Best Blues Ever

The best-realized of their classic albums, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour was also the last of the group's albums for almost a decade to be done under reasonably happy and satisfying circumstances – for the last time with this lineup, they went into the studio with a reasonably full song bag and a lot of ambition and brought both as far as time would allow, across close to four months (interrupted by a tour of the United States right in the middle)….

The Electric Light Orchestra's ambitious yet irresistible fusion of Beatlesque pop, classical arrangements, and futuristic iconography rocketed the group to massive commercial success throughout the 1970s…

The legendary Jimmy Mayes – one of the best Chicago Blues drummers, who played with Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Joey Dee and Jimi Hendrix and many more – signed with Wolf Records and recorded his first CD ever…

One has a tendency to think of acts like the Pretty Things in terms of their albums, primarily because most of their singles simply never charted, even in England (and many were never even heard of in the United States), and the albums have been easier to find over the decades since. Actually, it was singles that best defined what most bands were about at the point that the Pretty Things first got together, and they never stopped neglecting that category of release – hence, this three-CD set containing the product of 33 singles (66 sides) over a period of 35 years, from 1964 through 1999.

By 1928 and '29 jazz was beginning to mature and recording technology was growing up along with it. Even taking into account his remarkable accomplishments on phonograph records from 1923 through early 1928, the exciting material gathered together on this disc represents - without question - some of the very best jazz ever recorded by New Orleans/Chicago clarinet archetype Johnny Dodds. On the first 11 selections, Natty Dominique blows one tough little cornet, and Bill Johnson's bull fiddle comes across more clearly and dramatically than ever before. Throughout the 1920s, many bands relied on the tuba to provide the bassline on their recordings…