Helen Scott Taylor The Magic Knot

The Honeysuckle Breeze was the debut album by saxophonist Tom Scott. The California Dreams were a vocal group who contributed their singing and harmonies. Scott brought in musicians like Mike Melvoin, Carol Kaye, Max Bennett, Lincoln Mayorga, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Gordon and others to this session. Some of the same set of musicians, including Scott, would also play on Gabor Szabo's album Wind, Sky And Diamonds, also featuring The California Dreamers and also released on Impulse, also in 1967. The Honeysuckle Breeze is celebrated in hip-hop circles for Scott's cover of Jefferson Airplane's "Today", which was sampled in the celebrated song by Pete Rock & CL Smooth, "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)", but the album shows a side of Scott that he would abandon eight years later as his music retained funkiness but started to become lightweight. The Honeysuckle Breeze also features covers of The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home", Donovan's "Mellow Yellow", and The Association's "Never My Love". Scott contributes one original song to the album, "Blues For Hari".

More than 20 years after Captain Beefheart's last musical outing, the Magic Band (sans the Captain) reconvened for the 2003 All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Actually, it's a Magic Band that never was, consisting of Drumbo (John French) on drums, vocals, and harmonica; Rockette Morton (Mark Boston) on bass; and guitarists Mantis and Feelers Reebo (Gary Lucas and Denny Walley, respectively). (For the live shows, Robert Williams – another Magic Band alumnus – took over the drum chair when Drumbo had to sing and play harp.) Of course, these guys knew the material, but they don't just play the tunes, they attack them, summoning up the controlled chaos that made the original Captain Beefheart recordings such singular achievements.

The Magic Gang release their buoyant new album Death Of The Party. The album was recorded in Atlanta with the Grammy-winning producer Ben H. Allen (Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley), whose work in alternative and pop matches for band’s own blend of genres. The quartet approached the album with two objectives in mind. They aimed to broaden the scope of their harmony-rich, melodically focused pop. And inspired by Lou Reed, Alex Turner and especially Jonathan Richman they wanted to take a more observational lyrical approach. The stories they tell reflect the experiences of many of their early-twentysomething contemporaries. They explore anxieties about money, relationships and the future, but also the fun moments that they use to escape from such issues.

Beware of the Dog was Hound Dog Taylor's posthumous live album containing performances that are even steamier than his first two studio albums, if such a notion is possible. For lowdown slow blues, it's hard to beat the heartfelt closer "Freddie's Blues," and for surreal moments on wax, it's equally hard to beat the funkhouse-turned-loony bin dementia of "Let's Get Funky" or the hopped up hillbilly fever rendition of "Comin' Around the Mountain".

Expansive 13 disc (12 CDs + NTSC/Region 0 DVD) collection of solo material by Queen drummer Roger Taylor including albums from his side project The Cross. This box set celebrates his 35 years of activity outside of his `day job' in Queen…