Big Star

With the Posies' Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow standing in with Alex Chilton, on Jody Stephens' recommendation, for the uninterested Andy Hummel and the deceased Chris Bell, the foursome run through a collection mostly drawn from #1 Record and Radio City. Chilton's in good voice throughout, the blend of sweetness and melancholia of the band's original days present and fine as ever. As a band, the quartet doesn't let the legacy down a whit, from "Don't Lie to Me" and its full passion to the bemused regret of "September Gurls." Everyone else gets at least one vocal turn as well, a nice way of signaling the group effort that went into the show. Stephens handles "Way Out West" and "For You," Auer sings Bell's solo single "I Am the Cosmos," while Stringfellow takes over on no less than three songs, "Back of a Car," "Daisy Glaze," and a smashing rip on "Feel." A few interesting surprises are thrown in along the way, though anyone familiar with Chilton's way around unexpected covers in performance won't be too taken off-guard. T. Rex's "Baby Strange" gets a straightforward take, glam sass fully intact and suiting the band perfectly, while Todd Rundgren's "Slut" closes out the set with a final appropriate blast. Not the end of the world, just a great show from a legendary group. AllMusic Review by Ned Raggett

Big Big Train are an English progressive rock band formed in Bournemouth in 1990. "The Second Brightest Star" is the last album in a cycle of releases which started back in 2009 with "The Underfall Yard" album. The band writing over this period has focused on the English landscape, the people that work on the land and their folklore stories. The band will be moving on to different landscapes and subjects in future years as the band play more shows outside of England. But the band had a few more stories left to tell and wanted to bring them together on "The Second Brightest Star".

Recorded on October 11, 1997 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C., an impressive All-Star cast of Blues musicians, including Muddy's own son Bill Morganfield, turned out to pay homage to the Legendary Muddy Waters, the King of Blues. Features special guests, John Hiatt, Peter Wolf, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Charlie Musslewhite, Robert Junior Lockwood, Big Bill Morganfield, Nick Gravenites, Mem Shannon and Phoebe Snow.

This album features Lionel Hampton's first concert at the Newport Jazz Festival and overall is quite exciting. Hampton gathered together an all-star alumni band that, in addition to trombonist Al Grey, Frank Foster on tenor and a couple of appearances by pianist Milt Buckner, boasts the extraordinary trumpet section of Snooky Young, Jimmy Nottingham, Joe Newman and Wallace Davenport. The climax is provided on Hamp's perennial "Flying Home" which finds Illinois Jacquet reprising and then extending his famous solo.