Closer to The Music

Closer to Home, the trio's third album, was the record that really broke them through to the commercially successful level of metal masters such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Rather than rushing headlong into their typical hard, heavy, and overamplified approach, Grand Funk Railroad began expanding their production values…

When most jazz singers do standards, they come from the "classic" American songbook, the one that includes show tunes and pop songs from a bygone era, one that was powered by names such as Gershwin, Lerner & Loewe, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sammy Kahn, Johnny Mercer, and so many others. That said, Cassandra Wilson is not just any jazz vocalist, and her Blue Note catalog – the label she's been with since 1993 – proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wilson has explored her deep love of jazz and blues to be sure, covering everyone from Robert Johnson to Miles Davis, but along the way she's also covered tunes by modern composers, those who have stormed the pop charts in the last 30 years or so, and those who are still on them. Closer to You: The Pop Side is a retrospective collection that looks at this side of Wilson's complex musical persona, and offers a selection of 11 tunes from her Blue Note albums, all of them focusing on songs from the rock, pop, and soul genres, and all executed in her own idiosyncratic manner.

Closer to Home, the trio's third album, was the record that really broke them through to the commercially successful level of metal masters such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Rather than rushing headlong into their typical hard, heavy, and overamplified approach, Grand Funk Railroad began expanding their production values. Most evident is the inclusion of strings, the acoustic opening on the disc's leadoff cut, "Sins a Good Man's Brother," as well as the comparatively mellow "Mean Mistreater." But the boys had far from gone soft. The majority of Closer to Home is filled with the same straight-ahead rock & roll that had composed their previous efforts.

Our debut album ' Closer to Utopia' is out now.It was primarily recorded live during a three day session.Drawing influence from the 70s prog scene, while blending in heavier sounds, it is our first conceptual album. Enjoy!!

This expansive box set from Rhino features all nine of the Doobie Brothers' studio albums from their original 1970s Warner Bros. run plus their 1983 Farewell Tour live album. Beginning with their 1971 self-titled debut, when the band was fronted by founding singer/guitarist Tom Johnston, through 1980's Michael McDonald-led One Step Closer, it covers their two major eras as they slowly shifted from boogie rock bar band into the soulful soft rock giants of their later years. Hits like "China Grove," "Black Water," "Takin' It to the Streets," and "What a Fool Believes" are all here as well as their first live album, which mostly features their late-period lineup with the addition of a couple of special Johnston appearances that serve as an end cap to their career. Although the Doobies would reunite again in the late '80s, their original Warner Bros. years remain their best-known period.

Sounds of the Seventies was a 38-volume series issued by Time-Life during the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, spotlighting pop music of the 1970s. Much like Time-Life's other series chronicling popular music, volumes in the "Sounds of the Seventies" series covered a specific time period, including individual years in some volumes, and different parts of the decade (for instance, the early 1970s) in others; in addition, some volumes covered specific trends, such as music popular on album-oriented rock stations on the FM band. Each volume was issued on either compact disc, cassette or (with volumes issued prior to 1991) vinyl record.