'74 And Sunny

This budget-priced two-for-one collection presents a pair of mid-1970s albums by Floridian singer-songwriter Lobo (born Roland Kent Lavoie): JUST A SINGER (’74) and A COWBOY AFRAID OF HORSES (’75). Highlights of the set include the breezy light-rock tunes “Rings” and “Don’t Tell Me Goodnight,” songs that embody Lobo’s sunny, laid-back sound.

Del Shannon - Home and Away: The Complete Recordings 1960-1970 (2004) {8-CD Box, Bear Family Records BCD 15925 HL}
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© 1960-70, 2004 Bear Family Records | BCD 15925 HL}
Pop / AM Pop / Rock & Roll / Oldies / Early Pop / Teen Idols

One of the greatest and most original rock 'n' roll stars of the early 1960s, Del Shannon was also one of the few to not only triumph in the face of the British Invasion, but grow artistically and professionally. He is lauded now as the godfather of Power Pop. His astonishing vocal range combined with Max Crook’s Musitron made one of the most unique and easily identifiable sounds in all popular music. In addition, Del Shannon wrote several of the era’s classics, exploring themes that would recur in his work: loss, alienation, and abandonment.

Clocking in at 26 minutes, Weather feels more like an EP than an LP, but there's a reason for the brevity. While Huey Lewis & the News were completing their first album of original material in nearly 20 years, Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, an affliction that effects hearing. Meniere's meant Huey could no longer hear notes clearly, which meant that he had to retire from performing, which in turn meant that the music the News completed for their new album would in effect be their final album. Since Huey Lewis & the News wrote and recorded Weather without planning it as a goodbye, the album has a light, breezy tone, and that amiability is actually a fitting farewell for a group who always were a hard-working rock & soul combo.

King Sunny Adé - Synchro System & Aura (1983-84) {T-Bird TBIRD 0034 CD rel 2010}
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© 1983-84, 2010 Island Records / T-Bird Records | TBIRD 0034 CD
International / Afro-Beat / West African / Afro-Pop / Juju / Worldbeat

King Sunny Adé had been making his own music since 1974 with his group the Green Spots before creating his large African Beats group. This band, despite making literally over 100 records in Nigeria, failed to stir much Western interest until Mango Records, a subsidiary of Island, took a chance and issued the breakthrough album Juju Music in 1982. With its seven extended cuts, it introduced King Sunny Adé & His African Beats to the U.S. as well as England and most of the rest of Europe – save for France, where the band had previously been able to tour. This U.K. two-fer reissue of 1983's Synchro System and Aura (on Cherry Red's T-Bird imprint) is comprised of the other two recordings in the band's Mango catalog (the band was dropped after sales of these two recordings proved disappointing to label bosses who tried to market Adé as "the new Bob Marley").

Issued in 2020, ‘Bubblerock Is Here To Stay’ shone a spotlight on the lost and often murky world of early 70s British Pop, a scene largely controlled by old-fashioned, Denmark Street- based production/songwriting teams as the Rock world concentrated on the album market. Another four-hour 3CD set, ‘Bubblerock Is Here To Stay Volume Two’ treads the same neglected path to deliver more mouldy old dough from the era's backroom boys: crack songwriting teams (Cook/Greenaway, Carter/Lewis, Chinn/Chapman), hit-or-bust producers (Phil Wainman, Jonathan King), session singers (Tony Burrows, Sue And Sunny), and writers-turned-performers (Lynsey de Paul, Barry Blue, Phillip Goodhand- Tait).

Arctic Plateau's debut album "On A Sad Sunny Day" contains timeless music somewhere between post rock, shoegaze, new wave, and indie, and it is characterised by Gianluca Divirgilio's incredible intuition for epic arrangements and structures. This album enchants you with an open, dream-like atmosphere and is marked by a fascinating ambivalence of hope and melancholy, euphoria and sadness. The artist himself refers to his compositions as 'music explicitly dreamed', and this description fits better to the sounds of this one-man project than any other.

America's loudest lounge singer Richard Cheese performs swingin' Vegas versions of rock and rap songs, "swankifying" popular Top40 hits into retro vocal standards. Imagine Sinatra singing Radiohead, and you've got Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine.
Backed by Bobby Ricotta on piano, Frank Feta on drums, and Billy Bleu on bass, Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine have played hundreds of sellout concerts all over the world, from Las Vegas to London, from Portland to Portugal, from Honolulu to Hollywood. With his snappy jazz trio, his tiger-striped tuxedo, and his enormous microphone, lounge legend Richard Cheese presents the perfect mix of music, martini, and madcap.

Much like Chicago's early sound, Lighthouse made wise use of their horn and string ensembles to create some rather bright and colorful music in the early '70s. With 13 members, including Don Dinovo on viola, Dick Armin on cello, and Howard Shore as the sax player, who later went on to be the first music director for Saturday Night Live, Lighthouse's music implemented many textures, from brassy rock & roll to a slippery blues-rock feel. Sunny Days Again is a commendable compilation, which includes all of their best tracks, headlined by "One Fine Morning," which gave them their first Top 40 hit in 1971, and the two-speed tempo of "Sunny Days," that debuted their rich, multi-dimensioned sound.