Fire Under The Mountain

The Hallé completes its highly regarded Ring cycle, with the live recording of its acclaimed Bridgewater Hall performance under Sir Mark Elder. Roaring jubilation and radiant beauty from Elder and the Halle. Elder is a superb Wagnerian, acutely conscious of the complex relationship between tempo and pace, and immaculate in his judgment both of the span of each act and the ebb and flow of detail within it. Thrilling climaxes alternated with moments of astonishing beauty and quiet, almost exquisite terror. (The Guardian on the Halles performance of Siegfried) The third element of Wagners Ring cycle contains humor, drama and a concluding ecstasy as the eponymous hero meets his heroine Brünnhilde, setting up the explosive finale of the concluding opera.

Charlie Poole wasn't a particularly brilliant banjo player (although his later three-finger-style picking would set the table for the advent of bluegrass banjo a couple of decades after his death), and he wasn't the world's greatest vocalist either, but he had a certain devil-may-care charisma that made him a superstar in the string band era of the 1920s. Poole's greatest talent – aside from an ability to go on long drinking sprees and to manage to be at the center of things even in his absence – was in his song adaptations, which drew from sources outside the standard Appalachian fiddle tunes and reels, including pop, ragtime, and blues. This extensive 96-track, four-disc box set from Britain's JSP Records collects the lion's share of his recordings on Columbia, Poole's label from 1925 until his death in 1931 at the age of 39. Also included are a handful of cuts Poole made under the table for Paramount (where his North Carolina Ramblers were called the Highlanders) and Brunswick (which saw the band disguised as the Allegheny Highlanders).

Though short-lived, Tempest left an interesting legacy of blues-rock that was tinged with psychedelic influences and a bit of foreshadowing the emergence of glam in the U.K. This two-disc set takes the full recordings of Tempest's lone two releases and puts them on one disc. Hard-rocking as any of their peers, Tempest also brought a jazzier side to their sound, no doubt in part to Allan Holdsworth's involvement. The second disc contains two previously unreleased tunes and the much in-demand BBC sessions that have been traded with great frequency (and of much lower quality) by collectors…

The Animals are an English rhythm and blues and rock band, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early 1960s. The band moved to London upon finding fame in 1964. The Animals were known for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon, as exemplified by their signature song and transatlantic No. 1 hit single, "House of the Rising Sun", as well as by hits such as "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", "It's My Life", "I'm Crying" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". The band balanced tough, rock-edged pop singles against rhythm and blues-orientated album material. They were known in the US as part of the British Invasion.

Hank Williams - Revealed: The Unreleased Recordings (2009) {3CD Set Time Life-Warner 24922-D rec 1951}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 552 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 362 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 17 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1951, 2009 Time Life / Time Warner | 24922-D
Country / Honky Tonk / Traditional Country

1951 was a breakthrough year for Hank Williams. He had a string of moderate country hits already under his belt, but the release that year of his version of an old jazz age novelty tune called "Lovesick Blues," originally recorded in 1922 by Elsie Clark and given a country arrangement in 1939 by Rex Griffin (the template for Williams' version), suddenly made him a big star. It also meant his touring schedule increased, but he still found time that year to slip into Nashville and prerecord shows for the Mother's Best Flour Company.

The test of time has generally proven to be an easy pass for the high-impact, fantasy obsessed and dense symphonic landscapes of Rhapsody Of Fire, though recent shifts in this Italian symphonic powerhouse’s lineup and the ascendancy of several competitors have caused some to question if this is the same mighty band that brought such classics as Symphony Of Enchanted Lands and Power Of The Dragonflame into the world…