Nobuki Takamen_live in Japan_cd1

RAINBOW'S tour of Japan in March 1984 would be their final set of live shows before they disbanded in April that year with Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover joining the Deep Purple Mark II reunion. This show from the famous Budokan in Tokyo captures the band in scintillating form performing tracks from across their career including a stunning version of "Difficult To Cure" with full orchestra and other classics including "Spotlight Kid", "I Surrender", "Catch The Rainbow", "All Night Long", "Can't Happen Here" and more.

This Special Edition three-CD set features the three 1972 concert recordings from which the classic Made in Japan album was selected, remixed, and remastered. It's almost complete - a few encores and two songs from Made in Japan had to be left off, as the remaining tracks clock in at over 230 minutes. Deep Purple played almost exactly the same set each night, so there's a lot of duplication here, but they're in fantastic form throughout most of the performances. The second show, over half of which did make it onto Made in Japan, burns brilliantly and white hot from start to finish, and there are other new highlights as well, including the wailing encore "Black Night." Only you can decide if you need three 20-minute versions of "Space Truckin'," but for fans this is a valuable set - not only for comparative listening (Jon Lord never plays the intro to "Child in Time" the same way twice)…

Recorded live at Billboard Tokyo, June 18, 2018.

A member of both the Songwriters and Rock & Roll Halls of Fame, Laura Nyro not only wrote songs that became hits for acts including The 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night, Barbra Streisand, and many more, but has been cited as a major influence by Kate Bush, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, Todd Rundgren, Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Wicked), and countless others. She recorded 10 studio albums (one released posthumously), but a live performance from Nyro was always an event.

Recorded in 1971, but unreleased in the U.S. until 1999, B.B. King's Live in Japan deserves high marks for exuberance alone. Had Live in Cook County Jail not just jumped into the charts, this live album might have been released long ago. The recording opens with a swelling of enthusiastic cheers, as King launches into an uptempo "Every Day I Have the Blues." There are plenty of other classics here as well, including "How Blue Can You Get?", "Sweet Sixteen," and "The Thrill Is Gone" (which elicits another round of cheering from the opening notes). Live in Japan may not have the long-standing reputation of Cook County Jail or Live at the Regal, but it's an excellent album, with a decidedly different feel from these two classics.

Recorded over three nights in August 1972, Deep Purple's Made in Japan was the record that brought the band to headliner status in the U.S. and elsewhere, and it remains a landmark in the history of heavy metal music. Since reorganizing with singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover in 1969, Deep Purple had recorded three important albums – Deep Purple in Rock, Fireball, and Machine Head – and used the material to build a fierce live show. Made in Japan, its selections drawn from those albums, documented that show, in which songs were drawn out to ten and even nearly 20 minutes with no less intensity, as guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord soloed extensively and Gillan sang in a screech that became the envy of all metal bands to follow.

Three-time Grammy-award-winner BRIAN SETZER’s new concert Blu-ray/CD, ROCKABILLY RIOT: OSAKA ROCKA! – LIVE IN JAPAN–filmed on February 18 at Namba Hatch in Osaka, Japan–is set for release November 4, 2016 via Surfdog Records…