What more could a Hendrix fanatic searching for the ultimate live Jimi experience ask for? The 1991 box set Stages contains a total of 4 CDs, each containing one full concert from the years 1967 (in Stockholm), '68 (Paris), '69 (San Diego), and '70 (recorded in Atlanta just two months before his death). Many Hendrix fans already owned bootlegged copies of these concerts, but this was the first time that they were released officially, in crystal clear sound and with informative liner notes. The four discs are an obviously interesting musical journey, showing the rapid musical transformation of Hendrix from showman to serious virtuoso…
After a very successful period in the 60's with the pop group named after him and a much less successful intermezzo in Jazz with Chapter Three, the South-African born keyboardist Manfred Mann turned towards Rock music. In 1971 he formed Manf
The London symphonies, sometimes called the Salomon symphonies after the man who introduced London to Joseph Haydn, were composed by Joseph Haydn between 1791 and 1795. They can be categorized into two groups: Symphonies Nos. 93–98, which were composed during Haydn's first visit to London, and Symphonies Nos. 99–104, composed in Vienna and London for Haydn's second visit.
Every London Symphony, apart from one (No. 95), has a slow introduction to the first movement.
The Velvet Underground are arguably the most important American band of the second half of the '60s, but few seemed to think so at the time. The Velvets flew under the radar of public recognition through most of their career, and no one bothered to professionally record their live shows between 1966 and 1970…
If one had to point to a single initial salvo that launched the garage rock revival movement in the 1970s and ‘80s, it would have to be the release of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 in 1972. Elektra Records had approached rock critic Lenny Kaye (not yet the guitarist with the Patti Smith Group) with the notion of compiling an album of great, overlooked rock tunes, but what Kaye came up with was something significantly different – an overview of the great, wild era when American bands, goaded by the British Invasion, began honing in on a tougher and more eclectic rock & roll sound, and kids were reawakened to the possibilities of two guitars, bass, and drum…
With the exception of Joy Division's last single, Love Will Tear Us Apart, which faded out gradually into the anguished silence of singer Ian Curtis' suicide, none of the band's songs ever really ended; they either fell apart or collapsed, as if to bring about a proper end to something beyond their grasp. Joy Division couldn't stand still…
Acclaimed for his great recordings of works by Mozart and Berlioz, it is a little surprising that Sir Colin Davis is not equally hailed for his superb renditions of Schubert's symphonies, a repertoire for which this conductor's blending of Classical elegance and Romantic passion is perfectly suited. Previously released as a box set in 1996, this RCA Complete Collection reveals Davis as a masterful interpreter of Schubert's unique uses of symphonic form; and his performances have real momentum and coherence, the two qualities that hold these symphonies together. Davis' sense of trajectory is plainly evident in the first six symphonies, which adhere to Classical models and depend on forward motion and clear structures to convey the unity of their movements. But propulsion is even more critical in the more expansive frameworks of the Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished," and the Symphony No. 9, "The Great".