1969 Stereo

Although they're only remembered today for their 1964 hit "Hippy Hippy Shake," which charted on both sides of the Atlantic – the Swinging Blue Jeans were actually one of the strongest of the Liverpool bands from the '60s British Invasion; and, indeed, the Blue Jeans' earliest incarnation goes back about as far as the roots of the Beatles as the Quarry Men. "Hippy Hippy Shake" – a cover of an obscure '50s rocker that was actually done much better by the Beatles on tapes of their BBC performances – was their only Top 30 entry in the U.S.. But the band enjoyed some other major and minor hits in the U.K., including a top-notch Merseyization of Betty Everett's (and later Linda Ronstadt's) "You're No Good," which they took into the British Top Five in 1964.

The Beatles Stereo Box Set is a box set compilation comprising all of the remastered stereo recordings by The Beatles. The set was released on 9 September 2009, the same day both The Beatles: Rock Band and the remastered mono recordings were released. The remastering project for both mono and stereo versions was led by EMI senior studio engineers Allan Rouse and Guy Massey…

In the Court of the Crimson King (subtitled An Observation by King Crimson) is the debut album from the English rock band King Crimson, released on 10 October 1969 on Island Records in England and Atlantic Records in America. The album is one of the first and most influential of the progressive rock genre, where the band largely departed from the blues influences that rock music was founded upon and combined elements of jazz, classical, and symphonic music. The album reached No. 5 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 28 on the US Billboard 200, where it was certified Gold. The album was reissued several times in the 1980s and 1990s using inferior copies of the master tapes. After the masters were located in 2003, a 40th-anniversary edition of the album was released in 2009 with new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes by Steven Wilson.

Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers formed in early 1961 in Hayes, Middlesex, borrowing their name from Duane Edward's hit 'Rebel Rouser'. Honing their skills playing popular Rock 'N' Roll covers, their local popularity drew the attention of legendary producer Joe Meek whose influence got them a contract with Parlophone.

A long-lost British blues collectors’ piece, finally re-issued just in time for its 40th anniversary. With two bonus tracks. At the height of the British blues boom in the late 1960s, a handful of musicians emerged who reinterpreted the acoustic country blues of the 1920s and ’30s. Championed by Radio 1 DJs John Peel, Mike Raven and Alexis Korner, and the music press of the day like Melody Maker, the most successful names were soon snapped up by major labels. In the winter of 1968/’69, Ian Anderson assembled a lively country blues band for his debut album Stereo Death Breakdown…

Conventional wisdom holds that the Beatles intended Abbey Road as a grand farewell, a suspicion seemingly confirmed by the elegiac note Paul McCartney strikes at the conclusion of its closing suite. It’s hard not to interpret “And in the end / the love you take / is equal to the love you make” as a summation not only of Abbey Road but perhaps of the group’s entire career, a lovely final sentiment. The truth is perhaps a bit messier than this. The Beatles had tentative plans to move forward after the September 1969 release of Abbey Road, plans that quickly fell apart at the dawn of the new decade, and while the existence of that goal calls into question the intentionality of the album as a finale, it changes not a thing about what a remarkable goodbye the record is.