45 2006

Since the early '90s Belfast guitar whiz Gary Moore has returned again and again to the blues, leaving his metal phase far behind. Old New Ballads Blues is exactly what the title says it is, a mix of old blues (covers of songs by Elmore James, Willie Dixon, and Otis Rush), new blues (five Moore originals), ballads (half the album) and, well, blues (by one definition or another, everything here passes for blues). The real surprise is that the strongest songs are the original Moore-penned ballads, as Moore gives powerful and atmospheric performances (both vocally and as a guitarist) on "Gonna Rain Today," "No Reason to Cry," and a solid horn-augmented remake of one of his best songs, "Midnight Blues," from what is easily his best album, 1990s million-selling Still Got the Blues.

Sony BMG Music presents Coolchill. Boozoo Bajou, Mo' Horizons, Bent, Biggabush, Vargo, Jerome Isma-Ae, The Superimposers and many others.

The quality of the recorded sound is so perfectly clear on this recording, like finely etched crystal, while at the same time it is so robust and resonant, that it is difficult to believe that the piano played on these two marvelous CDs is a replica of a 1785 Walter fortepiano, a smaller and much more fragile instrument than today's modern concert grand pianos.

A pleasant compilation of Oscar Peterson tracks with Ed Thigpen, Louis Hayes, Bobby Durham, and others sitting in, all anchored by Peterson's classic version of "Fly Me to the Moon," originally written by Bart Howard in 1954.

The Bee Gees' second R&B album, Children of the World, had the advantage of being written and recorded while the group was riding a string of Top Ten singles and the biggest wave of public adulation in their history off of the Main Course album. The group felt emboldened, but was also hamstrung by the absence of producer Arif Mardin, whose services were no longer available to them now that RSO Records had severed its ties to Atlantic Records. So they produced it themselves, all six bandmembers doing their best to emulate what Mardin would have had them do, with assistance from Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson.

Elvis Presley's movie soundtracks have long been notorious for being among his worst material – who can forget the legendary vinyl bootleg of '60s movie soundtrack highlights called Elvis' Greatest Shit? – but among the dreck, there were some wonderful songs, ideal for a single-disc compilation along the lines of Movies, which is one of six thematic Elvis compilations released in 2006. Unfortunately, Movies falls short of being a perfect comp of these highlights, since it misses such big songs as "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Return to Sender," and "A Little Less Conversation" (plus such enjoyable throwaways as "Bossa Nova Baby") are missing.

The various white lead guitar gods who began to garner so much critical press during the rock explosion of the late '60s owe more than a lot to Elmore James. While working as a radio repairman in the early '50s, James spent hours rewiring speakers and amplifiers so that they would deliver the kind of harsh and distorted sound he favored when he played electric guitar through them, and that act of rebuilding amps alone would have made him an unsung hero to rock guitarists everywhere a decade or so later, but James also happened to be a pretty damn good player himself, and there may well not be a more powerful and exciting sound on Earth than James' trademark "Dust My Broom" slide guitar riff, which bottled megawatts of power, energy, and passion into one swooping rush…

Lionel Richie's eighth studio album as a solo artist is led by "I Call It Love," a lightly buoyant and bittersweet single produced by Swedish hitmakers Stargate, the same team that helped boost Ne-Yo's In My Own Words. It's an ideal match, one that should've been made more than once. Too much of Coming Home is merely pleasant – particularly the adult contemporary fare, with the exception of "I Love You" – or too conscious of remaining with the times. While the likes of "Why" and "Up All Night" involved Richie's songwriting in some capacity, just about any twentysomething vocalist could be fronting them; the same goes for the Jermaine Dupri-produced "What You Are." The stab at emotionally cleansing reggae of the Bob Marley variety, "Stand Down," comes up short as well. That said, at least half the album should satisfy Richie's longtime followers.