Cat Stevens Tell 'em I'm Gone

Reinvention is a much-used word in the music world. But after redefining his sound and style on 2016's hugely acclaimed Echoes Of Our Times, Shakin' Stevens wasn't content just to press repeat for his next studio project. Now, he's hit Re-Set. That's the title, and indeed the attitude, of a new album that combines extraordinarily heartfelt and meaningful lyrics with the most impassioned vocal performances he has ever summoned from himself, well over 50 years since his first recordings. If that last album set the bar high, he really has Re-Set it once again, in every sense. But Re-Set is another story, and one that Stevens can't wait to share with his hugely loyal fan base and new admirers alike.

2007 two CD set from the Popabilly crooner. Shakin' Steven's can truly claim the '80s, in chart terms, were his. Indeed he spent more time on the UK chart than any other artist during that decade, racking up no less than 27 top 30 hits of which four hit the top spot and a further seven breached the Top 5. He's sold in excess of a staggering seven million singles to date. A loyal, predominantly female fan base ensured 'Shaky's' success and it's one that puts him in with the Beatles and Elton John who can claim the same chart domination for the '60s and the '70s respectively. This selection contains all those hits as indicated and more. 37 tracks.

Gregory Groover's Criss Cross debut, recorded on the Boston born-and-bred tenor saxophonist's thirtieth birthday, is a tour de force. Joined by a bespoke sextet of his favorite players, all New York-based, Groover presents a recital of 11 original tone-parallels to family and friends, his intentions anticipated, illuminated and fulfilled by his gifted bandmates.

Was John Coprario taking credit for someone else’s work when, under his own name, he made transcriptions of more than fifty Italian madrigals for a consort of viols? Such an accusation would be based on false premises, as anything resembling copyright was unknown at the beginning of the seventeenth century and for long afterwards; the use of musical material by someone else was rather considered as a respectful examination of ideas that were so promising that one wanted to think them through further. When transcribing these Italian madrigals, Coprario was not only extending an established tradition but also transcending it. He did not simply omit the text in his madrigal fantasias as had been customary in the 16th century, but also took the polyphonic setting even further, enriching it with instrumental possibilities that voices alone could not match. He also rearranged certain parts so that the original vocal work is not always immediately recognisable. Coprario, besides being one of the first to give ensemble music an instrumental identity, was no musical parrot, but an ingenious parodist.