Lonely Avenue

Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts are a Canadian rock band, based out of Vancouver, British Columbia that formed in 1980. The band's name was taken from the title of Lou Reed's 1983 album. Bentall's first group was Brandon Wolf. With songs written by Bentall and long-time childhood friend and songwriting partner Gary Fraser, as well as McFetridge and Swain, they self-released "Excerpt from the Montmartre Letters", a 4-track 45 rpm EP in 1979. This record was followed by "Not Guilty", a 5-track EP released in 1980 on A&M Records. In 1982, Brandon Wolf recorded and released Losing Control, a 13-song LP, on their own label, Possible Worlds Records. In 1988, Bentall, Guppy, Nairne, Muir and Bowman, by then known as Barney Bentall & The Legendary Hearts, had a breakthrough when they landed a recording contract with Epic/CBS Records…

One of the great blues albums of the early '80s, Classified captures the legendary New Orleans pianist James Booker not long before his premature death at the age of 43 on November 8, 1983. Recorded in a series of sometimes problematic sessions in 1982 – producer Scott Billington details them in his terrific liner notes on the 2013 reissue of the record, which is remixed and expanded – Classified appeared just a few months before Booker's death, so it's hard not to read it as something of a final statement.

War's first album without Eric Burdon was a strange, imposing, and beautiful hybrid — a bridge between their then-current work with Burdon and their roots, going back to the early '60s and their origins as the Creators and the Nightshift. Although it was never a hit — topping out at number 190 on the charts — or yielded any substantial AM radio hits, the album is musically imposing in its sheer breadth, and its boldness, melding the new and the best of the old update, incorporating songs, arrangements, and ideas that dated well back into the prior decade, and the group's origins as the Creators and the Nightshift. From the quietly soaring 1971-vintage opener "Sun Oh Son," the music drifts back into the heavily Memphis soul-influenced "Lonely Feelin'," updated slightly but basically a rousing '60s blues-cum-gospel number that somehow ended up a failed single off the album.

Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions (2012) {3CD+DVD5 NTSC, Nonesuch 7559-79626-0}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.04 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 384 Mb
DVD5 -> 3.94 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 16:9 | English (Dolby AC3, 2 ch) | ~ 88 min | ISO Image
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 431 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2012 Nonesuch Records | 7559-79626-0
Rock / Alternative / Alternative Folk / Protest Songs

The two volumes of Mermaid Avenue, released in 1998 and 2000 and named after the New York street where legendary folk artist Woody Guthrie lived in the 1940s, were collaborations between cult American alt-country/avant-garde rockers Wilco and revered British protest singer Billy Bragg, on which they set to music previously unreleased lyrics by Guthrie. This exhaustive four-disc set features both releases together with a whole new album of previously unreleased songs and the documentary Man in the Sand, which chronicles the project.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Collectors' Edition - 39 Sad Songs (1985-87) {3CD 1996 Basta Audio Box}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 789 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 318 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 29 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1985-87, 1996 Idiot Records / Basta Audio/Visuals | 30-9037-2
Jazz / Cool Jazz / Modern Big Band / Jazz Blues

Growing out of the festival in Holland of the same name, Boulevard of Broken Dreams is a retro big band reveling in tunes from and around The Great Depression - a time of broken dreams. These folks love this music. Besides the musicianship, how else can you explain these phenomena? Even though the songs are generally sad there is a level of fun energy running through the entire set.

After the critical (and commercial) success of her debut two years earlier, Rickie Lee Jones had a lot riding on her sophomore album, Pirates. From the opening track, "We Belong Together," Jones served notice that she was willing to challenge herself and experiment with more unusual, complex song structures…