Happy Birthday

The Dutch National Opera presents this World Premiere Recording of the opera 'Waiting for Miss Monroe' by leading Dutch composer Robin de Raaff. Star soprano Laura Aikin performs as the main protagonist in the role of Marylin Monroe, backed by the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Steven Sloane.

Wanda Lavonne Jackson is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist who had success in the mid-1950s and 1960s as one of the first popular female rockabilly singers and a pioneering rock-and-roll artist. She is known to many as the "Queen of Rockabilly" or the "First Lady of Rockabilly". Jackson mixed country music with fast-moving rockabilly, often recording them on opposite sides of a record. As rockabilly declined in popularity in the mid-1960s, she moved to a successful career in mainstream country music with a string of hits between 1966 and 1973, including "Tears Will Be the Chaser for Your Wine", "A Woman Lives for Love" and "Fancy Satin Pillows".

Here comes Wynton Marsalis with a whopping seven CDs culled from septet performances at the Vanguard from 1990 through 1994. The music is cleverly presented: Each disc represents a different night of the week, starting on Monday and wrapping up with Sunday…

In honor of what would have been John Lennon’s 75th birthday, Blackbird Presents and AMC brings you Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert, an all-star concert event celebrating the music and message of the legendary music icon. Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert features captivating performances, in-depth interviews, and compelling behind-the-scenes action with Aloe Blacc, Eric Church, Sheryl Crow, Brandon Flowers, John Fogerty, Peter Frampton, Juanes, Kris Kristofferson, Pat Monahan, Tom Morello, Willie Nelson, The Roots, Spoon, Chris Stapleton and Steven Tyler.

This final instalment of the organ compositions of Axel Ruoff (born in Stuttgart in 1957) presents two starkly contrasted sides of his musical personality: three of them, for voice and organ, are concerned with the spiritual – two even addressing head-on the issue of death itself – and are thus solemn and hieratic, whereas the concluding work is a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek set of variations on ‘Happy Birthday’, written as a present for Ruoff’s publisher on his 80th birthday.

André Rieu, the King of Waltz, and one of the most famous violinists of our time, will celebrate his 70th birthday in October this year. Universal is creating a unique and first-time catalogue release to tie in with the festive occasion. It will be 2CDs with all his greatest hits, waltzes, operas, musical and movie themes, 20th century defining songs and the song “Happy Birthday” (previously only released (physically) in Australia). A perfect collection and a rare Best Of for this occasion.

This 25-song compilation doesn't contain exact recording dates, but it can be safely assumed that most or all of this was cut between 1947-1951; about half appeared on singles from that period, while some showed up on a 1963 Crown album (although they were obviously done much earlier), and others weren't released until Ace LP collections in the 1980s. (There's also a previously unissued "Happy Birthday," cut for Modern's Jules Bihari's birthday.) Regardless of the specifics, it's early jump blues from the stage at which it was in transition from jazz to R&B, leaning in some cases closer to jazz than R&B. That may be why Phillips was pretty much a forgotten case by the mid-'50s…