Daba Sabiwa

At the turn of the millennium, legitimate in-print U.S. compilations of the recordings of Debbie Reynolds were in sufficiently short supply that when one appeared, however modest it might have been, one would tend to grade it on a curve…

Lou Busch was a major arranger/conductor who created an alter ego for himself in the guise of Joe 'Fingers' Carr, the ragtime and honky-tonk pianist. Lou Busch, who played piano with Hal Kemp in the '30s, re-emerged in the '50s and '60s as a ragtime revivalist. These 1960 and 1961 LPs (the latter with Ira Ironstrings) capture his finest finger work as you hear six sweet medleys plus Too Fat Polka; Stumbling, and more!

A strictly traditional flamenco record, Pepe Romero's 1987 recording Flamenco! features not only his own sterling guitar work, but also singer Chano Lobato's expressive vocals and, in an inspired touch that not enough flamenco artists have thought of, two genuine flamenco dancers, Maria Magdalena and Paco Romero. Flamenco, after all, is dance music, and as in some forms of English contra dancing, Appalachian clog dancing, and other forms of folk music, the percussive sound of the dancers' shoes (and the female dancer's traditional castanets) is intended as part of the music.