Sacd

An adult contemporary pop super duo, Airplay was a one-off project featuring the combined talents of noted session players/producers David Foster and Jay Graydon. They released a sole 1980 album, Airplay, which showcased their laid-back brand of West Coast pop/rock in the vein of Toto and Chicago. Guitarist Jay Graydon and keyboardist David Foster were both already West Coast studio pros with deep credits by the time they recorded their polished 1980 album Airplay. Prior to this, they worked with an impressive array of artists from across the pop and R&B spectrum, including Boz Scaggs, Barbra Streisand, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, and others. Graydon famously beat out both Larry Carlton and Robben Ford to play the guitar solo on Steely Dan's 1977 hit "Peg."

Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell sounded unlike any other modern rock record when it was released in 1977 on Cleveland International/Epic Records. The result of a collaboration between composer Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf, and producer Todd Rundgren, Bat Out of Hell at first was met with rejection by almost every record label and struggled to find an audience. That rejection however, was short-lived. Eventually selling over 43 million copies worldwide and certified platinum 14 times over, Bat Out Of Hell stands as one of the most successful records of all time. Ranked number 343 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, it has spent a total of 485 weeks in the UK charts as of May 2015. Rundgren’s bombastic production comes alive on Analog Spark's limited edition hybrid SACD, remastered from the original stereo tapes by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound and housed in a Stoughton old style tip-on sleeve.

When he recorded this album, his lone date as a leader, trumpeter Tommy Turrentine (who was a member of Max Roach's group along with his brother, the soon-to-be famous tenor Stanley Turrentine) seemed to have a potentially great future. Unfortunately, ill health would eventually force his retirement. Turrentine's set for Time (which has been reissued on CD by Bainbridge) actually features the musicians of Roach's quintet (including brother Stanley, trombonist Julian Priester, bassist Bob Boswell, and Roach himself) plus pianist Horace Parlan. The trumpeter contributed five of the seven songs (which are joined by Horace Parlan's "Blues for J.P." and Bud Powell's "Webb City") on this fine straight-ahead hard bop set. All of the musicians play up to par and the results are swinging and fit securely into the modern mainstream of the time.

An adult contemporary pop super duo, Airplay was a one-off project featuring the combined talents of noted session players/producers David Foster and Jay Graydon. They released a sole 1980 album, Airplay, which showcased their laid-back brand of West Coast pop/rock in the vein of Toto and Chicago. Guitarist Jay Graydon and keyboardist David Foster were both already West Coast studio pros with deep credits by the time they recorded their polished 1980 album Airplay. Prior to this, they worked with an impressive array of artists from across the pop and R&B spectrum, including Boz Scaggs, Barbra Streisand, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, and others. Graydon famously beat out both Larry Carlton and Robben Ford to play the guitar solo on Steely Dan's 1977 hit "Peg."

Whether in its original serial form in the 1940s, in the low-budget films of the 1950s, in the television series of the 1960s, or even in the overgrown re-imaginings for blockbuster movies in the 1970s and beyond, the science-fiction genre on film (and videotape) has always had something cheesy about it, and that is part of its appeal. Even when the technical wizards at director George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic are dreaming up the next Star Wars movie, there is, at heart, a sense of the earliest, silliest versions of the genre still present.

Struttin' Our Stuff, Bill Wyman's first album in nearly 15 years, is a surprisingly successful collection of blues and rock & roll. These performances are surprisingly energetic, even if they're a little too polished to accurately capture the gritty, roadside vibe they're trying to achieve. Nevertheless, there are a number of fine moments here, from covers of "Green River," "Tobacco Road" and "Mystery Train" to guest appearences from Eric Clapton, Albert Lee, Peter Frampton and Georgie Fame.