Columbia Records will release ‘Western Stars – Songs From The Film’ on October 25th, featuring each of the live performances captured in Bruce Springsteen’s directorial debut ‘Western Stars.’ The soundtrack includes every song from Springsteen’s most recent studio album of the same name, as well as a cover of Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
Western Stars is a title that suggests wide-open, cinematic vistas, music made for the outer reaches of a widescreen. Such sweeping ambition isn't necessarily alien to Bruce Springsteen, a rocker who designed his self-styled 1975 breakthrough as a larger-than-life hybrid of AM pop and FM album rock profundity – a daring fusion that eventually favored the latter, perhaps because it was easier for the E-Street Band to fill arenas with cranked amps and big riffs…
THE RIVER OF TIME, Navona Records’ latest release, is a captivating tour de force by conductor Mike Fansler and the Western Illinois University Wind Ensemble. Recorded by legendary engineer Bruce Leek – whose recording portfolio includes the President’s Own Marine Band – this album captures the full emotive intensity of one of America’s finest collegiate ensembles.
The immodest title of this one carries a double connotation; it was probably the first album of jazz in which the leader recorded entirely on bass clarinet and, less significantly, the first Riverside album recorded on the West Coast. The first achievement – which Mann and producer Orrin Keepnews thought of three years before Eric Dolphy broke out his bass clarinet on records – ought to be more widely known, but the usual prejudices among critics regarding Mann's subsequent popularity among record buyers have decreed otherwise.
Biddu Appaiah, is an Indian-born, England-based singer-songwriter, composer, and music producer – who composed and produced many worldwide hit records during a career spanning five decades. Considered one of the pioneers of disco, Euro disco, and Indian pop, he has sold millions of records worldwide, and has received Grammy and Ivor Novello awards for his work. He has been ranked at number 34 on NME's "The 50 Greatest Producers Ever" list. His international breakthrough came in 1974 with "Kung Fu Fighting" performed by Carl Douglas; the song became one of the best-selling singles of all time with eleven million records sold, helped popularise disco music, was the first worldwide disco hit from Britain and Europe, and established Biddu as one of the most prolific dance music producers from outside the United States at the time.