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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
by Doug Collette
Anyone (and everyone?) will be in turns delighted and surprised upon immersion in the Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary Edition of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The dual sensations commence immediately upon slipping the EMI Studios Abbey Road replica tape box, slightly larger than a foot square, from its slipcover adorned with the famous cover photo rendered in 3D, continues with the discovery of the character cutouts the likes of which were enclosed in the album upon its ...
read moreThe Beatles: Live At The Hollywood Bowl
by Doug Collette
In casual talk and conversation now some half a century since the explosion of their popularity, the Beatles can seem a quaint phenomenon from the Sixties. But such a notion disappears when their music is playing as is the case with The Beatles: Live At The Hollywood Bowl. A companion piece to Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years, the Ron Howard film devoted to their years on the road, this audio title is a modified and expanded ...
read moreRolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Deluxe Edition
by Doug Collette
In combination with the 2015 'Zip Code' tour, on which the band played the album in its entirety more than once, the reissue of the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones Records, 1971) is a valiant and fully-justified effort to restore the significance of the album, the importance of which has suffered over time in comparison to its followup, Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones Records, 1972). And the initiative may be altogether legitimate, despite the fact that, ...
read moreUltimate Sinatra: A Very Good Compilation
by Chris M. Slawecki
On December 12, 1915, Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. This single birth in this sleepy borough was the first tremor in a musical earthquake that changed the cultural landscape all around the world, forever. On April 21, 2015, in celebration of Frank Sinatra's centennial year, Capitol/UMe released the first career retrospective that surveys the complete recording history of “The Chairman of the Board." Drawn from his recordings for Columbia (1943-'52), Capitol (1953-'62; 1993-'94) and ...
read moreThe Band: Rock of Ages
by C. Michael Bailey
I'd rather die happy than not die at all... Even its name is an enigma—The Band: a collection of four Canadians and one Arkansan, born to back up another Arkansan, Ronnie Hawkins, as “Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks," then Bob Dylan and then to exist as their own entity—The Band. Five disparate and different individuals who united for a decade, helping define it musically by producing music so much part of the North American collective unconscious as to ...
read moreLouis Prima: Jump Jive and Wail: The Essential Louis Prima
by David Rickert
It's likely that Louis Prima would have faded into obscurity if not for the Gap ad that featured young, khaki-wearing twenty-somethings swing dancing to “Jump, Jive, and Wail. That ad appeared at the height of the nineties swing revival and brought the song back into circulation, appearing on several swing compilations designed to make a quick buck. Now that the craze is over, Prima still isn't held in as high esteem as Frank Sinatra or even Dean Martin, yet his ...
read moreKeely Smith: The Essential Capitol Collection
by Samuel Chell
Keely Smith The Essential Capitol Collection Capitol/EMI 2007
Of all the great American female singers, Keely Smith may be the most naturally gifted. The instrument, the technique, the sense of melodic line all invite the closest analysis and emulation--simply exemplary, textbook examples of the art of singing. How do you explain such a phenomenon? There were no fewer than five Blue Note albums with titles referring to the “incredible" Jimmy Smith; little ...
read moreKeely Smith: The Essential Capitol Collection
by David Rickert
With the overabundance of female vocalists making records in the fifties, it's not much of a surprise that Keely Smith has become lost in the shuffle today. If known at all, it's probably for her records with Louis Prima and not for her work as a solo artist. This is a shame, for Smith was a more than capable singer who, paired with the right material and terrific arrangements, could turn out splendid recordings.
This collection of Capitol ...
read moreJethro Tull: The Best of Acoustic Jethro Tull
by John Kelman
Most often remembered as the classic rock group responsible for mega-sellers including Aqualung (Chrysalis, 1971) and Thick as a Brick (Chrysalis, 1972), Jethro Tull has always included acoustic instrumentation as part of its musical palette. “Locomotive Breath and “Cross-Eyed Mary may be what comes to mind when asked to describe Aqualung. Still, “Cheap Day Return, “Mother Goose and “Wond'ring Aloud are all completely unplugged tunes that give that album scope beyond thundering riffs and arena-rock attitude, and make The Best ...
read moreDick Haymes: A Major Player for Whom Luck Was No Lady
by Samuel Chell
Dick Haymes Complete Capitol Collection EMI Gold 2006
If you've read this far, it's either because you don't know who Dick Haymes is and wonder whether you should, or you recall some passing mention of him by a grandparent but little else. No offense intended to retros and discriminating listeners, but great popular singers tend to fade ingloriously away, out-of-sight/out-of-mind. Unlike the Bachs and Bartoks, or even the Armstrongs and Ellingtons, they ...
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