Two Thousand Seasons

This 1981 recording was the first period-instrument version of Purcell's most famous "semi-opera." This Restoration-era hybrid was a play with a complete (spoken) script plus numerous musical numbers for soloists, chorus, and pit orchestra. The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although you'd never know it from the music, which has (typically for the genre) no real connection to the plot. (Most of the songs and dances are masques performed for the entertainment of Titania, Oberon, or Hippolytus.) The advantage to this is that Purcell's score can be performed fairly well on its own. The Fairy Queen includes some of Purcell's best-loved comic scenes ("The Drunken Poet" and "Coridon and Mopsa") and songs ("Hark the echoing Air," "Ye gentle spirits," and "Hark how all things in one sound rejoice"–the last sung here by Jennifer Smith, sounding more beautiful than on any recording she's made since).

Marillion are a British rock band, formed in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1979. They emerged from the post-punk music scene in Britain and existed as a bridge between the styles of punk rock and classic progressive rock, becoming the most commercially successful neo-progressive rock band of the 1980s…

A household name since the early '70s, John McLaughlin was an innovative fusion guitarist when he led the Mahavishnu Orchestra and continued living up to his reputation as a phenomenal and consistently inquisitive player through the years. He started on guitar when he was 11 and was initially inspired by blues and swing players. John McLaughlin worked with David Bowie, Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker, and others in the 1960s and played free jazz with Gunter Hampel for six months. His first album was a classic (1969's Extrapolation) and was followed by an obscurity for the Dawns label with John Surman, a quintet set with Larry Young (Devotion), and My Goals Beyond in 1970 which was half acoustic solos and half jams involving Indian musicians.

The EVA labels were a group of sisterlabels made for compilations and Best-Of albums released as joint ventures between the national divisions of EMI, Virgin and Ariola. The label became active in 1984 but is now defunct in all countries. Early EVA albums were released with the logos of the three individual labels. Sometimes the label name EVA was not mentioned on those releases.

The EVA labels were a group of sisterlabels made for compilations and Best-Of albums released as joint ventures between the national divisions of EMI, Virgin and Ariola. The label became active in 1984 but is now defunct in all countries. Early EVA albums were released with the logos of the three individual labels. Sometimes the label name EVA was not mentioned on those releases.

In 1998, BGO released Del Shannon Sings Hank Williams/One Thousand Six-Hundred Sixty-One Seconds of Del Shannon, combining his last two albums for the Amy label on one CD. The two are rather different records conceptually; one devoted to the work of a single composer, while the other shows Shannon covering many of the hits of the day in its own style, as well as presenting his version of an original - "I Go to Pieces," which was a hit in the hands of Peter & Gordon - is linked to Shannon's version by some of the backing musicians he uses, as well as the chronology, and the CD also constitutes a pretty strong display of Shannon's range as a performer and recording artist, encompassing everyone from Hank Williams to the Four Seasons with astonishing consistency.

Enjoying great success in music, film, television, and the stage, Dean Martin was less an entertainer than an icon, the eternal essence of cool. A member of the legendary Rat Pack, he lived and died the high life of booze, broads and bright lights, always projecting a sense of utter detachment and serenity; along with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and the other chosen few who breathed the same rarefied air, Martin – highball and cigarette always firmly in hand – embodied the glorious excess of a world long gone, a world without rules or consequences.