The first five studio albums of the Southern rock band's career are collected in this 2013 slipcase box – Black Oak Arkansas, Keep the Faith, If an Angel Came to See You…, High on the Hog, and Street Party. Aside from 1975's Ain't Life Grand and the live album Raunch 'N' Roll Live, these are the most essential albums…
Bill Withers: The Complete Sussex and Columbia Albums celebrates the timeless artistry of an American master. The set includes the nine albums that Bill released between 1971 through 1985…
Sounds of the Seventies was a 38-volume series issued by Time-Life during the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, spotlighting pop music of the 1970s. Much like Time-Life's other series chronicling popular music, volumes in the "Sounds of the Seventies" series covered a specific time period, including individual years in some volumes, and different parts of the decade (for instance, the early 1970s) in others; in addition, some volumes covered specific trends, such as music popular on album-oriented rock stations on the FM band. Each volume was issued on either compact disc, cassette or (with volumes issued prior to 1991) vinyl record.
The two-year interval covered in this volume of Time-Life Music's Singers & Songwriters series was one of consolidation for the many singer/songwriters who had emerged in the early '70s. Carole King followed up Tapestry, the album that established her as a performer after years as a songwriter, with Music, which spawned the hit "Sweet Seasons." James Taylor was on his second follow-up to his commercial breakthrough Sweet Baby James with One Man Dog, which produced "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight." His new wife Carly Simon released her third album, No Secrets, which gave Simon her biggest hit yet with "You're So Vain." John Denver, too, hit new sales peaks with Rocky Mountain High and its title single. And Cat Stevens had followed the success of Tea for the Tillerman with Teaser and the Firecat and its second single "Morning Has Broken." Meanwhile, several new singer/songwriters were crowding the field, among them Don McLean with the epic allegory "American Pie," America with its Neil Young sound-alike "A Horse With No Name," and Seals & Crofts with the lilting "Summer Breeze".
Despite the lag between the 1965 recording of his debut album The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier and his 1972 sophomore effort Occasional Rain, Callier was far from inactive – in addition to regularly playing on the Chicago club circuit, he also cut a series of extraordinary demos which have finally surfaced almost three decades later as First Light. In the nine studio tracks which comprise the collection – a superb 1971 solo benefit date is also included – it's possible to hear the foundations of the aesthetic perfected on his classic Cadet recordings of the mid-1970s; on early renditions of songs like "Ordinary Joe" and "Alley Wind Song," all the pieces are already in place, as the haunted soulfulness of Callier's vocals blends perfectly with waves of acoustic folk guitar and subtle jazz textures.