Big Twist & The Mellow Fellows Big Twist & The Mellow Fellows (1980)

Martin Allbritton, a melismatic and undeniably more powerful vocalist than the finesse-oriented Twist, proves an eminently worthy successor to the beloved big man on this highly enjoyable effort. Barge also pitches in with a few lead vocals as the group attacks a handful of joyous originals ("We'll Be Friends," "Street Party," "Broad Daylight") and storming R&B classics by Sam & Dave and Harold Burrage.

Various Artists - The Gone Story (1999) {2CD Set, Westside Records WESD206 rec 1957-1964}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 796 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 371 Mb
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© 1957-64, 1999 Gone Recordings / Westside Records | WESD 206
Rhythm & Blues / Doo Wop / Oldies / Blues / Soul / Rock 'n' Roll

George Goldner Presents The Gone Story: Doo-Wop to Soul 1957-1963 contains 65 songs representing a dead-perfect cross-section of the singles output of one of New York's great R&B labels of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The opening cut, the Dubs' slow, romantic "Don't Ask Me (To Be Lonely)," shows just how far George Goldner's conception of rhythm & blues had come in the four years since he'd founded Rama Records in 1953. Gone Records, starting in 1957, featured a more sophisticated output, oriented toward elegant, impassioned ballads rather than the dance numbers that had gone over so big in the mid-'50s.

The Road and the Radio arrives at the end of a busy 2005 for Kenny Chesney. As the year opened, he followed up his 2004 blockbuster When the Sun Goes Down with the mellow Be as You Are. A few months later, he married movie star Renee Zellweger, and four months after that, she filed for divorce. Two months after that, Chesney returned with The Road and the Radio, the big, splashy proper follow-up to When the Sun Goes Down. Given such a tight, hectic schedule, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that The Road and the Radio sounds rushed, as if Chesney didn't have the chance to properly decide the right course for this album.