"The Complete Bearsville Albums Collection" houses 11 Todd Rundgren studio albums inside a wonderful 13CD clamshell box. This boxset showcases the complete collection of Rundgren’s finest work released on the exceptionally cool Bearsville label; all studio albums apart from the epic double live set Back to the Bars, all solo, no Utopia LPs.
A pop savant who fastidiously avoided easy categorization throughout the course of his career, Todd Rundgren straddled the gap separating a mainstream star from a cult figure. Rundgren had plenty of hits in the 1970s and '80s, many of them becoming enduring contemporary standards, such as the Carole King pastiche "I Saw the Light," the ballads "Hello, It's Me" and "Can We Still Be Friends," plus the goofy novelty "Bang on the Drum All Day." These hits displayed his sharp commercial instincts, impulses he'd wind up subverting and tweaking on such heady '70s LPs as Something/Anything, A Wizard, A True Star, and Todd, records at the core of a discography…
Sony's 2016 Legacy edition of Everybody's in Show-Biz turns the 1972 double-LP into a double-CD set by mining the March 1972 Carnegie Hall recordings that provided the album with its live second disc. Thirteen of the 17 songs on the second CD come from these live tapes, the exceptions being the unreleased completed outtake "History" – a slightly dreamy, wry look back at the past that feels like a gateway to Preservation – the backing track to "Sophisticated Lady," and alternate mixes of "Supersonic Rocket Ship" and "Unreal Reality." These are nice footnotes, but the story lies in the live tracks, which offer more of the same from the original record.
Official 2016 remastered collection of Verve albums in replica card sleeves! Includes "Plays Count Basie", "A Jazz Portrait Of Frank Sinatra", "Jazz Soul Of Oscar Peterson", "Plays Porgy & Bess" & "West Side Story".
Probably best known as a member of the Notting Hillbillies, Brendan Croker was also a well-respected singer/songwriter and session guitarist both before and after his involvement with that band. Drawing on strong folk, blues, and country roots, Yorkshireman Croker brought a strong, Woody Guthrie-ish lyrical outlook to his musical palette, and was equally at home with Van Morrison-style blues or American country music of any era. In fact, his deep knowledge of and affection for American roots music, coupled with his fine singing and guitar playing, at one point gave rise to Croker being hailed as "the British Ry Cooder".