Claude Steel

Six weeks before the Allman Brothers Band played the shows immortalized on At Fillmore East, they played three gigs at Bill Graham's left coast venue, the Fillmore West, in San Francisco in January of 1971. They were slotted between openers the Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band and Hot Tuna. These three shows are presented in their entirety in a four-disc set. Sourced from original two-track, reel-to-reel soundboard masters, they were held in ABB crew members Twiggs Lyndon's, Joe Dan Petty's, and Mike Callahan's closets for nearly five decades. They were then acquired by archivist Kirk West, who set the painstaking restoration process in motion. The quality here, while very good throughout, is muddy in some spots (mostly on disc two). In addition to the complete shows, West added a 45-minute "Mountain Jam" from March of 1970 at the Warehouse in New Orleans to disc four to fill it out.

Banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck has certainly broken more boundaries than any other picker in recent memory, from his early days performing bluegrass-inspired folk compositions on Rounder in the late '70s to his quirky jazz freak-outs with the Flecktones throughout the '90s. In late 2001, this peculiar innovator released an album of banjo interpretations of classical works by Bach, Chopin, and Scarlatti. Before classical purists roll their eyes, they must remember that the banjo hasn't always been seen as the instrument of choice of backwoods musicians in the Appalachian mountains, but as recently as the 1940s was used as a primary rhythm instrument in all manner of parlor music.

The foremost virtuoso of the sarod in modern times, Ali Akbar Khan was instrumental in popularizing Indian classical music in the west. This Rough Guide showcases his sublime talent and intuitive command of melody and rhythm which led violin legend Yehudi Menuhin to dub him 'the greatest musician in the world'.