Them forged their hard-nosed R&B sound in Belfast, Northern Ireland, moving to England in 1964 after landing a deal with Decca Records. The band's simmering sound was dominated by boiling organ riffs, lean guitars, and the tough vocals of lead singer Van Morrison, whose recordings with Them rank among the very best performances of the British Invasion…
Taking the listener on a smoother, rather than bumpier, ride down the moonlight highway of jazz is Wes Montgomery, a chief architect of the world's guitar virtuoso scene. Not only is his brilliant command of the six-string present here, so is the vivid color tones of notes and blue notes played between…
Taking the first, electric side of Bringing It All Back Home to its logical conclusion, Bob Dylan hired a full rock & roll band, featuring guitarist Michael Bloomfield, for Highway 61 Revisited…
In 1997, Blue Moon released Blues Bag/Louis Hayes, which contained two albums on one compact disc - Blues Bag, a 1965 disc originally released on Vee Jay by Buddy DeFranco), and Louis Hayes, a 1960 record also originally on Vee Jay) by Louis Hayes and his quintet.
Blues Bag (1965). For this unusual set clarinetist Buddy DeFranco is exclusively heard on bass clarinet while joined by drummer Art Blakey and an interesting group of players, some of who were with Blakey's Jazz Messengers at the time. DeFranco, Blakey, pianist Victor Feldman, and bassist Victor Sproles are featured as a quartet on four numbers while the other three songs add trombonist Curtis Fuller and either Lee Morgan or Freddie Hill on trumpet…
What Every Girl Should Know (1960). When Doris Day entered the recording studio to make her annual LP in December 1959, she was arguably at her peak as a movie star, having seen the release two months earlier of Pillow Talk, the first of the frothy comedies she would make in the late '50s and early '60s. But as a recording artist, she seemed to be in trouble. Since 1957, when both Day by Day and the soundtrack to The Pajama Game, in which she starred, made the Top Ten, she had not cracked the album charts, failing with Day by Night (1958) and Cuttin' Capers (1959). Unfortunately, What Every Girl Should Know was not the album to reverse this pattern. The concept, as expressed in Robert Wells and David Holt's 1954 title song, was the offering of advice to females, much of it, as it happened, written by men…
Guitarist Wes Montgomery had a hit with this version of "Goin' Out of My Head" but musically it is little more than a pleasant melody statement. Accompanied by a wasted all-star big band given dull arrangements by Oliver Nelson, Montgomery mostly sticks to playing themes, even those as dull as "Chim Chim Cheree" and "It Was a Very Good Year." Recordings like this one disheartened the jazz world but made him a household name and a staple on AM radio…