The Conviction of Kitty Dodds

Bear Family, the venerable German label that does reissue boxes of U.S. artists better than any American label – with the possible exception of Mosaic – has taken the cream of Kitty Wells' career and issued one of the most historically important collections in the history of country music. The Queen of Country Music is a four-CD box, with exhaustive biographical and session notes by Charles Wolfe that document, in their entirety, nine years of Ms. Wells career, from its inception through to its turning point and superstardom, the years 1949 to 1958; there are 114 tracks in all. Along with every major hit and B-side from the eras, the set includes classic original versions of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," "Hey Joe!," "I Hear the Jukebox Playing," "Lonely Side of Town," "Making Believe," "Dust on the Bible," "The Place That Kills," "Right or Wrong," "Just When I Needed You," "The Great Speckled Bird," "Jealousy," and many others.

Kitty Kallen was a band singer, and later a soloist, who lit up bandstands with a handful of top leaders during the '40s. She's remembered for three reasons: big-band fans know that she was the one who replaced Helen O'Connell in the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra in 1943, also that she sang the vocal chorus on a pair of Harry James hits, "I'm Beginning to See the Light" and "It's Been a Long, Long Time," and virtually everyone with a radio in 1954 knew that she recorded the year's most popular song, "Little Things Mean a Lot."

The Presidents of the United States of America (occasionally referred to as PUSA, The Presidents or Pot USA) was an American alternative rock power trio band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1993. The three-piece group's initial line-up consisted of vocalist and bassist Chris Ballew, drummer Jason Finn, and guitarist Dave Dederer; Dederer eventually left the group and was replaced by Andrew McKeag. The band released six studio albums and was best known for its hits "Lump" and "Peaches", released in 1995 and 1996 respectively. Another well-known song was "Kitty", which helped popularize their self-titled debut album.

Recorded in 1995, this Esther was first issued as Collins Classics 7040-2 early the following year. Like Hogwood, Harry Christophers recorded the original 1718 version of what has gone down in history as Handel’s first English oratorio.
In point of fact, the complex and still largely unresolved history of Esther suggests that it was not originally composed as an oratorio at all, but rather as a staged work that would have formed a companion to the near-contemporary Acis and Galatea.