Barry

Two of Barry Goldberg's best albums from the late '60s, Reunion and Two Jews Blues, are combined on this single disc. There's some very hot playing on these two albums, particularly from Mike Bloomfield on Two Jews Blues, but they sound a little dated and don't quite burn as hot as some blues-rock albums from the late '60s. Nevertheless, this does capture Goldberg's two best records, which makes it both a good summary of his peak and a good introduction to his sound.

Universal Music Distribution's Icon series dealt with Barry White's extensive back catalog in two forms. This one, a single-disc compilation (the other was a two-disc set), stays true to the Icon series format with 12 tracks and minimal packaging. It’s a decent sampler, but it’s nowhere near definitive and it doesn’t distill White’s work to its essence (an impossible task when limited to one disc). Several of the man’s most popular singles are here, including “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me,” “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby,” and “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.” This merely scratches the surface.

Although former New Christy Minstrels singer Barry McGuire scored a fluke novelty hit with the Bob Dylan-styled folk-rock protest anthem "Eve of Destruction" in the summer of 1965, neither he nor producer Lou Adler's startup label Dunhill Records seems to have had a long-term plan for his solo career beyond trying to score another hit single. Naturally, Dunhill quickly issued an Eve of Destruction LP, filling the tracks with McGuire covers of recent folk hits and more originals by P.F. Sloan, who'd penned the hit. Sloan also wrote the follow-up singles "Child of Our Times" and "This Precious Time," neither of which made the Top 40. By the end of the year, Dunhill had another McGuire LP, This Precious Time, again mixing Sloan songs with other people's hits like "Do You Believe in Magic" and "Yesterday." That is the first of two McGuire albums combined on this two-fer CD reissue.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, John Barry was at his creative peak, writing both his greatest Bond music for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the score for the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy within a few months of each other. As one decade melted into the next, Barry would provide a host of haunting, highly atmospheric scores: The Appointment, Deadfall, Mary Queen Of Scots, Follow Follow, with possibly his finest ever saved for Nicolas Roeg’s masterpiece Walkabout. He also found time to write the deathless theme for TV series The Persuaders.

SOMM Recordings is delighted to present a revelatory collection of orchestral songs by Sir Edward Elgar (on double slimline selling as a single disc), performed by two of today’s most exciting young singers – mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and baritone Henk Neven – accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The Hills of Dreamland takes its title from a line in Elgar’s well-known setting, beautifully still and beseeching, of Arthur L Salmon’s Pleading. Historically the least regarded part of Elgar’s output, his songs contain a treasure-trove of vocal gems and here receive performances of insight, imagination and emotional directness.