Joe Jackson Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive 1981

Ever since Joe Jackson's debut album, Look Sharp, yielded his first single in "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" in July of 1979, which peaked at number 21 on Billboard (the album hit number 20), his career has seen him investigate a multitude of musical styles with clean-cut charm and poise. Jackson has dabbled in everything from reggae, disco, and soul to power pop, jazz, and even big band. Stepping Out covers 15 of his biggest singles, including his highest chart-topper, "Stepping Out," which hit number six on Billboard's Top 40, from the suave sounding Night and Day album. The downhearted appeal of "Breaking Us in Two" appears here as well, along with the salsa- flavored "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)," which reached number 15 and was the strongest track from 1984's Body and Soul album. Outside of his chart appearances, the rest of this hits collection holds up well. Jackson's voice is heard in wispy detail on "Fools in Love," while his humor and wit explode on "I'm the Man" from the album of the same name. The live release entitled Big World from 1986 is spoken for with both "Right and Wrong" and the candid allure of "Hometown."

As the 70s drew to a close, the roots and dub sounds that had dominated the Jamaican music scene for much of the decade gave way to dancehall, a style that continued to find favour with reggae fans until the onset of the digital revolution of the mid-1980s. Aimed squarely at satisfying the demands of live audiences, songwriters largely abandoned the conscious lyrics that had typified the music of the preceding years, focusing instead on subjects which with their Jamaican audiences could readily identify.

Two of the most masterful crafters of sophisticated art rock united on stage for a series of special live engagements in 2005, Joe Jackson and Todd Rundgren.

Joe Vitale is an American singer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, most known for his close work with Joe Walsh. On his first solo album, "Roller Coaster Weekend" (1974), he's responsible for most of the music, playing everything from drums and keyboards to flute and tympani. Filling out the other slots is a mini-guitar army of Rick Derringer, Joe Walsh, and Phil Keaggy. Yet, despite such luminaries, it's not a guitar show-off album. Rather, it's a song-oriented album, and the three guitarists always work in service to the songs.
"Plantation Harbor" (1981) is a dated sounding, but decent, collection of light and airy late 1970s/early 1980s rock. Long-time musical partner Joe Walsh guests on the album, as do a bevy of other similarly styled musicians, including Timothy B. Schmidt, Don Felder, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash.

1982 will forever be known as the year that the punks got class – or at least when Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello, rivals for the title of Britain's reigning Angry Young Man – decided that they were not just rockers, but really songwriters in the Tin Pan Alley tradition. (Graham Parker, fellow angry Brit, sat this battle out, choosing to work with Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas instead.) Both had been genre-hopping prior to 1982, but Jackson's Night and Day and Costello's Imperial Bedroom announced to the world that both were "serious songwriters," standing far apart from the clamoring punkers and silly new wavers. In retrospect, the ambitions of these two 27-year-olds (both born in August 1954, just two weeks apart) seem a little grandiose, and if Imperial Bedroom didn't live up to its masterpiece marketing campaign (stalling at number 30 on the charts without generating a hit), it has garnered a stronger reputation than Night and Day, which was a much more popular album, climbing all the way to number four on the U.S. charts, thanks to the Top Ten single "Steppin' Out".

Joe Walsh's long and varied career has had its ups and downs, to say the least. Here, you see Walsh in good old rock form. The opening track, "Things," pretty much defines it all: drum beat intro, a simple riff kicks in, a few synths, and then Walsh's lead - it's this simple formula that gives the album its charm. This is early '80s rock in its most entertaining and fun form. Walsh's lead guitar is, as always, breathtaking. The rock legend's trademark sound is prominently featured throughout the album, and undoubtedly here he performs some of his finest solos. The only qualm that one can pick is that the whole album is in a much-similar vein. This is classic rock, though: once you start, you want more. There Goes the Neighborhood is by far one of Joe Walsh's greatest works, particularly from this era. Indeed, after the three-year absence in solo releases, Walsh proved himself ready and able to adapt to the sound of the time with shocking ability.

Body and Soul has Joe Jackson playing both hot- and cool-styled jazz songs, getting some worthy help from producer David Kershenbaum, who also lent Jackson a hand on his I'm the Man album. This is Jackson at his smoothest, from the fragility of "Not Here Not Now" to the earnestness of "Be My Number Two." While both this song and "Happy Ending" charted fairly low in the U.K., the explosive "You Can't Get What You Want" went to number 15 in the United States, thanks to the brilliant horn work and colorful jazz-pop mingling of all the other instruments, not to mention Jackson's suave singing.