The Career of a Chambermaid (1976)

Released just after George left Apple for his own Dark Horse label (and appearing in stores just in time for the Christmas season of 1976), The Best of George Harrison neatly splits into a side of Harrison solo hits and a side of his Beatles tunes. This is the only solo Beatles hits compilation to rely so heavily upon Fab Four recordings, which is a good indication of how George didn't rack up as many charting singles as John, Paul, or Ringo, but having the Beatles tunes here does paint a fuller portrait of Harrison's work as a singer/songwriter, even if it makes the collection somewhat less useful – after all, most listeners would want a George Harrison compilation to focus on his solo recordings, not the Beatles' hits they already have.

Released just after George left Apple for his own Dark Horse label (and appearing in stores just in time for the Christmas season of 1976), The Best of George Harrison neatly splits into a side of Harrison solo hits and a side of his Beatles tunes…

Ah, perhaps there's truth in advertising after all, since The Best of Uriah Heep really is a "best of." Nothing less than a musical Juggernaut, this compilation delivers wave after wave of heavy molten rock that will either forge your fealty or send you fleeing. At their most menacing ("Gypsy," "Bird of Prey"), Heep rides relentlessly alongside the horsemen of the apocalypse, Black Sabbath and Van Der Graaf Generator. What the band lacks in artful studio execution they make up for in sheer force, from Ken Hensley's towering organ to Mick Box's distortion-drenched guitar. Perhaps because of frequent personnel changes (chronicled in a multicolored chart on the disc sleeve that would give Ross Perot a headache), Uriah Heep never developed the consistent sound of other heavy metal acts.

Originally issued in 1976, "End Of A Rainbow" was Patti's solo debut album for CTI Records. Although not a commercial success, this album was one of the first ever to be exclusively devoted to the Quiet Storm "sound" that was just-then blossoming. Patti's soulful, tender and at times wistful and melancholic vocals are nothing short of exquisite. Patti wrote all eight tracks herself and CTI boss Creed Taylor obviously spared no expenses in getting the best session players for this cult classic. Now that it's available on CD "End Of A Rainbow" definitely deserves a reappraisal.

This 1976 album by the late saxophonist Stan Getz is a reunion of sorts with Joao Gilberto, the great Brazilian guitarist and singer, and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim (or Tom Jobim), along with the stylish and nonintrusive arrangements of Oscar Carlos Neves. The trio changed the world in the early 1960s with its Getz/Gilberto albums. With Neves, they almost did it again, but with all of the crap falling down around them in the musical climate of the mid-'70s - fusion, disco, overblown rock, and the serious decline of jazz - this disc was criminally overlooked at the time. Joining these four men in their realization of modern bossa and samba are drummers Billy Hart and Grady Tate, percussionists Airto, Ray Armando, and Ruben Bassini, bassist Steve Swallow, pianist Albert Dailey, and Heliosoa Buarque…

With two of the Alan Parsons Project's best songs, the lovely ballad "Time" and the wavy-sounding "Games People Play," The Turn of a Friendly Card remains one of this group's most enjoyable albums. Parsons' idea, the subject of the album's six tracks, centers around the age-old temptation of gambling and its stranglehold on the human psyche…