Allan Dead

Gary Allan's debut, Used Heart for Sale, is a competent set of neo-traditionalist country that occasionally comes to life, such as on the single "Her Man." Allan's best moments suggest that he is capable of more.This Album will really surprise you when you know it was his first,"From where I'm Sittin" is fantastic and "All I had Going Is Gone" will tear at your heart strings,"Forever and a day' I loved and "Her Man"finds him cleaning up his act,and trying to make amends….

"Blues Theme" is arguably the most famous track by Davie Allan & the Arrows. It was recorded quickly on Mike Curb's Tower label for the soundtrack to the move Wild Angels – Peter Fonda's first biker flick and just before Easy Rider. With wild, screaming fuzz guitar and a surf beat, it signifies the sound of the L.A. Strip in 1967 and embodies – in its two-minutes-and-ten-seconds – all the cultural elements of its soundtrack – the waning surf scene that traveled it, the muscle cars that roared through its lanes, the dawn of acid-crazed hippies floating down it, and the speed-drenched outlaw biker tribes who haunted it…

I must admit that before I began this survey, I had never listened to this piece. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was anticipating that it would be recognizably Petterssonian from the outset, perhaps strident string writing reminiscent of the string orchestra concertos, accompanying a choir (which is struggling to be heard above the tumult). The first time I heard the opening two movements I double-checked to make sure that I was actually listening to Pettersson and not Rosenberg, the other composer on this disc. Although in some of the later movements it is clear that we are listening to Pettersson……

allanpettersson100.blogspot

Gary Allan grows better and more assured with each album, and his third record, Smoke Rings in the Dark, is his best effort yet. Similar to the Mavericks, Allan stylishly blends a number of roots styles, from his signature Bakersfield country to dusty folk and pop crooning, into a neo-traditionalist sound that is curiously out of time…..

Gary Allan's fourth album honors traditional honky tonk and American music without dripping into the sentimentality that bogs down so many of his contemporaries. The singing is better here than on anything he's ever done, and the song selection – ranging from a Todd Snider cover to a nice Bruce Robison-penned closer called "What Would Willie Do" – is sharp and smart. Alright Guy presents a look at country music that bucks tradition while keeping the faith.–by Michael Gallucci

The Twelfth Symphony forms an exception in Allan Pettersson’s output. When he agreed to compose a work for the 500th anniversary of Uppsala University, it was one of the few commissions that he ever accepted. Having written purely orchestral scores for the past 30 years, he decided to incorporate a choir and a text. Pablo Neruda had received the Nobel Prize in 1971, and acknowledging the poet’s ‘deeply felt compassion for the outcasts of society’, Pettersson selected nine poems from the huge collection Canto general for his new work.