Accept Balls To The Wall (1983) (1990, Rca, ND 74472)

In addition to their still ongoing successful "Back To The Roots" Tour, DIRKSCHNEIDER released "LIVE - Back To The Roots - Accepted!" on August 4th (EU) / August 18th (USA) as DVD/2CD, BluRay/2CD and Gtf. Triple Vinyl in two different colors. After putting out the live double CD last year, fans were asking for a visual output, so finally, in December 2016, the show in Brno (Czech Republic) was recorded for that purpose. Besides many classics from Udo Dirkscheider's Accept era, there's a cover version of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as bonus track on the CD and Vinyl. The singer with the charismatic voice had his musical breakthrough with ACCEPT in the early 80s. "It's still so much fun to sing these songs live, they are a part of my biography, but nevertheless it's about time to turn that page. There was so much talking and speculations about me and ACCEPT, so this is kind of a musical statement from my end - which seems to be very interesting for the fans who came to these shows."

A posthumous collection produced by Rita Marley, based on work left behind by Bob upon his death. Some of his best post-Wailers work is here, with songs like "Buffalo Soldier," "Chant Down Babylon," and "Blackman Redemption." Given that he wasn't alive to do the production that he usually helped in, this album seems remarkably true to the general vision of Bob Marley's albums…

A t this stage, the "show" was relegated to a continental cult of listeners whose musical tastes belonged to a bygone era. And it was for them that BJH continued to release fresh works every year or so, covering familiar ground while availing themselves of what new bells and whistles they could lay their hands on. "Welcome To The Show" sounds modern by BARCLAY's outmoded standards, suggesting any number of artists whose prog sensibilities had long since succumbed to the allure of well-crafted albeit timid pop music (e.g., Mike + The Mechanics)…

The Overlanders were a highly underrated group whose history took them from the prime years of the British Invasion into the Summer of Love – their one U.K. hit – a chart-topping British single of the Lennon-McCartney song "Michelle" – usually gets them pegged as a cover band, while their origins as a folk group specializing in harmony vocals often gets them lumped in with Silkie, the Ivy League, and other vocal ensembles. And their being put into Castle Records' sunshine pop series Ripples also gives the group a slightly lighter-weight veneer than they deserve. Their actual sound was a beautifully wrought synthesis of folk-inspired vocals and Merseybeat-style harmonies, rhythms, and instrumentation – they were comparable, in some ways, to the Searchers, with whom (not coincidentally) they shared the same producer, Tony Hatch.