Forget Meo

Apollo’s Fire has won critical acclaim and enjoyed Top 10 Billboard Classical chart success with their half-dozen releases on AVIE. Returning to their baroque roots, they offer a selection of works by Handel that showcase the Apollo’s Fire chorus. The centerpiece of the album is the grand Dixit Dominus, written during the composer’s early days in Rome. In a gesture to Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee year, Sorrell has chosen two works written for the monarch’s forbearers: the “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” and “Zadok the Priest.” As a bonus, Sorrell includes “The Lord Shall Reign” from the epic Israel in Egypt.

Born in Ontario and raised near Detroit, Jack Scott was one of the most potent first-generation rockers to come out of the Midwest. If Scott's style wasn't quite rockabilly, it was somewhere in the ballpark, and on his best sides he conjured up the same swagger and menace that Link Wray made with an electric guitar. Scott's hits were few and far between, but no one who has heard "Leroy," "The Way I Walk" or "What Am I Living For" is likely to forget them anytime soon. Like many early rockers, Scott would later cut significantly more polished country and pop sides after he stopped having hits with the harder stuff, but true to its title, Jack Rocks concentrates on the cream of Scott's rock & roll sides (cut between 1957 and 1964), and it's one of the best Jack Scott collections extant…