Joe Cocker The Best Of Joe Cocker (1993) Repost

Although Cocker's Capitol material wasn't as consistent as his A&M work, this compilation successfully distills the highlights, including the splendid "When the Night Comes," onto a single CD.

The Life Of A Man, brings together the hits of Joe Cocker into the first comprehensive hits collection for 12 years, and the first package ever to cover his entire career from 1968 to his untimely passing in 2014. Cocker was raised on blues and grew up in Sheffield inspired by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Lightnin’ Hopkins. These influences are evident in Cocker’s idiosyncratic style of vocals which adds a rough edge to the most delicate of melodies. Cocker began making a name for himself in the UK initially, with his prolific and powerful voice lending itself tastefully to love songs which lyrically juxtaposed with his gruff voice. This stunning collection features the international hit, With A Little Help From My Friends and the Grammy Award winning smash duet, Up Where We Belong.

Being the prolific jazz musician that he is, Joe Pass has a musical collection that is vast and diverse. It can thus be hard to find an appropriate sampling of his repertoire that is both fulfilling and indicitive of his range as one of the "jazz greats." This CD is one such sampling. It is an essential collection of some of Pass's best works, and provides both a new and seasoned listener of Joe Pass and jazz music in general with a treat for the ears. For those bored with the "smooth" or trendy genre jazz formats that tend to dominate the airwaves these days, "The Best of Joe Pass" is a set of classics that sound amazingly fresh and new.

For those looking to find a crash course in "the funk" – a quick introduction to the fusion of R&B, soul, jazz, blues, good old rock & roll, and all-out outrageousness that creates the ultimate good groove – you can't do much better than the Funk Essentials compilations. Funky Stuff: The Best of Funk Essentials is the perfect portrait. With its contents drawn from the single-band Funk Essentials compilation albums, this clean, clear set provides incredible diversity while keeping the vibe connected. In other words, Funky Stuff is not only an introduction to the heaviest of hitters, but also a nifty, smooth ride for the already initiated.

The Gang's classic Funk #49 plus Take a Look Around; Tend My Garden; Collage; Ashes, the Rain and I; Walk Away; Midnight Man; Mother Says; Rocky Mountain Way; Meadows; Turn to Stone, and more. 18 tracks!

American expatriate Joe Dassin was one of France's most popular singers during the late '60s and '70s, initially building his name with stylized adaptations of folk and country material from his birthplace. As his career blossomed, Dassin turned increasingly to traditional-style chansons penned by some of the genre's best writers, scoring an all-time classic with his 1975 smash "L'Eté Indien." Notorious for his perfectionism, Dassin could play the introverted romantic, but his persona also played off of American archetypes and imagery. His premature death of a heart attack in 1980 robbed French pop of one of its greatest modern-day practitioners.

Drawing heavily on her early-'80s peak, when she spent nine weeks at number one with "Bette Davis Eyes," Gypsy Honeymoon: The Best of Kim Carnes may not be a definitive collection, but it nevertheless is a first-rate one, containing the majority of her best-known songs. There's "Bette Davis Eyes," plus "Don't Fall in Love With a Dreamer," "More Love," "Mistaken Identity," and "Crazy in the Night (Barking at Airplanes)." While "Draw of the Cards" and "Voyeur" should have been here, this still winds up being a fairly satisfying collection for most casual fans.