Blow Out (1981)

Renegade is the eleventh studio album by Irish band Thin Lizzy, released in 1981. Though not his first appearance, this was the first album in which keyboard player Darren Wharton was credited as a permanent member, becoming the fifth member of the line-up. Renegade was the second and final album to feature guitarist Snowy White. By his own admission, White was more suited to playing blues than heavy rock and he quit by mutual agreement the following year. Greg Prato of AllMusic claimed that Renegade is Thin Lizzy's worst album, with "blatant pop leanings and a production too similar to British heavy metal bands of the early '80s", blaming Snowy White's incompatibility with the group, Lynott's "flat vocals" and the band's drug problems. Prato named "The Pressure Will Blow", "Leave This Town" and "Hollywood (Down on Your Luck)" as the album's better songs.

Another Ticket is the seventh solo studio album by Eric Clapton. Recorded and produced by Tom Dowd at the Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas with Albert Lee, it was Clapton's last studio album for RSO Records before the label shut down in 1983 as it absorbed to Polydor Records…

Jon Arild Eberson is a Norwegian jazz guitarist and composer, son of jazz guitarist Leif Eberson, father of keyboardist Marte Maaland Eberson, and known from bands such as Moose Loose, Radka Toneff Quintet , and Blow Out. Eberson had his debut recording as a guitarist on Ketil Bjørnstad's debut album Åpning (1972). In 1980 he formed the Jon Eberson Group, supported by vocalist and lyricist Sidsel Endresen. The group attracted attention with Jive Talking (1981), which was awarded the Spellemannprisen, and City Visions (1984), but disbanded in 1986. The following year he released the Eberson Pigs and Poetry with Endresen, and he has continued to be noticed in a variety of contexts like the Jazzpunkensemblet.

Although Joel Dorn's 32 Jazz label mostly concentrates on repackaging reissues from the Muse catalog, there have been some important discoveries. This 1998 CD has a previously unreleased Sonny Stitt club appearance that took place in San Francisco's Keystone Korner in September 1981. It is a special all-star concert in which Stitt splits his time between tenor and alto and is joined by pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Herbie Lewis, drummer Billy Higgins, and (on a few numbers) vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, altoist Richie Cole, and John Handy on alto and tenor. Stitt, a master of the bebop vocabulary, was not an innovator, but he was a fiery competitor who could blow most musicians off the stand when he chose to. In this case, he had a lot of respect for Cole and Handy, but still played at his best, just in case…

Never Too Late is best remembered today as drummer John Coghlan's final album with the band he'd served since the early '60s. The bulk of the set, however, was actually cut during the same sessions that produced the previous year's Just Supposin', although it's a struggle to say which of the two came out with the better songs. Neither is what one would describe as a classic Quo disc, but nor are they as disposable as some of the band's later releases. Indeed, any record that includes the bright bonhomie of "Something 'Bout You Baby I Like," the new album's biggest hit, is sure to have a few things to recommend it.

AC/DC remained a popular concert draw throughout the '80s, although such albums as Flick of the Switch and Fly on the Wall failed to replicate their mass U.S. commercial success of 1980-1981 (Back in Black, For Those About to Rock, a reissue of Dirty Deeds). But the successful soundtrack for Stephen King's lackluster movie Maximum Overdrive, titled Who Made Who, put AC/DC back on the right track commercially…