Chris Brown 11 11

This captures folk-blues guitarist-singer-songwriter Smither playing live in the studio for a hand-picked audience over the Christmas holidays in 1989. Smither presents 17 songs of his own derivation and others, blasting it all out in a couple of sharp sets in the time-honored folk music club tradition. His guitar work is clean and well played, and his vocals attain a sense of engagement throughout. While his interpretations of tunes by Chuck Berry, Randy Newman, Elizabeth Cotton, Willie McTell, Jimmy Reed and others are fine, the true highlights come with the originals "Lonely Time," "Don't Drag It On," "A Song for Susan," "Lonesome Georgia Brown," "I Feel the Same" and the title track.

#KingButch—hashtag proudly attached—is the title of Butcher Brown’s soon-to-be top-trending album, the eighth in the band’s up-from-the-roots legacy, and their first with Concord Records, on the Concord Jazz imprint. The 13 tracks collectively represent a bold step forward for the 5-piece group from Richmond, Virginia. Remaining true to the group’s heady fusion of contemporary hip-hop, ‘70s fusion, ‘60s jazz and funk—even echoes of Southern rock and marching band music show up—#KingButch is a powerfully original statement that reaches across divisions of genre, generation, ethnicity, and geography. Significantly, the new recording also reveals a side of Butcher Brown that’s been developing and is now in full-flower: a song-crafting, studio maturity on a par with their national reputation as an explosive live act.

Serving to embrace the floral heavens of British pop, this ceremonious edition combines the first ten prized volumes of the acclaimed Piccadilly Sunshine series. Celebrating the obscured artefacts of illustrious noise that emerged from the Great British psychedelic era and beyond, it is the essential guide to the quintessential sound of candy-coloured pop from a bygone age Pop is NOT a dirty word!