Caught In The Rain

Le prince ne sera donc jamais devenu roi. L’artiste à la créativité sans limite s’en est allé le 21 avril 2016, dans son studio de Paisley Park. Le Kid de Minneapolis laisse derrière lui un lourd héritage de 39 albums studio, 7 Grammy Awards, un Oscar pour meilleure musique de film avec Purple Rain…

This seven-CD collection exhaustively documents Columbia Records' first attempt at niche marketing with the Piano Moods series. Born out an impromptu marketing plan by a small Columbia Records staff in 1950, the Piano Moods series was hatched from the marketing discovery that there were more pianos than phonographs (that's record players for all you kids who don't remember vinyl LPs) in the homes of postwar America. The 12" LP had been launched a scant two years before and few titles were available. The Piano Moods series linked 20 albums of the same general type, all of them produced and sequenced by George Avakian, who had created the jazz and pop catalog on LP for Columbia beginning in 1948 – though they were originally released 33 rpm 10" discs to keep the folks with all those 10" 78 rpm discs happy when it came to storage. The sides were cut – usually – with no spirals (spaces) between tunes, giving the side a longer feel than its 17 minutes because the music was continuous. Most pianists preset their sequences and prepared introductions of the key of the preceding tune that modulated into the key of the next one.

Grammy-nominated artist Seth MacFarlane's love affair with standards continues with his fourth album, „In Full Swing“.

SoulMusic Records' top-tier stewardship of Dionne Warwick's catalog continues with Sure Thing: The Warner Bros. Recordings 1972-1977, a six-disc package that neatly fits beside the label's likewise comprehensive Déjà Vu: The Arista Recordings 1979-1994. Warwick was positioned for success with Warner. With seven masterly Top Ten pop hits spanning seven years to her credit, the singer had left Scepter Records to sign what Variety reported in 1971 as the most lucrative recording contract signed by a female artist. Warner rolled out the proverbial red carpet. Despite the involvement of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the songwriting/production team behind all of those Scepter smashes, 1972's Dionne got the era off to a slow start. A bad omen of sorts was that its one charting single was neither produced nor written by Warwick's then-seemingly inseparable partners (who soon split).

Grammy-nominated artist Seth MacFarlane's love affair with standards continues with his fourth album, In Full Swing, set for release on September 15 on Verve Label Group / Republic Records.