Exhibit From July 2016

Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and The Nashville Cats - A New Music City (2015) {2CD Set Legacy 88875066552}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 728 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 275 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 59 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2015 Legacy / Sony Music | 88875066552
Country / Country-Rock / Folk Rock / Blues Rock / Progressive Country

A companion to the 2015-2016 Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit of the same name, Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City is a double-disc history of the moment when country met rock – or when rock met country, as the case might be. In this particular reading of country-rock history, the movement begins in 1966, when Bob Dylan headed down to Nashville to cut Blonde on Blonde with a crew of the city's renowned studio musicians. Prior to that, country could be heard in rock & roll mainly through rockabilly, a music that functions as prehistory on this collection, present through the presence of Sun veteran Johnny Cash but not much else.

Once again combining softened elegance with his gentlemanly approach to the simple love song, Chris de Burgh remains true to form on Quiet Revolution with polished ballads and morning-friendly, mid-tempo material. de Burgh's style hasn't strayed since "The Lady in Red" peaked at number three in 1987, and from that point on he has tried to emulate the same success with his romantic formula of ballroom-type love songs and delicate lyrics. Although Quiet Revolution offers up a handful of these, some of the other tracks exhibit punchy melodies that still display de Burgh's heartfelt voice.

This program offers three lively, colorful, and captivating orchestral works by two United States composers, born almost a century apart. These pieces exhibit the fruitful exchange and flow of musical material between North and South America that has long played a role in popular music, apparent not only in commercial song and dance music using Latin American melodies and rhythms but also in early jazz and blues where tango rhythms are so often heard, as in W. C. Handy's St. Louis Blues. And both Gottschalk in the 1850s, close to the beginning of a creative American musical tradition, and Gould in the 1950s, when such a tradition had flowered considerably, show a combination of seriousness of approach with a popular touch.

Apart from his popular Canciones negras, written more than half a century ago, the compositions of the now 87-year-old Montsalvatge (in 1999) have made little impact on the musical public in general: many of his works remain unrecorded – the opera Puss in Boots, the Indian Quartet, the five Invocaciones al Crucificado and the virtuoso Harpsichord Concerto, to name only four. But there are two Montsalvatges – one with a more traditional manner, and a later more trenchant, experimental and individual. From his earlier period comes the Sinfonia Mediterranea, composed three years after the Canciones negras; its lack of fashionable ‘modernity’ tempted him at one time to consider rejecting it completely. I’m glad he didn’t, for it’s an attractive (if slightly overlong), warmly romantic work that includes melodies of a popular cast.