Check Atkins

Tommy Emmanuel has joined forces with Rob Ickes (Dobro) & Trey Hensley (guitar) to record a digital EP called Accomplice Series Volume 1 with Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley out on May 7. Creative sparks fly on this four song EP, which radiates good vibrations with white-hot picking. It was recorded at TuneSmith Studios in Nashville, TN.

This expansive four-disc anthology essentially covers the recorded history of the guitar in the 20th century, beginning with the ragtime banjo that set the table for the role of the guitar in a jazz setting in the early 1900s, and then touching all the bases clear through to the post-postmodern possibilities of the instrument in the 21st century. Don't let the subtitle throw you, though, because Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz Guitar interprets jazz guitar in the broadest of strokes, as it includes not only pantheon jazz players like Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Les Paul, Wes Montgomery, and John McLaughlin but also provides an uncommon sweep by featuring Hawaiian stylists Roy Smeck and Sol Hoopii; Western swing aces Leon McAuliffe and Eldon Shamblin; country jazzman Hank Garland; rock virtuosos Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Jeff Beck; fusion funksters Larry Carlton, Al DiMeola, and Mike Stein; and hard to classify avant-garde players like Derek Bailey, Sonny Sharrock, James Blood Ulmer, and Marc Ribot.

Our mission at Complete 60s Records to collect every U.S. pop instrumental hit of the 1960s produced three spectacular box sets, but when we found it impossible to go forward past 1962, collectors demanded we turn back the clock to 1959, another great year for instrumentals. So now, on two jam-packed CDs, we have collected every charting U.S. pop hit from 1959 in sparkling fidelity, all 66 of them! Nearly a third of these (21) are CD debuts, tracks that appear on CD for the first time ever.Even more exciting, Complete Pop Instrumental Hits of 1959 sports EIGHT iconic 1959 songs in real STEREO for the first time. These aren't just minor hits, but the biggest hits of the year in spectacular new STEREO that will knock your socks off. Check out the sound samples available elsewhere (search for CD Title + Listen). You won't believe your ears!

Sticking to totally musical criteria, the best tracks on this collection are so good that dismissing the gunky ones is easy. There are other criteria for rating a Waylon Jennings album but, however one looks at it, Hangin' On is one of this country artist's very special productions. Some might see distinction in the fact that the brief liner notes are written by none other than the wonderful singer Skeeter Davis. Others may treasure this particular album because it really looks like ol' Waylon is lighting up a joint on the front cover.

Beaten, but still an important fact: Detroit played a huge role in the development of electronic music. The town, once a former industrial capital, will always be associated with Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson - a trio of producers, which is deservedly called the godfathers of techno. They have become part of modern mythology, a kind of idealized images, inherited the urban pantheon.