Grow Your Own From February 2016

Less than four months after issuing the landmark and autobiographical Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John re-emerged with a new band and a slightly modified sound. However, the departure of bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson began a deceleration in terms of John's success, which rivalled only the Beatles' and Elvis Presley's in terms of global acclaim. The revamped band grew to include new associates James Newton Howard on keyboards and Kenny Passarelli on bass as well as drummer Roger Pope and guitarist Caleb Quaye, who had both performed with John as far back as his first long-player…

Disco may have been a dirty word as the 70's came to a close but during the 80's its influence on much of this selection helped create some of the greatest dance music recorded. As a poet and philsopher once said, 'Lets Groove Tonight'…..

The Athens, Georgia quintet Widespread Panic deserves the name Jam Band probably more than any of their fellow piers (Minus The Grateful Dead of course). They have toured non stop for practically eight-teen years. They have gotten through line up changes, tour cancelations, album flops, unpopularity and even death…

As a songwriter and performer, Willie Nelson played a vital role in post-rock & roll country music. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, Nelson spent the '60s writing songs that became hits for stars like Ray Price ("Night Life"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"), and Billy Walker ("Funny How Time Slips Away"), as well as releasing a series of records on Liberty and RCA that earned him a small but devoted cult following.

Kellen Wenrich was five-years-old when he first picked up the violin as his instrument of choice. Since those early formative moments, he's found international acclaim as an integral part of Apache Relay. Though that band has since dissolved, Wenrich's musical journey continues with a project of his own, Kellen of Troy. His debut full-length, Posthumous Release, is coming out on 16 February.

I Trawl the Megahertz, Paddy McAloon's first solo album, is as likely to perplex and infuriate as it is likely to stun and spellbind. Grand, heavily orchestrated, predominantly instrumental, and not the type of thing you put on prior to going out or when you're in the mood for cleaning the house, the record is incredibly powerful – almost too powerful – even when held up against everything from Prefab Sprout's past. The most significant song is the opener; 22 minutes in length, it's nearly elegiac in it its mournful tones played out by a swaying string arrangement and a weeping trumpet. Throughout its duration, Yvonne Connors speaks matter-of-factly – yet dramatically enough to be poignant – as she rifles through fragments of her memory, the most disarming of which reads like this: "I said, 'Your daddy loves you very much; he just doesn't want to live with us anymore.'"