Bird Songs

Deluxe edition with an additional eight bonus tracks of 2022’s acclaimed album "Lagoon".

A rich treasury of fact, folklore, traditional tales and seasonal crafts and activities, RSPB Bird Tales celebrates 25 of our most familiar and best-loved British birds, offering a wealth of ways to deepen our relationships with our feathered friends.

These 13 is a little bit folk, a little bit gospel, a little bit bluesy, a little bit Hank, a little bit hill country, but most emphatically, it is all heart. Andrew Bird and Jimbo Mathus have climbed the height of their creative ladders in this collection of soul-strung songs, both lyrically and musically, a synchronicity between the two that feels joined in some special imaginative place that can only be visited by the best of songwriters.

This easy-to-use RSPB pocket companion to European and British birds is the ideal field e-guide for novice birdwatchers and experienced birders alike.

Songs from the Street, the boxed set that stretches back to "Sesame Street's" 1969 debut, is the kids' record of the year, if not the decade: Big Bird and the gang might've pulled it off themselves–for a crew of fix-it store workers, shopkeeps, and goofball monsters, the talent quotient's off the charts–but when you've got this many names to drop, they've got to land somewhere. What impresses most in three discs is the lack of a single thud. Cab Calloway, Pete Seeger, and James Taylor mosey in on disc one; Johnny Cash, BB King, and Tony Bennett take seats on the stoop for disc two; and the Dixie Chicks, Gloria Estefan, and R.E.M. raise the brownstone roof on disc three–and that's leaving out stars like Lena Horne, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Trisha Yearwood. When it comes to inspiring preschoolers and their parents to sing the praises of rubber duckies, bein' green, and the people in their neighborhood; "The Street" gets busy. –Tammy La Gorce