Old 2021

Jesus Christ Superstar started life as a most improbable concept album from an equally unlikely label, Decca Records, which had not, until then, been widely known for groundbreaking musical efforts. It was all devised by then 21-year-old composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and 25-year-old lyricist Tim Rice. Jesus Christ Superstar had been conceived as a stage work, but lacking the funds to get it produced, the two collaborators instead decided to use an album as the vehicle for introducing the piece, a fairly radical rock/theater hybrid about the final days in the life of Jesus as seen from the point of view of Judas. If its content seemed daring (and perhaps downright sacrilegious), the work, a "sung-through" musical echoing operatic and oratorio traditions, was structurally perfect for an album; just as remarkable as its subject matter was the fact that its musical language was full-blown rock music.

Following the end of the Stormwatch tour in early 1980, Jethro Tull would undergo its largest line-up shuffle to date, resulting in Barriemore Barlow, John Evan and Dee Palmer all leaving the band. Jethro Tull was left with Anderson (the only original member), Martin Barre and Dave Pegg.

Nils Frahm releases a new double album, Old Friends New Friends, released by Leiter, the label he set up with his manager, Felix Grimm. The collection gathers together 23 solo piano tracks recorded between 2009 and 2021, almost all hitherto unreleased but, for one reason or another, omitted from previous albums and projects. Neither quite a new LP nor exactly a compilation, it offers “an anatomy of all my ways of thinking musically and playing,” Frahm says, adding with a smile, “Maybe I could say it’s an album I worked on for twelve years, and finally I have enough material?”

The breadth and scope of Willie Nelson's career is staggering. He first established himself as part of a new generation of progressive country songwriters in the early '60s. Here are the obscure and rarely heard demo recordings he made prior to signing to Liberty and before RCA. All of these recordings are both musically and historically significant. Includes "Man With The Blues," "Misery," "Undo The Right," "One Step Beyond," "Any Old Arms Won't Do," "Blame It On The Times," "The End Of Understanding," "Slow Down Old World," "A New Way To Die," "Home Motel," "Right From Wrong," "Slow Down Old World," "Happiness Lives Next Door," "I Feel Sorry For Him," "Where My House Lives," and more.