Sheffield Lab

Direct is Tower Of Power's contribution to the Sheffield Lab discography. This was released in 1981, featuring updated versions of some of their classics. The original Tower of power horns, Chester Thompson, along with some new players and singers, play with high proficiency. Two of the songs "squid cakes" and "what is hip" are from the Tower of power catalog and they make a great showing on this album.Direct is Tower Of Power's contribution to the Sheffield Lab discography. This was released in 1981, featuring updated versions of some of their classics. The original Tower of power horns, Chester Thompson, along with some new players and singers, play with high proficiency. Two of the songs "squid cakes" and "what is hip" are from the Tower of power catalog and they make a great showing on this album.

Two stars together: Jonh Wetton (King Crimson, UK, Asia, etc.) and Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), in this interesting work!

After his one-album stint at Asylum Records with Luxury You Can Afford in 1978, Joe Cocker was without a record label until 1981, when he signed to Island Records. Island head Chris Blackwell took him to the Compass Point studios in the Bahamas, where he recorded a 12" single, "Sweet Little Woman"/"Look What You've Done," released in May 1981, then continued working on a full-length album. When that album, Sheffield Steel, appeared a year later, listeners could be forgiven for imagining, during the instrumental portions, that they were hearing not a Joe Cocker disc, but rather a Robert Palmer record. The instrumentalists were the Compass Point All-Stars, led by drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare, and including keyboard player Wally Badarou and guitarist Barry Reynolds, and they maintained a steady tropical groove on most tracks that strongly recalled their work on Palmer's series of albums…

Although Crosby, Stills & Nash had, in effect, been together for well over a decade when Daylight Again (1982) was issued, it was only their third studio long-player of concurrently new material.

Following the success of Michael Hedges' Grammy-nominated Aerial Boundaries, the guitarist took on a new challenge and released Watching My Life Go By, his first recording to feature the musician taking on vocal as well as instrumental duties.