The Best of Danny Proulx's Storage And Shelving

The Sons of Champlin released three albums on Capitol Records between 1969 and 1971 (Loosen Up Naturally, The Sons, and Follow Your Heart), none of which was a commercial hit for various reasons, but not for lack of musical quality. This 78-minute CD makes a reasonable selection of the highlights from those LPs, demonstrating that at their best, the Sons were a collection of talented musicians who packed their songs full of good solos that grew out of complicated arrangements. Although they were a part of the psychedelic San Francisco scene of the time, their music never quite fit the mold, leaning much more toward jazz and R&B than, say, the Grateful Dead. the Sons played instruments including saxophones and a vibraphone, not otherwise typical of the San Francisco Sound, and they were less interested in songs than in creating platforms for soloing. They might start a tune like "Love of a Woman" as a gentle, romantic ballad with an acoustic guitar, but midway through that would suddenly give way to a jazzy instrumental section in a different time signature, return to the ballad, then again go off into jazz.

New England blues guitarist Ronnie Earl has spent his recording career, which began in 1979 when he replaced Duke Robillard in Roomful of Blues, flirting with his own hybrid brand of blues/jazz/R&B, and his elegant solos on guitar always seem on the edge of breaking out into a whole new category, although they never quite do, and he remains an excellent guitar player who suggests possibilities more than he actually reaches them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as this collection of tracks drawn from his solo work at the Black Top, Bullseye, Telarc, and Stony Plain labels clearly shows. Spanning 1983 to 2005, The Best of Ronnie Earl brims with joyful guitar leads that remind us that the blues is really more about freedom, deliverance, and breaking loose from problems of constraint than it is about moaning and groaning and waking up in the morning with trouble in mind…