Those who've never heard Big Joe Williams might be genuinely surprised at just how outstanding a musician he was, being tremendously accomplished on his self-made nine-string guitar and with vocals as expressive and forceful as Muddy Waters. Beautifully remastered, this collection finds Williams' talents at their peak with a fine variation of raw country blues like "Whistling Pines" and "Kings Highway Blues," and more strongly uptempo tracks like "Somebody's Been Fooling #1" and "King Bisquit Stomp #2." None of the thirteen tracks disappoint, as this ranks among the strongest releases in the Big Joe Williams' catalogue.
Wilson was born in Austin, Texas, on November 24, 1912. He studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in the Lawrence "Speed" Webb band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, later expanded to the Benny Goodman Quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton).
Small Town Monsters, the second full-length album from The Dream Machine, is released on Run On Records/ Modern Sky. If 2022’s critically-acclaimed debut album Thank God! It’s The Dream Machine… was their first and most wild child, then Small Town Monsters is its refined younger sibling. The psychedelia, euphoric choruses, flashes of surf guitar and B-movie references are all there, amongst the familiar reflections of life in their beloved and faded seaside town of New Brighton, but this time the wilder elements are controlled, the songs packed into three-minute pocket symphonies.
Ase Kleveland releases her first album in almost 45 years. Ase Kleveland and The Salmon Smokers played for the first time at the big tribute concert for Leonard Choen in 2017, where they together rocked a packed Oslo Spektrum with a spectacular version of Choen's "First We Take Manhattan". The concert and the television recording left viewers with thoughts about what an artist we lost when Ase chose a career in cultural bureaucracy and politics.
Small Town Monsters, the second full-length album from The Dream Machine, is released on Run On Records/ Modern Sky. If 2022’s critically-acclaimed debut album Thank God! It’s The Dream Machine… was their first and most wild child, then Small Town Monsters is its refined younger sibling. The psychedelia, euphoric choruses, flashes of surf guitar and B-movie references are all there, amongst the familiar reflections of life in their beloved and faded seaside town of New Brighton, but this time the wilder elements are controlled, the songs packed into three-minute pocket symphonies.
Semiramide, based on a play by Voltaire about an ancient Assyrian queen, was Rossini's last Italian opera. Some five hours long in performance, it has always been subject to cuts from producers worried that it was a butt-breaker, but Rossini insisted that it be performed as written. He was right: its massive two acts have a logic and flow that do not flag. Despite its size and difficulty (check the hefty list of sponsors and patrons in the booklet), the opera is being revived increasingly often. The work has been called the last Baroque opera, with its tragic plot from antiquity encrusted with glittering, highly ornamented arias, and you might suppose that a performance stands or falls with the singers. This version certainly offers strong ones, including the superb pair of sopranos Albina Shagimuratova in the title role and Daniela Barcellona in the travesti or cross-dressing role of the commander Arsace.