Mike Mayers

Mike Harrison is the first solo album by Spooky Tooth principal lead singer Mike Harrison, released on Island Records in 1971.

Mike Zito is one who enjoys returning to his blues roots, playing electric guitar and ripping though songs with his sawtooth-sharp voice. Pearl River – his fifth album – is quite different than the previous effort Today, which was more rock-oriented, and focuses on not only contemporary urban tunes but a few acoustic folk-oriented ones, and the basis of all of his music, the sound of New Orleans. He's got help from guitarist Anders Osborne and keyboardist Reese Wynans from Stevie Ray Vaughan's band, and there are guest appearances from Cyril Neville, Johnny Sansone, Lynwood Slim, Randy Chortkoff (also his producer,) and Susan Cowsill (yes, she of the Cowsills fame). It's good to hear Zito dig deep into songs like the title track, Neville's pure, slow blues, the New Orleans shuffle treatment of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Eyesight to the Blind," and Mel London's rocksteady "Sugar Sweet."

Although it features the beautiful recorder of Leslie Penny and the Chieftains' Paddy Maloney playing the uilean pipe, Ommadawn didn't gain Mike Oldfield the success he was looking for. The album was released in the same year as the David Bedford-arranged Orchestral Tubular Bells and nine months after Oldfield picked up a Grammy award for the original Tubular Bells album…

Elements represents the many sides of Mike Oldfield, and is a short but interesting journey through some of this multi-instrumentalist's best efforts. Sixteen of his albums are spoken for, with the same number of tracks making up this assortment…