P Richard Henrick

Sir Cliff Richard celebrates his 80th Birthday with the release of ‘Music… The Air That I Breathe’. The new album shows Sir Cliff’s amazing versatility with two newly written songs, ‘Falling For You’ and ‘PS Please’ as well as a selection of new interpretations of songs originally by Sir Cliff’s favour-ite artists including The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and The Bee Gees’ ‘Too Much Heaven’. Additionally, there are five duets with Bonnie Tyler, The Bellamy Brothers, Sheila Walsh, The Piano Guys and Albert Hammond on the track that inspired the album title The Air That I Breathe.

“[These suites] have rarely been recorded or promoted by harpsichordists during the most recent revival of interest in ‘early music.’” I realize that Richard Egarr is entitled to his own opinions—his liner notes on an earlier release, for example, likened the humor in Purcell’s harpsichord music to that of the wonderful old 1950s BBC comedy The Goon Show —but he’s not entitled to his own facts. Christopher Brodersen pointed out in a 2011 review of these works featuring Laurence Cummings ( Fanfare 34:5) that ArkivMusic listed nine complete sets played on the harpsichord, with several others on the piano. I find some of the suites have considerably more recordings than that, in 2014: 26 for the Suite in A Major, 28 for the Suite in D Minor, 25 for the Suite in E Minor, 47 for the Suite in E Major. If such numbers reflect rare recordings, I have to wonder what Egarr would consider a moderate number, let alone a frequent one.

Recorded Live At Rock City, Nottingham, November - 1986. Available for the first time on CD. Named by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the Top 20 Guitarists of All Time, Richard Thompson is also one of the world's most critically acclaimed and prolific songwriters. He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards for Songwriting on both sides of the Atlantic - from the Americana Music Association in Nashville to Britain's BBC Awards and the prestigious Ivor Novello. In 2011, Thompson was the recipient of the OBE (Order of the British Empire) personally bestowed upon him by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Most recently, the Americana Music Honors & Awards nominated him for ''Artist of the Year''.

2CD set "The Art of Fugue" is the long-anticipated 4th volume in Richard Troeger's ground breaking, world premiere series of Bach performed on the clavichord, exclusively from the Lyrichord Early Music Series. This edition features the complete Art of the Fugue, along with stunning violin transcriptions, and fantasias, including the thrilling "Chromatic Fantasia" and "Fugue." The first three volumes garnered raves reviews both here and abroad.

Thirty-two years after the fact, this live album presents a full-length version of the shows performed by Richard & Linda Thompson to promote their 1975 album Pour Down Like Silver, their third LP, following Hokey Pokey released earlier in 1975, and 1974's I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. They are accompanied by John Kirkpatrick on accordion and concertina, Dave Pegg on bass, and Dave Mattacks on drums. The recordings have not been released previously, except for "Calvary Cross" and "It'll Be Me," which were included on Richard Thompson's 1976 compilation Guitar, Vocal, but which have been remixed for this album.