were made w/ joel


title: Awesome Album

text: This is an awesome album from start to finish. I highly recommend you check this album out. If you like it, support the artists and buy the album.


title: Excellent Album

text: This is an awesome album from start to finish. I highly recommend you check this album out.


title: Awesome Album

text: This album is awesome from start to finish. I highly recommend you check this album out.


title: This Is A Badass EP

text: This is a badass EP. I highly recommend listening to this EP. Buy it, listen to it, and enjoy it.


title: It's An Alright Album

text: This CD is alright too listen to every now and then. Nothing too spectacular. The best song on this album is "The Chosen One".


title: Atlantic Favourites II

text: Having owned the original "Atlantic Favourites", I acquired this album and wasn't disappointed. While the original contained many songs native to the Atlantic Canadian Provences, this issue contains many Northeast folk songs and a few not associated with Canada; "Waltzing Matilda" and "American Pie" (full version), to name a couple . If you enjoy toe-tapping music with  a Celtic flavor, McGinty comes through with a well-rounded band and good vocals. Although not so well known in the US, the group has several albums to their name, sadly, most of which are not available at present. Hopefully, these will be re-issued so folks can enjoy their music.


title: Hyper violent French cop series

text: No English subtitles, only Dutch. Picture quality is excellent. Fast paced French language. The action speaks for itself if you can figure out some of the speech. Not for the faint hearted.


title: A KEEPER!

text: I have listened to it at least once a month since it came to me!


title: AWESOME

text: I LOVE this CD! I play it over and over in my car!


title: Wonderful Gospel Group

text: I have looked all over one particular song by the Art Reynolds Singers and that is Long Dusty Road. This song is a part of my childhood. Louise Williams would play this song on WDAS AM 1480 in Philadelphia. I truly wish someone would put this album on cd so we can get a chance to enjoy this wonderful gospel group, who at the time of their recording were considered contemporary, again.


title: Great cd single

text: This cd single is great has original version of word up, along with the remix which is mind blowing.  A major must have for any and all korn fans.


title: Asia is always good

text: Why'd I buy it?  Today's music, that says it all.  For all of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s.  Watch the Big Interwiew with Dan Rather; he's interviewing the real music makers of the 60s, 70s, 80s and a few 90s too.  So many of them are still going but sadly we've lost so many as well.  Get the good stuff while you still can at a decent price.


title: Five Stars

text: Real Good Christian Blues


title: Five Stars

text: Get this. It has Jesus Rides The Subway" it will break your heart.


title: Five Stars

text: I collected all of these now I can play music for days and never hear the same song twice!


title: Big Fun In Little China

text: John Carpenter's Best Soundtrack and worth the money I paid.


title: Neat

text: Neat project


title: Five Stars

text: Love it!


title: Great!

text: Love it!


title: Pink Floyd Dealing With The Quiet Desperation Of The English Way

text:
Pink Floyd are a band who, for many years, existed for me more as a conceptual folk tale than a group of actual musicians. Through my fathers music magazines and T-Shirts of their album covers? They are by far the most romanticized rock group I've seen this side of the Beatles. Having heard bits and pieces of their music prior to 2012, finally picked this album up preowned at a local second hand place. Realized it was considered their classic. And that my father had the vinyl when I was little. But its take multiple listens, and growing in other ways musically with it on different levels since that time, its now clear why this 1973 recording is so important to rock and pop history.

"Speak To Me" starts out the album with the fade in of a ticking clock loop and moves into the slow, loping "Breathe"-focusing on the the loping rhythm and David Gilmour's multi layered, heavily revered guitars. "On The Run" is a heavily arpeggiated number built around swiftly shuffling drums and the Oberheim VCS3 synthesizer used on the majority of the tracks here. "Time" begins with that clock loop again-only going into a mixture of Gilmour's low, cinematic guitar before going into a harder lope of a groove/vocal based melody. "The Great Gig In The Sky" takes the most ethereal approach to that sound-with Clare Torrey providing this beautifully gospel drenched, wordless soulful wail of a vocal lead.

"Money" ups the tempo-beginning with rhythmic loops of money being taken in and out of a cash register. The song itself is an electric piano led bluesy rock shuffle-featuring solos from both Gilmour on guitar and Dick Parry's sax. "Us And Them" is a dreamy sax and piano led rock ballad that has a very grand melodic chorus. "Any Color You Like" starts out as a thickly grooving, again heavily reverbed rocker with heavy use of the synth again. And then it turns into an utterly epic orchestration by its end-going right from there into the gospel backup vocals of singers like Doris Troy. "Brain Damage" is again another slower number here-lyrically referencing the album title. Not to mention Richard Wright's organ swirls on it before "Eclipse" ends the album similarly to how it all begun.

Having heard this album now both on vinyl and CD? Its clear how much this album relies on format of one sort or another. The musical format is 9 mostly cinematic numbers that are not always particularly heavy rock. And, especially as originally released, it was two suites of separate but segued songs. But rely more on a melodically psychedelic atmosphere. This is the Pink Floyd sound as I've come to understand it since. And this album is a great example of it. Its conceptual format is one that I know realize relates to the difficult aspects of British culture itself. Especially how it relates to Pink Floyd's continual journey into life without its founding member Syd Barrett. So on many levels, this album proved to be a significant new beginning for Pink Floyd. And remains their signature album to this day.


title: Prince Takes a Journey Through The Future Soul Sound Of Minneapolis

text:
On his previous release [[ASIN:B0030W1LBC Mplsound]] Prince was making it abundantly clear that he was reaching towards his classic one-man-band Minneapolis sound as a means of progressing into the future. This is actually a move he made on a number of occasions when his music and career seemed in question. Well right now his career isn't in that state at all. He's musically revered by many in this generation and was recently given a tribute on the BET Music Awards this past year. Prince himself also seems to obsessed with some strange form of eternal youth in which his music doesn't age but his lyrical themes mature.

You will not find any explicit lyrics on this album for sure,same as you won't find them on any of his albums since 2001. That doesn't mean that effects the music at all because these are the most energized,lively,funky and musically sophisticated songs Prince has done in the new millennium. The album opens and ends on the same basic musical note with "Compassion" and "Everybody Loves Me" embracing the shuffling LINN drum led rockabilly styled funk with lyrics that alternately speak of both selflessness and selfishness. "Beginning Endlessly",the amazing "Sticky Like Glue" and "Lavaux" all embrace the classic Prince all encompassing funk groove with some delicious synthesizer squiggles and layored drum and percussion tracks.

He hasn't lost his touch as a multi instrumentalist in the least bit and actually has expanded on it to include light rhythmic nods to both hip-hop/R&B and contemporary 80's dance revival (itself based on his own original music) without shamelessly surrendering to either style and still being himself. Songs like "Future Love Song","Walk In The Sand" and "Sea Of Everything" also embrace Prince's touch with the slow jam to it's absolute best effect. Typical of Prince he makes you flip through 75 separate 2-4 second empty tracks before we get to cut 77,which is the title song offered as a very hidden bonus selection. This is very much a TAFKAP era sounding funk/rap styled number but still his one-man-band style is very much in attendence. After all these years Prince obviously has no intent on being a fossil. He wants to keep being himself and now that he's in his 50's he also refuses to musically look down on those younger than them and also embraces many of their ideas into his own.


title: Part Of The Lesser Explored Legacy Of Ray Charles

text:
Looking back from a time remembering Ray Charles being very much alive and active? It really fascinates me not just how prolific the man was in his prime,but also how much he innovated in terms of being an album artist. Following the formation of his own Tangerine Records? He released a long series of album length sets of standards-many of them following a loose conceptual thread. Being the great storyteller that he was? He had the creative energy to make unrelated songs seemed like they always belong together when putting them together in this way. And that even goes for album such as this without any obvious connective elements to them.

  The majority of this album consists slow ballads that are heavily orchestrated with strings and horns. The songs that stand out musically in this setting are the big band uptempo romp of "You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Wanna Do It" and "Gee Baby,Ain't I Good To You"-a slow swinging piano blues/soul number. There's also the shuffling country soul of "Here I Go Again". Vocally what gets me most about this album is on songs like "Love Walked In",Ray sang in a breathy high falsetto voice. It's something he does quite a lot here,and a vocal style I seldom heard him sustain as much as he does on this album. It's the genius at his most vulnerable sounding. The fact there's still a strength behind it says numbers for his creative sensibilities.


title: Jermaine Takes You To The Dance Floor!

text:
Very recently,I congratulated my friend Henrique for a blog he did based on a constant conversation he and I have had about music. And it applies to this is well. Having come into my preteen years during the last half of the 80's? Both he and myself noticed that the dance music of that time began to tie period technology very well back into the fabric of heavy funkiness. I am very happy that I was able to experience the late Jermaine Stewart's major hit period as it was happening. Still only knew him wrongly as a one hit wonder. Having recently heard about this album? I located the used CD of this for under $5 earlier this year. And tonight decided to give it a listen.

  "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" is the song that introduced me to this artist. And it's a great opener with it's well crafted melody,chugging rhythm guitar and singing horn accents. "Dance Floor" is built around several brittle bass synth accents and deep,sexual backup vocals while "Jody" has an extremely chunky,metallic rhythm and bluesy melody-some of the hardest funk I've heard from this era outside Minneapolis while "Versitile" and the title song both take the same musical idea and smooths it out just a bit more. "Out To Punish" is again based in JB style rhythm guitars while "Moonlight Carnival" adds a Afro Caribbean flavor to a fast electro/funk dance number. "Don't Ever Leave Me" and the closer "Give Your Love To Me" are both jazzy,soulful ballads.

  A lot of people I know tend to look at this particular of dance music as being based more on "12 inch singles and extended club play. Yet listening to this? It's an wonderful album. Of course it's full on danceable-thematically reviving the sensitive masculinity somewhere between Thom Bell and Prince. With a help from Jermaine's own songwriting and the always able production of Narada Michael Walden? This album finds it's sense of rhythm through heavy funk-full of phat bottoms and often very fiery electronic elements. If one is looking for a superb example of how vital stomping funkiness was to 80's freestyle dance music? This is an excellent place to find that hybrid in great form!


title: Peter Frampton Get's His Feet Back On The Ground

text:
It would seem the late 70's weren't as kind to Peter Frampton as his mid decade mega success. I always understood his appearance in Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band as being "what killed his career"-which tended to be a stereotypical rock snob attitude,frankly. I wouldn't know. But am also aware here that he had a major car accident at that time as well. So Frampton decided to end his golden decade on a note that would represent something of a musical game changer in his career.

  "I Can't Stand No More",the title song and "She Don't Reply" are sleek,riff heavy rockers similar to what he'd done before. "Get My Feet Back Off The Ground" is a rhythmically chunky funk-pop groove driven along by the Tower Of Power horn section. Two Isaac Hayes/David Porter songs are presented here too with the bluesy shuffle of "Everything I Need" and the Stonsey rock 'n soul flavor of "You Don't Know What It's Like". "May I Baby" has a stomping jazz rock flavor about it's slow crawling groove.

  This extends into the mid tempo,electric piano driven funky soul of "We've Just Begun"-while the album ends with the singer/songwriter acoustic guitar driven "Take Me By The Hand" and the mid-tempo soul pop of "It's A Sad Affair". Frampton could've very easily have gone for a flat out soul album in the Boz Scaggs/Kenny Loggins mode for this album. The production is very strong and so is the instrumentation. Yet the general attitude adds a strong minded dose of rock 'n roll loudness to the sleek funky soul. So that makes this an excellent funk/rock/soul merging that probably is still not as appreciated as it should be.


title: Rhythmically & Lyrically Improvisational Hip-Hop Game Changer

text:
If someone were to ask me what main factors defined my musical interests during my late childhood into adolescence? It would be enormous gaps in receiving some of the most enormous developments in hip-hop. The reasons for this are myriad and enough for a whole chapter of somebody's book. A Tribe Called Quest were one major missing part of my exposure (or lack thereof) to hip-hop's key developments. In fact I found out about their existence right around the time they broke up (for the first time,happily) in the late 90's. Now with my knowledge of the Native Tongue's hip-hop movement? It's more than pleasurable to have heard this now classic album and be able to talk about it.

  "Excursions" is percussive drum groove built very much around the bluesy upright bass vamping from the iconic Ron Carter himself. "Buggin' Out","Rap Promoter"-with it's heavy use of wah wah and turntabling,"Vibes And Stuff" and "Check The Rime" basically serve to establish that percussive drumming under the raps-giving the album it's basic groove as in all things funk. The super funky "Butter" slows down the rhythm and adds a glassy Rhodes electric piano with a more vocal oriented chorus."Versus From The Abstract" loops the main guitar line and rhythm from Heatwave's "Star Of A Story" for a dreamy groove. Same goes with "Show Business","Everything Is Fair" and the closer "What"-though I cannot readily identify the loops. "Jazz (We Got It)" loops in some swinging choruses while "Skypager" brings in a faux telephone call and a melodic horn chart.

  Listening to this album today? It's easy for someone such as myself to take it for granted since by the mid/late 90's the sound that this album helped set up was a strong standard of the time. Still for a broader context? I believe it's possible for me to set the stage about how,at it's very time,just how significant this was. 1991's hip-hop community was still very much somewhere between the hard hitting commentary of Public Enemy and KRS-1 with the pop friendliness of folks such as Hammer and Kool Moe Dee. Arrested Development  and The Fugees were a year away,The Roots a year after that. So this was the first jazz/hip-hop oriented music most people ever even heard. It basically,as is well documented,gave birth to alternative rap. Some of the ideas and forms are still very much works in progress here. But with the very socially aware observations mixed in with the great interest in drugs and women? A new day was surely dawning with this one.


title: Julian Lennon Puts A Cap On The 1980's

text:
From the moment I first heard about this album? It was presented adamantly as Julian's very worst recording. From about a dozen different literary sources and people I knew,maybe more. Interestingly enough? I wasn't really that curious album until two things happened: first heard the (in my opinion) highly underrated [[ASIN:B000091KSA Secret Value of Daydreaming]]-with it's fusion jazz and reggae elements and finding this album on a cassette tape last summer. Seems Patrick Leonard,known for working with Madonna and Bryan Ferry,succeeded Phil Ramone as Julian's producing his third album here. He was still finding his way as his own kind of artist after one very successful debut and an (at least commercially) sophomore slump. So this may have had a lot to prove for him.

  "Now You're In Heaven" and the somewhat slower "You're The One" were both singles released for this- both guitar heavy arena rockers with heavy anthemic choruses. "I Get Up" finds Julian getting his Elvis on with that percussive bass voice and the shuffling,horn packed 50's rock 'n roll arrangement. "Mother Mary" is a melodic heartland style rocker while "Angillette" is an epic piano ballad. "Open Your Eyes" is my favorite number here-a pounding psychedelic dance-rocker with a lot of tempo changes and phased vocals. "Make It Up To You" is a mid tempo,stomping bluesy rock number while "Sunday Morning" has a breezy acoustic feel. "Second Time" has a slow electronica type flavor while "I Want To Know" has a sleek late 80's pop/rock arrangement.

  In the end,is this album nearly as terrible as everyone says it is? Absolutely not. Objectively is one of Julian's better albums? No. Personally I cannot say that Patrick Leonard and Julian were perhaps the greatest creative match from the sound of things. Julian's abilities as a singer/songwriter are very strong. And everything on this album is very well played and produced actually. The trouble is the entire feel of the albums lacks a sense of vitality and character. There's a dryness to the sound of this albums-the electronics and rhythmhaving a dull feeling about them and a lot of the guitar playing being very uninteresting. These would've been excellent songs done some other way. But perhaps the reason this didn't do so well is because it just didn't have the heart it was clearly looking for. Honestly I feel Julian did a lot better in this area on his next release.


title: Taylor Dayne Serves Up Some Fiery Late 80's Grooves!

text:
One of the most interesting things about the music of 1987 for me was the strong synergy between the recent past and the present. The instrumentation had become far more electronic and synthesizer oriented as music making technology evolved. Yet many artists and their producers (if applicable) began to understand how to use that within the band oriented musical structure-often mixing in live instruments. This was especially true with both the funk/soul and emerging Latin freestyle dance music scenes at the time. Into this captivating environment came a young New Yorker named Leslie Wunderman. Re-Christened Taylor Dayne? Her debut album really made a splash in the world.

  The ultra catchy and melodic breakout hit "Tell It To Your Heart" opens the album. That along with "Don't Rush Me","Prove Your Love" and "Do You Want It Right Now" are all high octane electronic percussion/hand-clap powered Latin freestyle jams. Very much chocked full of that NYC dance music vibe of that era. "I'll Always Love You" and the closer "Upon The Journey's End",the latter a duet with the fruity voiced Billy T. Scott,are both intense gospel fueled soul ballads that take her voice right into the church! "Carry Your Heart" is more of an arena rock style ballad,again vocalized with gusto to spare. "In The Darkness" is a shuffling Motown type rhythm while a cover of Honey Combs "Want Ads" updates the early 70's funky soul groove. "Where Does That Boy Hang Out" is a stripped down,ultra funkified dance groove.

  Ever since the days where Frank Sinatra departed on his own from Tommy Dorsey's big band? The American pop music loving public have tended to be fixated much more on popular singers as opposed to instrumentalists. It's something that's caused a lot of debate among music writers and musicians during my own personal lifetime.  Taylor Dayne is an artist who showcases the difference between a mere quality singer and a vocalist who truly understands her musical surroundings. While it's likely she is singing over songs already pre-recorded here? Her loud,rangy gospel/soul style vocal pipes give the complete impression she is recording with a live band. She is either soaring with the percussive beats or the dynamic arrangements on the ballads. This albums is probably one of the most impressive debuts of a young female soul/funk/dance artist of it's time. And certainly the ideal debut for a then new recording talent.


title: The Quiet Beatle Gets A Little Vocal Talking About The Music!

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Right off the bat I wanted to say this review is not specifically for this import mini CD edition-it's for the original CD issue of this which I cannot find here right now. But the cover art is the same so here it goes. George Harrison took nearly two years making what would be his debut album of the 80's Since much of the previous decade was defined by Beatlesque pop melodies? The new explosions of punk,new wave and synth pop 1979/1980 had the possibility of leaving Harrison in the dust. Extremely disenchanted with how his distributes were handling his music? Harrison decided not so much to put his indignation in song,but create his own variation on a contemporary sound.

  "Blood From A Clone" is a synthesizer based Caribbean pop styled pop groove where Harrison bluntly points out the difference in thinking between artists and committee thinkers in the music industry. "Teardrops" adds a similar production to a classic Harrison style soul rocker while the jazzy mid tempo "Baltimore Oriole" and the more funky "Hong Kong Blues",both Hoagy Carmichael interpretations,get the same electric keyboard/synth dressing on their phat grooves. "All Those Years Ago" is a mixture of electric piano bluesy shuffle with a Beatlesque pop melody that...was intended for a Ringo Starr album which never came out. So it was released here as a tribute to John Lennon. "Unconsciousness Rules" is a straight up bluesy soul/rocker while "Life Itself" has a gentle melody and a soft contemporary singer/songwriter vibe with a nice sax solo.

  "That Which I Have Lost" is a spirited country rocker while "Writings On The Wall" has Harrison's classic ballad melodic structure. "Save The World" on the other hand is a horn driven uptempo jazzy funk-pop number with a Caribbean inflected bridge-going down a litany of environmental damage from whaling to nuclear weapons we should give up to save the Earth because "someone might just want to use it". In all honesty? I rate this album right up near 33 1/3 as one of George Harrison's finest solo albums. It has an excellent variety of songs-from tin pan alley ballads modernized to funky and soulful uptempo rockers. With the sleek production and synthesizers? This basically functions in a simialr manner for Harrison as Arc Of A Diver did for Steve Winwood at the same time: re-invent the artists basic sound successfully for a new musical time frame.


title: George Harrison Asking For Love And Peace On Earth

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Any knowledge I received about this album came in stages. What first came to me about it wasn't particularly positive in terms of it's content. Of course,one has to hear music for themselves to see if they like it. Harrison after all had an enormous amount of music from his later Beatles days already recorded or at the very least half recorded by the time his epic double album debut emerged the same year the Beatles themselves broke up. This 1973 follow also came after his enormous concert series to raise money for the famine ridden population of Bangla Desh. So for this second pop solo album for George Harrison,he retained fellow Jim Keltner plus fellow Beatle Ringo along with Gary Wright and Nicky Hopkins on keys for a very different sort of album than what came before.

  "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)" is a melodically elaborate mid-tempo folk/pop number and ended up being a big hit to start the album right off with. "Sue Me,Sue You Blues" is chunky bluesy slide guitar/piano based funky soul/rocker with a witty outlook on some of the well publicized courtroom drama Harrison faced in his immediate post Beatles years. "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" is a yearning,bright melody with producer Phil Spector's classic stop/start drum approach. The title song is a piano driven blues/country/rock march while "The Lord Love's The One (Who Loves The Lord)" has a Memphis style electric piano fueled country soul vibe. "The Light That Has Lighted The World","Who Can See It","Try Some Buy Some","The Day The World Get's 'Round" and "That Is All" are all organ and/or guitar led soaring gospel pop ballads while "Be Here Now" integrates one of George's Indian mantras into that musical framework.

  Musically speaking,this album is surely one of George Harrison's very best. The instrumental sound is not only full and bright. But it sounds like a group of musicians playing together for a common goal. Always felt elements of his debut were a bit overdubbed in that regard as much of a brilliant album as it is (could be wrong on that though-don't fact check me too hard on it).  It's also a very powerful album-with the uptempo tunes have that bluesy soul muscle a Clapton would tend to embrace while the ballads often evoke the feeling of a McCartney song like a "Let It Be" or "Maybe I'm Amazed". Lyrically what's driving this album is the source of the initial negative thoughts I heard on this album: Harrison candidly discussing how the Hari Krishna religion has effected his life. He's actually very well rounded on the subject however-talking of spiritual transcendence one minute than decrying the generally petulant nature of gods themselves the next. Surely a deeply soulful pop/rock outing that gets into why George Harrison embraced the gospel of the Eastern world!


title: Yoko Ono Explores Her Own Indignity In Being A Woman

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Many years ago,over a decade now? I found this double album on vinyl at the coast of Maine at a local record store now defunct. Interestingly enough? It was the one particular Yoko Ono album that continually received glowing overviews even from people were weren't elitist music critics or Yoko fans for that matter. This got me to thinking that the album,which was not particularly easy to find,might be something that I would want to investigate. The vinyl was in excellent condition and sat in my collection for some time. With my more evolved knowledge of music today then I had then? I decided to give this a thorough listen tonight and a lot of surprises popped out of it for me.

  "Yang Yang","Move On Fast","Kite Song" and the bluesy "Peter The Dealer" are all intense guitar based rockers while the ballads range from the soulful "Death Of Samantha","I Have A Woman Inside My Soul" and "Have You Seen A Horizon Lately" to the more countrified "Winter Song" and the more orchestral piano rock of "I Want My Love To Rest Tonight","Looking Over My Hotel Window"."What A Bastard World" and "Song For John" as well as the acoustic folk "Now Or Never"-with it's rhetorical Dylan-like social commentary. "What Did I Do" meanwhile deals with a tensely stomping uptempo horn funk explosion while the title song explores a Spectorian wall of sound uptempo sax based number. "Catman" has a flamboyant jazz-funk flavor while "Air Talk" has a strumming guitar based pop/reggae flavor. "What A Mess" presents a Motown style mix of soul/jazz and salsa with a pointed pro choice message.

  When this album dropped in 1972? The women's movement was at it's peak in America. And as a major siphon for social change with her husband John Lennon during their most overtly political period as a couple? Yoko was in a position by this time to be a solo artist who could express those impulses very vocally. This is a very well rounded view on the subject of women's liberation. Everything from suffering and especially even undo criticism of the male gender are covered in a detailed and poetic manner in these songs. While a bit divided between femininity as a biological victimization or a source of strength? Yoko's often anguished lyrics are made a search for hope by her and the instrumentalists understanding of funk/soul/jazz music (really the prominent genre showcases here) as the music of any human rights/liberation movement of the time. So on those levels? I have to admire Yoko for exploring womanhood in that musically funky place!


title: Maceo's Funk Music Machine

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On their second release after leaving James Brown the JB's,under the name of All The King's Men began with the title song-very much of the uptempo gospel inflected soul funk attitude of Memphis soul. "I Want To Sing" and a version of "Feelin' Alright" have a strong rhythm section based funk groove. "Dreams" on the other hand has a swinging shuffle similar to the Charles Brown era jump-blues approach that extended all the way to JB's own "Ain't That A Groove" while "Something" takes the George Harrison composition to new heights with Maceo lightly improvising on the already well composed melody.

  'Born To Wander" is another jumping fanfare while "TSU (Aristocrat Of Bands)" is a rhythmically intense number where the horns meets the adrenaline fueled wah wah bass/guitar interactions. "For No One" does up the Paul McCartney's melodically complex composition in a spare,rhythm guitar led jazzy soul ballad setting while "Make It With You" essentially strips down the David Gates/Bread original down to it's basic elements in much the same fashion.  "A Funky Tale To Tell" concludes the album in good favor with the more uptempo jams that this album offers up.

  I have yet to hear the first album credited to Maceo & All The King's Men. From what comes from this? Maceo and the band outside of James Brown have a somewhat different instrumental approach than they did baking up The Godfather. Their sound is quite a looser in tone for one. While Maceo,Melvin,Fred and the rest of the band all maintain that precision level of instrumental skills that is their trademark on this album? The attitude is definitely coming more out of their jazzy side in a manner similar to early 70's Kool & The Gang. Considering James' high opinion of that band during this era? Its no doubt that Maceo and company fully understanding their positions as the disciples of funk.


title: Roberta Flack Makes A Comeback In A Very Different Kind Of Mood

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For much of the 1980's,Roberta Flack didn't have a huge album output outside her duets with Peabo Bryson and recording the odd song here and there. As a matter of fact,it was those duets that served as my introduction to her music. Actually it wasn't until well into the 90's that I discovered she did make a comeback album in 1988 that I knew nothing about. The reasons for that are something that I'm actually learning just now. At the same time? There is a feeling that this album might've been rather significant as a creative entity for Flack.

  The title song and "All Caught Up In Love" begin the album with a pronounced Latin drum and percussion flavor from Steve Thornton and an accompanying sax solo from David Sanborn. on the former "Uh-Uh<ooh Ooh,Look Out (Here It Comes)" has a poppier jazz mid-tempo groove about it whereas "Shock To My System mixes sprightly melodic pop/funk with a Caribbean/reggae tinged beat and rhythm. "You Bought Me Love" and "And So It Goes" are then contemporary updates of Flack's signature heavily crafted ballad style while "Something Magic" and the Latin flavored "(His Name) Brazil"  are both strong pop Salsa type grooves.

  "You Know What It's Like" has always been my favorite song on this-maybe of Roberta's entire career. The melody is beautifully jazzy,the groove is an ultra sensual samba and love the way Flack interacts with her own harmony vocals-like an inner romantic monologue.  Sadly it does seem as if this album didn't receive the pop noterity much of Flacks other music had previously. But it did something more important perhaps. With the presence of Quincy Jones,Bruce Swedien and many of the Westlake studio crew on this album? Flack crossed back over into the black community with this-presenting herself as a more urbane alternative to the gospel powered belt of Anita Baker-with a strong Brazilian twist. One of her best overall album length statements artistically and successful in a very culturally positive way!


title: Natalie Living Dangerously in '85!

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After a period of rehab and self reflection,Natalie Cole found herself in a world of Whitney Houston's and Michael Jackson's. Yet many of even her progenitors from the 60's soul/funk era were making comebacks during this time. So she figured if Chaka Khan could do it,so could she. She signed up with Modern Records and laid down tracks with session greats such as Greg Phillinganes and Paulinho Da Costa for an album that would bring her back in triumph.

  The title song and "Billy The Kid Next Door",with it's sampled vocal breaks and scratches are brittle yet emotionally charged electro/new wave oriented dance numbers while "Secrets" slows that approach down just a bit for a spirited percussion bridge from Da Costa. "Nobody's Soldier " is a melodically spacious ballad while "Opposites Attract" is an uptempo soul/funk,rhythm guitar and horn fueled extravaganza. "A Little Bit Of Heaven" and "The Gift" are both gospel/soul powered ballads while the frantic dance rocker "Your Car (My Garage" is tempered by the sleek jazz-funk mid-tempo "Love Is On The Way".

  For me personally? This album definitely bought Natalie Cole back into music in triumph. Her sound on this album is totally contemporary with a very new wave oriented dance groove throughout and plenty of brittle synthesizers. One thing that album has in abundance is energy and life. And every contemporary mid 80's instrumental element found on this album is used solely for that purpose. Her voice is perhaps at it's most powerful and triumphant during this era. And compositionally every one of these songs are also top notch. Highly recommended mid 80's Natalie Cole album!


title: Etta's Simple Twist Of Fate

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Interestingly enough in 1978? Etta James teamed up with Jerry Wexler to produce her new album. Wexler of course is perhaps best known for his breakthrough work with another (and often rival) Queen Of Soul Aretha Franklin. Etta was very much aware of the man's work with Aretha as well as Ray Charles before her. Most interesting is the fact they had jazz-funk oriented session aces such as Chuck Rainey,Larry Carlton,Cornell Dupree and Richard Tee on board for an album that just might've blown away any musical expectations people had of Miss Etta James.

  "Lay Beside You" begins the album with a slow grinding,glittering electric piano/rhythm guitar/horn based funk groove anchored down further by a big scaling melody. "Piece Of My Heart" has a far more fluid,professional delivery both instrumentally and vocally than the more famous Big Brother & The Holding Company version. "Only Women Bleed" is a Southern Soul ballad personified speaking about emotionally and physically battered women's hopes for happiness. "Take It To The Limit","Sugar On The Floor","Blind Girl" and especially the deep,dark title song are all in the same league-all with some beautiful gospel harmony vocals.

  "Lovesick Blues" is an energetic combination between blues and danceable horn rock while "Strange Man" deals with a country-blues flavor telling a tale of a stranger in the dark. "Sweet Touch Of Love" is a stomping slice of Southern funky soul. This album didn't exactly get Etta on any type of music chart-though it surely deserved to be. But it was a complete creative success many times over. And that was what was so important. It really signified the lasting power of rootsy live band R&B,soul and blues. And how such a sound could very easily succeed with the slickest production and most polished musicianship. On that level,it might be the most significant album Etta James made in the 1970's.


title: Presenting Sam Cooke's First Set Of Humpback Hits!

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Though Sam Cooke had by the end of the 50's only released three solo albums? He had amassed enough material from 45 singles and their B-sides he had released over the last few years in order to assemble what essentially amounted to his very first greatest hits album. Because he was still at the beginning of his career,this was technically more of compilation album. But considering how successful he was? And the fact that these songs had never yet been heard together? This ended up holding a rather special place in his recorded catalog.

  "Only Sixteen" has a mid tempo gospel swing with baritone backup vocals while "All Of My Life" lays down the organ heavy for a shuffling ballad approach that continues onward for "Blue Moon",a revisit of "You Send Me" and it's essential continuation on a version of "For Sentimental Reasons". "Everybody Love's The Cha Cha" and "Win Your Love For Me" both focus on an uptempo,heavily orchestrated early mixture of soul and calypso while "Lonely Island","Love You Most Of All","The Little Things You Do","Let's Go Steady Again" and "You Were Made For Me" are sweetly arranged slow ballads.

  For a late 50's compilation of singles,odds and ends? This album does such a superb job at presenting some of Sam Cooke's non album material of his early years that it's coherence gives it the impression of being a genuine,full length album of songs recorded to go together. The sequencing of songs (which knowing Sam Cooke he probably did himself or at least checked off on) is ideally suited to that perception of this as a full album-from shuffling mid tempo doo-wop soul,to uptempo Calypso soul and slow balladry that was Cooke's musical trademark at this point. An excellent example of the man's music in it's earliest years as a pop/soul vocal powerhouse!


title: Mister Robert Palmer Back In The Groove!

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As Robert Palmer was about to record his third album,South African jazz drummer Mongezi Feza passed away of untreated pneumonia. This session musician,a member of both the Blue Notes and Assasgai who'd also played Robert Wyatt's group Henry Cow,was apparently a favorite of Palmer's. Especially as this album was dedicated to Feza's musical legacy-one of the few times a popular album was officially dedicated to an African session musician. It also seemed to bring into mind the vital importance of his session musicians such as Chuck Rainey,Pierre Brock,Freddie Harris,Richard Hayward and James "Smitty" Smith were in terms of providing the rhythmic groove that Palmer loved so much. And that in a word is  the instrumental flavor he wanted to bring out with this particular album.

  "One Last Look" opens with the down home gospel inflected melodic jazz-funk of "One Last Look" before going into the heavily cymbal/high hat built groove of "Keep In Touch"-full of wah wah accents and driving piano licks. "Man Smart,Woman Smarter" takes the calypso rhythm of the song usually associated with Harry Belefonte and infuses it with that New Orleans Caribbean rhythm based soul flavor which extends on into "Have Mercy" as well. "Spanish Moon","Got To Get A Grip On You (Part II)" and "What Can You Bring Me" go right for the wah wah guitar/slap bass driven funk right of the Sly Stone school while Johnny Guitar Watson's "Hard Head" gets a vibrant bluesy gospel treatment-full of hand claps and harmonica.

  The title track ends the album pulling the albums funk all together-bringing it right back to the source with the James Brown attitude of every musician thinking like a drummer-with the chugging freight train rhythm and the grinding rhythm section. Overall this is very likely Robert Palmer's funkiest album of the 1970's. And it's very hard funk at that. Palmer and the instrumentalists playing with him never forget that funk comes from a potent stew of Crescent City soul,the blues,jazz and Afro-Latin percussive sounds. All of the music on this album is un-apologetically based on anything can can come of out that musical ethic. Wild Cherry might've sang "play that funky music,white boy". And during the same year? Robert Palmer was doing it for real. And with a keen understanding of the groove,the fatness and the rhythm of the one.


title: David Ruffin Tells Us Who He Is!

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Following nearly half a decade of being without hits following his being ousted from the Temptations,David Ruffin was apparently still very much living the party lifestyle. But more importantly then his carousing was the fact he was raising a family at the same time. He was also still a young and superbly talented vocalist/performer still creatively at the top of his game. So in 1975 Ruffin teamed up with major disco era soul producer Van McCoy for this album,which would prove an enormous comeback.

  The title song opens the album,with an excellent,stomping four on the floor number with a crawling groove,a Caribbean style bass line and the chord changes going from major to minor to express Ruffin's uncertainty of the changes he was seeing in his life at the time. "It Takes All Kinds Of People" adds more rhythm guitar to this basic groove with lyrics that speak to humanities need to deal with differences rather than make everyone more generic. "Walk Away From Love",with it's sumptuous orchestration,thick stomping groove and multiple melodic lines was Ruffin's huge comeback song,and just the sort of danceable,melodic and soulful a number an ex-Temptation could ever wish for.

  "I've Got Nothing But Time" and "Heavy Love" are both in a similar vein. On the other hand "Wild Honey and "Love Can Be Hazardous To Your Health" both end with highly funky bass/guitar instrumental runs. "Statue Of A Fool" is another of Ruffin's classic gospel drenched soul ballads. For the most part? This albums uniformity of sound is broken by the very individual level of expression of Ruffin's deep,growling gospel/soul vocals uses to interpret this music. It's him in fact who brings out the soul in the album. Although Van McCoy's production style is well suited to Ruffin's affection for the creamy Motown style orchestral rhythms. A very good comeback album for Ruffin and a superb example of the initial years of the disco era.


title: Funkadelic Absorbs,Expands And Deals With Who America Is Eating

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With their previous album [[ASIN:B000AXWV40 Maggot Brain]],it was clear that Funkadelic were going to be expanding their musical base from the deeply bluesy groove with which they had built their early career. Their first three albums were a key aspect of the funk process. Thanks to them and James Brown? Funk was by this time officially entrenched as a musical genre. And was about to enjoy it's greatest public success. Sadly in 1971 the entire original lineup of the band in Tiki Fulwood,Billy Bass Nelson,Tawl Ross and Eddie Hazel all departed. The first lineup of Funkadelic had disappeared. Well George Clinton still had the vision of funkadelia dancing the loose booty inside his head. And was he in luck because a Cincinnati band called the House Guests-headed up by James Brown alumni in the bass/guitar duo of brothers Bootsy and Catfish Collins,were looking to expand the groove under a new banner. Also the Plainfield band U.S (United Soul) came along with similar ideas-that band featuring Garry Shider and Cordell Boogie Mosson. Another member also joined during this time in classically taught pianist/keyboard player Bernie Worrell. At the time probably seeing these incredibly talented instrumentalists as just the ticket to re-imagine Funkadelic entirely? I'm personally unsure if George was all too aware that funk history was about to be made with this album.

  "You Hit The Nail On The Head" opens the album very much with the attitude of an instrumentally busy,very fast organ led jazz/rock jam that switches gears midway through to a slower country-soul jam and back again. "If You Don't Like The Effect,Don't Produce The Cause" is a reggae tinged rhythm guitar based groove that deals the hypocrisy of those who give mainly lip service to social change. "Everybody Is Going To Make It This Time" and "We Hurt To",both dealing with the honest expression of emotions,release and possible transcendence in the context of swirling,cinematic and extremely melodic string drenched ballads. "A Joyful Process" is a deeply funky groove led by a phased out clavinet and horn soloing that builds up from low to higher volume. "Loose Booty" is actually right out of the James Brown school of drum/rhythm guitar based funk-only with the tight female vocal harmonies leading the chorus throughout.  "Philmore" is a Bootsy rave up with a full on uptempo gospel/horn based Memphis/Stax style soul stomp with that ultra melodic Sly Stone attitude. "I Call My Baby Pussycat" is a steaming,gurgling groove that extends into the title song which consists mainly of female panting and groaning vocally. "Biological Speculation" has that ultra slow,loping bass/guitar funk style the band were known for on Westbound while "That Was My Girl","Balance" and "Miss Lucifers Love" all deal with a more acid rock guitar psychedelic funk attitude. "Wake Up" ends the album on yet another uptempo Southern soul note.

  Having heard the entirety of Funkadelic's studio albums to this date? I have to say that I did and continue to find this possibly the most unique and distinctive of Funkadelic's albums from their period on Westbound Records.  There are many reasons for this that I've discovered over the years. One reason is that it's a completely different lineup than on Funkadelic's first three albums on the label. Bootsy bought in a tremendous emphasis on rhythm while Bernie Worrell bought in an organ sound that melded gospel and European classic style notation in with the psychedelic funky stew. Another quality simply might've been the fact this album wasn't recorded in America at all-rather in Toronto Canada and in England. That probably provided the distance and clarity for George to look back on the US from without and conceptualize the philosophically dense sociopolitical musings that populate this albums lyrical content.  With the instrumental influences of this albums coming more out of James Brown and Sly Stone as opposed to Jimi Hendrix,Arthur Lee and Lee Dorsey as it had before. The attitude is more joyful gospel than it is the slower and more reflective blues. To coin a phrase it actually bought out more of the "funk" in Funkadelic as a result. With 14 songs? This album,originally a double on vinyl,does have a lot of music on it. But conceptually and in terms of band personnel? Very little of what P-Funk would evolve into during the mid/late 70's would've likely happened if it weren't for what began with this album. So in all honesty? This may be one of the most important and necessary Funkadelic albums of their career!


title: First Ladies Of P-Funk Require You To Do The Dance Of Sensitivity

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Considering on the elaborate story line George Clinton was amassing within the P-Funk lyrical folklore? It was enevitable that P-Funk was going to need a strong female point of view within it. This occurred when the powerful voiced Dawn Silva and Sly & The Family Stone alum Lynn Mabry began singing backup for Eddie Hazels solo debut album sessions. During the time of that release Clinton assembled his classic P-Funk crew of musicians to record another debut for the female due under the name of the Brides Of Funkenstein. And this was the resulting album.

  "Disco To Go" starts out the album with a James Brown style rhythmic/horn hump in the same musical arena as Parliaments 1974 song "Up For The Downstroke". "War Ship Touchante" is a fast paced space disco number full of sci fi synthesizers with Dawn and Lynn exchanging call and response half sung vocals. "Nappy" is a slow swinging jump blues style groove basically with a rousing melody and witty lyrics. "Birdie" is a grinding,churning horn packed P-Funk groove of the classic order as is "Amorous"-which closes with some of the instrumental themes of the opener. "Just Like You" is a superbly arranged jazzy pop ballad with some liquid keyboards dragging out the gospel fueled vocal leads to their most atmospheric depths.

  One listen to this album and it was clear that George Clinton saw the idea of female-centric P-Funk as a means to addressed much of the music world's perceptions of the disco era as based on feminine sexuality. So some of these songs featured strings provided from the Detroit Symphony orchestra and abstractions of the 4/4 disco-dance beat. By mixing it up with hot and heavy P-Funk humps? George codified his theory that disco was funky taken one record at a time. And it was a huge success-with the Brides being considered the best new female artists of the funk and soul scene of the time. Despite it's perception of a cult following? The triumphant success this album had with the soul/funk audience showcased the overall viability and flexibility of P-Funk at it's prime.


title: Phunklords Of P-Funk Make Their Musical Point As A Mutineer Funkadelic

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With George Clinton's increasing interesting in bringing in more and more newer (and often younger) musicians into his P-Funk musical empire? It was bound that not only would financial and generation clashes as well. This all came to play in the late 70's when the core of George Clinton's original vocal group Fuzzy Haskins,Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas abruptly re-emerged in 1981 with the name Funkadelic in hand and bought in a group of their own with Michael Williams,Billy Moms,Ben Powers Jr.,Johnny Quad Riley,Stan Thorn and Ken Blackmon  and put this album out,as they announced at every chance possible,without any participation from Clinton.

  "Phunklords" starts out the album with a brightly melodic layer of synthesizers of the plassic P-Funk "video game" sounding variety before launching into a straight up bass heavy,percussive keyboard sound with vocals that trade off very singable melodic lines as well as the call and response chants of classic style funkativity. This also extends into "You'll Like It Too",the title song and "Come Back" as well. All are very strong on that level. "The Witch" ends the first side in three parts: a low voiced vocal proclimation at the beginning,then onto a slinky new wave electric and synth bass driven slither on "The Infunktation" and ending on the rocking guitar groove of "The Cellfunction".

  "Call The Doctor" is a slow crawling,wah wah power deep voodoo funk groove while "Whose A Funkadelic" is led by a round synth bass pulse and a high pitched chipmunk style vocal rap with a sea of Eddie Hazel style guitars. Considering this album is led essentially the melodically inclined vocal end of the original Parliaments group of the 1960's? Their barber shop style gospel soul leads and harmonies help beef up what is essentially a very uptempo funk oriented album that strips away the more eccentric elements of Clinton's spin on P-Funk and concentrates on a very coherent sound that is incredibly rhythmic and melodically powerful. It's an excellent album that succeeds at being P-Funk which works as both a singers and a keyboardists/musicians album all at the same time. And despite the damage it caused to the whole of P-Funk to release this as it was? It's a powerful album embracing the side of P-Funk that would help spearhead the smaller group,synth/electro funk of the early/mid 80's that had arrived. Highly recommended!


title: Herbie Hancock Meets Rod Temperton His Masterful Musical Crew

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Having so successfully worked with Ray Parker Jr.,Gavin Christopher and The Brothers Johnson on his beautifully funkified and futuristically forward thinking 1981 album [[ASIN:B000007VNL Magic Windows]],Herbie Hancock hooked up with music maestro Rod Temperton for his next major studio album for Columbia the following year. Rod had not only by this point been a huge mastermind behind the biracial/bi-continental funk-pop band Heatwave. But with his and Quincy Jones renowned Westlake studio aces such as drummer John Robinson,Jerry Hey,Michael Boddicker,Steve Lukather and of course Louis Johnson these were the same people who'd spun gold for Michael Jackson on his breakout Epic solo debut [[ASIN:B00005QGAT Off the Wall]]. At the point that they were working with Herbie? They were also in the process of recording Jackson's iconic follow up [[ASIN:B00005QGAZ Thriller]]. Temperton and all of these instrumentalists all thought musically and compositionally like jazz musicians in terms of letting the music guide the huge popular potential of the compositions. So creatively? Herbie Hancock's music was all dressed up for the funky sounds of 1982!

  The title song starts out the album with a steady bass/rhythm guitar led disco dance/funk groove. "The Bomb" gets really busy with David William's guitar accented wonderfully by Herbie's Fender Rhodes electric piano-with a vocorder and liquid Louis Johnson bass duet on the blues melody oriented bridge. "Gettin' To The Good Part" settles into a slower,low key and very instrumentally precise jazz-funk groove where everything glides on the bass and electric piano parts and Herbie's vocoderized vocals;think Steely Dan meets Daft Punk in terms of sound. "Paradise" is a wonderfully constructed shuffling soul ballad melody with Herbie singing in a decent falsetto without his vocorder-backed up by Bill Champlin,Richard Page and Vanette Gloud on the chorus. "Can't Hide Your Love" is a shiny,horn driven classic uptempo Tempterton style pop-funker with Herbie again singing vocorderless-this time in his...shall we say less tutored lower voice which get very interesting singing likes such as "no matter where you go,I'm right behind". "The Fun Tracks" is another chunky horn based groove,if a bit slower this time.

  On the witty "Motor Mouth",chastising an original "gossip girl" as it were,the slinky high bass is complimented by Herbie's liquid and deeply pitch bent high synthesizer riffs-with lead singer Wayne Anthony duetting with Herbie,back on vocorder who sings the bridge by himself and as such. "Give It All Your Heart" is a crunching slow groove funk number with layered bass synthesizers similar to Ray Parker Jr's style,with a nice horn line with Herbie and similarly styled musical female counterpart Patrice Rushen duetting along with Herbie not only on vocals but on some masterfully elaborate improvised Rhodes solos at the conclusion of the song. According to what he said in his recent autobiography Herbie and the reclusive Temperton didn't get along during these sessions. And Herbie apparently thinks very little of this album himself. Especially since Herbie was in fact often a guest on other major QWest projects in 1980-81 (which is likely where he met Temperton in the first place), this is the absolute closest Herbie Hancock ever got to a full on contemporary pop/funk album from it's day.

  The songs all emphasize extremely high levels of quality craftsmanship and instrumental quality control. And many of these songs are among my favorite Herbie Hancock numbers from the 80's era! Of course Herbie was about to make the leap into electro funk/scratch on the following year's [[ASIN:B003MX4O0E Rockit]]. At the same time,this particular album is to a degree Herbie's own [[ASIN:B00005QGAZ Thriller]]-musically quite literally in fact. Since it's performance with the public was pretty much the opposite? Herbie reacted to it by doing what he always did: musically keeping on the move on ahead-a quality that he'd learned from his time with Miles. Still this is a very worthy footnote among Herbie's glossiest pop/funk forays. Whatever Herbie's apparent misgivings? This is among the strongest and best jelled albums of his early 80's pop/funk period. And am hoping this album gains more significant exposure during the modern digital age,