Mutsuyuki Motomura And The Jugong Boys & Co. Neapolitan Recorder Concertos (2020)

Hits Of The Beach Boys is the compilation album released in 2002 by EMI Records. The collection featuring 10 big hits 1963-1966 by the US legends The Beach Boys.

Make no mistake, Willy & the Poor Boys is a fun record, perhaps the breeziest album CCR ever made. Apart from the eerie minor-key closer "Effigy" (one of John Fogerty's most haunting numbers), there is little of the doom that colored Green River. Fogerty's rage remains, blazing to the forefront on "Fortunate Son," a working-class protest song that cuts harder than any of the explicit Vietnam protest songs of the era, which is one of the reasons that it hasn't aged where its peers have. Also, there's that unbridled vocal from Fogerty and the ferocious playing on CCR, which both sound fresh as they did upon release. "Fortunate Son" is one of the greatest, hardest rock & rollers ever cut, so it might seem to be out of step with an album that is pretty laid-back and friendly, but there's that elemental joy that by late '69 was one of CCR's main trademarks.

The Mannish Boys lineup may change, but it is always one of the most solid bands ever put together and this incarceration is no different. Led by the Sugar Ray Rayford and Randy Chortkoff up front, with Kirk Fletcher and Frank Goldwasser as axe men, Willie J. Campbell on bass and Jimi Bott on drums, they are as solid a blues band as one can find anywhere. And then you add the likes of Candye Kane and Laura Chavez, Kim Wilson, Steve Freund, Kid Ramos, Mike Welch, Fred Kaplan and Bob Corritore (among others) and it becomes a blues extravaganza! Randy Chortkoff has steered this band and his label quite well, and this sixth CD for the ‘Boys remains centered in the blues and delivers a powerful punch. It’s stripped down some, but it works well, and maybe even better!

Hailed as "gospel titans" by Rolling Stone, the Blind Boys of Alabama defied the considerable odds stacked against them in the segregated South, working their way up from singing for pocket change to performing for three different presidents over the course of an 80-year career that saw them break down racial barriers, soundtrack the Civil Rights movement, and help redefine modern gospel music forever.

From start to finish this album defies categorical classification. It employs the best of R&B, Afro-beat, folk, and blues while remaining true to the Blind Boys' gospel roots. And with a tasteful selection of material by Tom Waits, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and Ben Harper, in addition to their usual array of traditional gospel hymns and folk tunes, it will appeal to generations of listeners. Though varied in its stylings, the album works as a whole due to the high-quality production, arrangements, and musicianship throughout.