Famed for their perennial "All Right Now," Free helped lay the foundations for the rise of hard rock, stripping the earthy sound of British blues down to its raw, minimalist core to pioneer a brand of proto-metal later popularized by 1970's superstars like Foreigner, Foghat and Bad Company. Free formed in London in 1968 when guitarist Paul Kossoff, then a member of the blues unit Black Cat Bones, was taken to see vocalist Paul Rodgers' group Brown Sugar by a friend, drummer Tom Mautner.
Night Ranger's second album Midnight Madness may not have been as consistent as their debut, but it did spawn the band's biggest hit, "Sister Christian." While it served as their commercial breakthrough, the infamous power ballad also relegated the group to "one-hit wonder" status while fueling their reputation as being "too soft" for a metal band…
Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Gregg Allman featuring the high quality SHM-CD format, the latest remastering, and Cardboard sleeve replica of the original English LP artwork. Gregg Allman's tour in support of his debut solo LP, Laid Back, led to the recording of this album (originally two LPs) at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. It's a match for Laid Back in musical value and then some, with a good, wide range of repertory and great performances throughout by all concerned, plunging head-first and deep into blues, R&B, honky tonk, and gospel. Strangely enough, the album contains only three of Laid Back's songs – "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing" opens the show in a properly spirited, earthy manner, but it's the second song, "Queen of Hearts," in a soaring rendition, with gorgeous backing by Annie Sutton, Erin Dickins, and Lynn Rubin, and superb sax work by Randall Bramblett and David Brown, that shows Allman in his glory as a singer and bandleader.
One-half of this album is a studio recording featuring Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones of the Faces. The other half is a live recording from the Lancaster Arts Festival in Coventry, England, featuring performances of "My Ding-a-Ling" and "Reelin' and Rockin'" that, in edited form, became the first hit singles for Chuck Berry in many years. ("My Ding-a-Ling" went gold and hit #1.) This gold-selling, Top Ten album represents Berry's commercial, if not artistic, peak.
Supertramp followed an unusual path to commercial success in the 1970s, fusing the stylistic ambition and instrumental dexterity of progressive rock with the wit and tuneful melodies of British pop, and the results made them one of the most popular British acts of the '70s and ‘80s, topping the charts and filling arenas around the world at a time when their style of music was supposed to have fallen out of fashion. Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from SUPERTRAMP featuring the high quality SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD players) and Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) replica of the original LP artwork. The ten-album SUPERTRAMP SHM-CD Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue series featuring the albums "Supertramp," "Indelibly Stamped," "Crime Of The Century," "Crisis? What Crisis?," "Even In The Quietest Moments," "Breakfast In America," "Paris," "…Famous Last Words…." "Brother Where You Bound," and "Free As A Bird."
This particular Best of Motörhead release is a double-disc set on the Sanctuary subsidiary Metal-Is, and it's one of the very, very few Motörhead collections that tries to draw material from throughout the band's career. The compilers couldn't secure the rights to everything, and as such, there's nothing here from albums like 1916 or Bastards. But there are tracks from the later Overnight Sensation, Snake Bite Love, and We Are Motörhead albums, plus four bonus live tracks dating from various points in the group's career…
Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Gregg Allman featuring the high quality SHM-CD format, the latest remastering, and Cardboard sleeve replica of the original English LP artwork. The session work with other players here isn't quite as good as the material on the first anthology, but An Anthology, Vol. 2 does feature a live cut by Delaney & Bonnie, plus a pair of what were then previously unissued Allman Brothers Band live tracks (among them "Midnight Rider" from the Fillmore East in June 1971). There's another good Duane Allman solo number and a good Hour Glass track ("Been Gone Too Long"), more session work with Aretha Franklin and King Curtis, Ronnie Hawkins ("Matchbox"), Wilson Pickett ("Born to Be Wild"), Johnny Jenkins, Boz Scaggs, Sam Samudio, and Otis Rush. The annotation here isn't as thorough as it was on the first volume, but anyone who owns the first double-CD set will almost certainly have to own this one as well, and for a set there's a lot of very good music.
Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Gregg Allman featuring the high quality SHM-CD format, the latest remastering, and Cardboard sleeve replica of the original English LP artwork. Duane Allman's greatness was apparent on his recordings with the Allman Brothers, yet there was another side to the superb guitarist. For many years, he was a highly respected session musician, playing on cuts by Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Boz Scaggs, Delaney & Bonnie, and Clarence Carter, among others. By including those session cuts, as well as a sampling of his brief sojourn in Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominoes and a few rare solo tracks, along with a number of representative Allman Brothers songs, the double-album Anthology winds up drawing a complete portrait of Allman. He may have recorded plenty of other material worth hearing, but this has the bare essentials for an excellent introduction and retrospective.
Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). Cover artwork faithfully replicates original one. Comes with lyrics and a description. Camel was still finding its signature sound on its eponymous debut album. At this point, Peter Bardens and his grand, sweeping organ dominate the group's sound and Andrew Latimer sounds tentative on occasion.