Can Wait 2010

Robin Trower's debut solo album was the first evidence that the Fender Stratocaster sound of Jimi Hendrix could be effectively replicated and even refabricated. And like Hendrix, Trower had paid his dues as a more-or-less backup musician, his former band Procol Harum having emphasized stately organ and piano rather than guitar. After leaving his old group, Trower experimented with different musicians and ideas for several years, which paid off when he finally released Twice Removed From Yesterday, a record that displayed the characteristics that would make him a guitar hero and stadium attraction of the mid-'70s.

Henry Mancini really needs no introduction. His music is as much a part of the twentieth century as rock 'n' roll, the Lennon and McCartney partnership, jazz and the great American songbook. This Vocalion release compiles two albums from the later part of Mancini's more than twenty-year association with the RCA Victor label, and both show that he was more than able to 'get with it' in the funky 1970s. This is borne out in Mancini's Angels (1977), which, of course, is a paraphrase of 'Charlie's Angels', the massively popular US TV show that invited viewers into the glamorous world of a trio of beautiful female private detectives. In 1978 Henry Mancini and his orchestra were back in the studio to record The Theme Scene, another exploration of film and television music…

Kai Hansen formed Helloween in 1984, playing guitar and singing on the speed metal band's first four albums. He left in early 1989, however, and founded Gamma Ray with vocalist Ralf Scheepers (formerly with Tyran Pace). The duo intended to record a one-off project that Hansen originated while in Helloween, so they recruited bassist Uwe Wessel, drummer Matthias Burchardt, and several other musicians…