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The entries in Sony Legacy Playlist series may be packaged as budget compilations, but they really do represent the best-known and most representative tracks by a given artist during their tenure with the company. Former Frank Zappa sideman and guitar virtuoso Steve Vai's volume is no exception to the standard. Included here are 12 studio and two live cuts from his long tenure with Sony and Epic. The cuts are arranged aesthetically rather than chronologically, making for a very solid mix. This one kicks off with “Erotic Nightmares” from his third album for the label, Passion and Warfare. Also included here are “Lotus Feet,” “Salamanders in the Sun,” “Love Secrets,” and fine live versions of “You’re Here,” and “Whispering a Prayer.” In addition to these 14 cuts, there is also bonus CD-R material to boot. While fans may have everything here already, this set serves as an excellent, modestly priced introduction to Vai’s solo work.

Enjoy the amazing collection of the finest works of music of the new millennium. Great artists such as James Horner, Deep Forest, Ennio Morricone and Vangelis, is one of those musicians who create music, commonly called the New Age. Their writings are permeated the atmosphere of inspiration, harmony and peace. On these discs you will find melodies, inspired by different musicians, but united by a very important quality: they decided to listen to them want to listen, they help you feel great.

Enjoy the amazing collection of the finest works of music of the new millennium. Great artists such as James Horner, Deep Forest, Ennio Morricone and Vangelis, is one of those musicians who create music, commonly called the New Age. Their writings are permeated the atmosphere of inspiration, harmony and peace. On these discs you will find melodies, inspired by different musicians, but united by a very important quality: they decided to listen to them want to listen, they help you feel great.

Following up the Lazy Cowgirls' masterful Ragged Soul was no easy task, especially after longtime guitarist D.D. Weekday hung up his Les Paul, causing A Little Sex and Death to suffer a bit by comparison. New axeman Eric Chandler delivers solid work and suits the band's style quite well, but he lacks Weekday's undertow of sloppy genius, and while the songs on Ragged Soul were pure meat, this disc seems to have a bit of filler here and there…

Melvin Sparks - I'm A Gittar Player (1997) {Cannonball Records CBD27101}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 301 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 111 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 14 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1997 Cannonball Records | CBD 27101
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Guitar

Although he appeared on countless R&B and soul-jazz sessions in the 1960s and early 1970s, Melvin Sparks has recorded only sporadically as a leader over the years. The late 1990s found the swinging, Grant Green-influenced guitarist recording for the Minneapolis-based Cannonball label and playing much the same type of groove-oriented organ-combo music he'd been embracing 25 and 30 years earlier. Recalling his work with Charles Earland, I'm a 'Gittar' Player employs Ron Levy on the Hammond B-3 and offers a very accessible fusion of jazz, R&B, blues and pop that often sounds like it could have been recorded in 1970.

Although it is not necessarily the most essential Hawkwind package you will ever be offered, Sonic Boom Killers is, nevertheless, among the most sensibly structured, its 18 tracks offering up most (but not quite all) of the band's 1970s singles - most of which were released at a time when chart success was a very real possibility, a point proven by the opening salvo of "Silver Machine" (a U.K. number two in 1972) and "Urban Guerilla" (number 39 in 1973). That the band did not otherwise especially bother the Top 75 is simply a sorry quirk of fashion - "Hurry on Sundown" (from 1970), "Psychedelic Warlords" (1974), "Kings of Speed" (1975), "Quark Strangeness and Charm" (1977), and "Who's Gonna Win the War" (1980) all received a modicum of broadcast support, while "Shot Down in the Night" (1980) scratched to number 59 purely on the back of Hawkwind's adoption by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal…

Finally Blue Note issues a Latin collection from its Italian (Italiana SPA) and Brazilian (EMI-Odeon) vaults that reveals the true diversity of its catalog and exploits some of the serious sensuous grooves that DJs have been spinning for over a decade. This is the first of three volumes, all of which feature the rarest most representative tracks from the various trends in jazz that grew out of Brazilian pop in the '60s, '70s, and even '80s. For starters, there's the mean brass swagger of Luis Amuda Perez on "Upa Neguinho," which was written by Edu Lobo. Besides being a popular dance tune (you can hear that in the opening measures), it is a masterpiece of Brazilian big band arrangement. Also featured is the stellar "Noa Noa," a trademark of Sergio Mendez. This is a tough bossa nova trio jam, with arpeggiated piano figures cutting right through the rhythms in the tune. In addition, Mandrake Som's "Beriambu" was the first to utilize in a swinging pop jazz context the use of the one string percussion instrument – there's also a very soul-jazzy sax solo in the break. This set's full of warm, frighteningly good examples of bossa, samba, and even the MPB and Joven Guarda rhythms as they inform folk and jazz melodies and modal figures.

Enjoy the amazing collection of the finest works of music of the new millennium. Great artists such as James Horner, Deep Forest, Ennio Morricone and Vangelis, is one of those musicians who create music, commonly called the New Age. Their writings are permeated the atmosphere of inspiration, harmony and peace. On these discs you will find melodies, inspired by different musicians, but united by a very important quality: they decided to listen to them want to listen, they help you feel great.

Johnny Rivers - At The Whisky a Go Go & Here We a Go Go Again! (1964) {BGO Records BGOCD241 rel 1994}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 546 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 180 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 14 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1964, 1994 Liberty / Beat Goes On Records | BGOCD241
Rock & Roll / Rockabilly / Early Pop

Johnny Rivers' first two LPs – 1964's At the Whiskey-a-Go-Go and Here We A-Go-Go Again, both recorded at the famed Los Angeles club – are compiled on this set, a portrait of the singer at his mid-1960s peak. I first heard the latter of this compilation (Here We A-Go-Go Again) at a friends place back in 1969. His mom had the record and everytime I'd visit, she would let me blare the stereo as long as I'd have Johnny Rivers playing. Some years later I bought both albums for my own and still listen to them today although "Here We A-Go-GO Again" gets the nod. Johnnys crisp guitar and harmonica playing along with Jerry Rubins drums and Joe Osbournes bass gave this trio a great sound.