Copperhead Copperhead {acadia+sony Aca 8005} (1973)

With Billion Dollar Babies, Alice Cooper refined the raw grit of their earlier work in favor of a slightly more polished sound (courtesy of super-producer Bob Ezrin), resulting in a mega-hit album that reached the top of the U.S. album charts. Song for song, Billion Dollar Babies is probably the original Alice Cooper group's finest and strongest. Such tracks as "Hello Hooray," the lethal stomp of the title track, the defiant "Elected" (a rewrite of an earlier song, "Reflected"), and the poison-laced pop candy of "No More Mr. Nice Guy" remain among Cooper's greatest achievements. Also included are a pair of perennial concert standards – the disturbing necrophilia ditty "I Love the Dead" and the chilling macabre of "Sick Things" – as well as such strong, lesser-known selections as "Raped and Freezin'," "Unfinished Sweet," and perhaps Cooper's most overlooked gem, "Generation Landslide."

Recorded in the same year as the Brothers and Sisters album, this solo debut release is a beautiful amalgam of R&B, folk, and gospel sounds, with the best singing on any of Gregg Allman's solo releases. He covers his own "Midnight Rider" in a more mournful, dirge-like manner, and Jackson Browne's "These Days" gets its most touching and tragic-sounding rendition as well. Although Chuck Leavell and Jaimoe are here, there's very little that sounds like the Allman Brothers Band – prominent guitars, apart from a few licks by Tommy Talton (Cowboy, ex-We the People), are overlooked in favor of gospel-tinged organ and choruses behind Allman's soulful singing.

From 1972 and 1973, two albums originally released on the CBS/Columbia record label.
"Let My Children Hear Music" features seven original Mingus compositions.
"Charles Mingus And Friends In Concert", originally a double LP set, features a star-studded selection of sidesmen including Gerry Mulligan, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Konitz amongst others.
Digitally remastered and slipcased, and with extensive new notes.

Recorded live in December 1972 and released the following year, Space Ritual is an excellent document featuring Hawkwind's classic lineup, adding depth and weight to the already irrefutable proof that the group's status as space rock pioneers was well warranted. As the quintessential "people's band," Hawkwind carried '60s countercultural idealism into the '70s, gigging wherever there was an audience. The band's multimedia performances were a perfect accompaniment for inner space exploration and outer space imagination. Though not concerned with rock's material trappings, Hawkwind was among the hardest-working groups in Britain, averaging a show every three days during the year preceding the recordings…