Cilla Black wasn't a natural singer when the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, discovered her, and while she learned the ropes well enough and developed into a strong ballad singer, she was never a serious threat to Dusty Springfield in the talent department. But the pop world isn't really about pure talent as much as it is a matter of timing, luck, having the right look, and maybe most of all, good material and good production.
The Ultimate Collection is curated in conjunction with the band, the 31-track collection features the band’s classic songs including Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs, N.I.B. and The Wizard as well as choice cuts from their classic albums and is the definitive accompaniment for all Sabbath fans as well as those with a love of hard rock. Remastered by renowned engineer Andy Pearce (Motörhead, Deep Purple, Lou Reed, Iggy & The Stooges).
The blues recording industry began in New York City and for most of the 1920s, musicians travelled from all parts of the country to make their mark in the recording studio. Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were amongst the most popular female singers but they were soon rivaled by the likes of Lonnie Johnson, Robert ‘Barbecue Bob’ Hicks, Texas Alexander and Mississippi John Hurt. Kansas Joe McCoy cut ‘When The Levee Breaks’, justly famous in its Led Zeppelin incarnation, in the city.
Broke, Black & Blue delivers multiple surprises within its 100 songs of prewar blues. Arranged chronologically by Joop Visser, the set admirably covers the first 22 years of recorded blues, 1924 to 1946, from vaudeville and Delta to boogie-woogie and jump blues. It's a swell gift for anyone wanting to learn more about the history of blues. But old-timers will be pleased, too, as special attention has been paid to culling rare and idiosyncratic tracks by the well-known and the obscure. The first three discs present single tracks by artists as diverse as the Memphis Jug Band, De Ford Bailey, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Skip James, Peetie Wheatstraw, Lonnie Johnson, and Bukka White, alongside unknowns such as Isaiah "The Mississippi Moaner" Nelson, Barbecue Bob and Laughing Charley, Ed Andrews, Chicken Wilson, and Bumble Bee Slim. On the fourth disc, this convention is jettisoned to luxuriate in a series of very rare sides of lovely, oddly subdued boogie-woogie and jump blues by Jimmie Gordon, Johnny Temple, and Lee Brown.
This is a truly, bizarre two-fer package that combines Roy Orbison's early hit album Crying with the soundtrack to the TV Special Black & White Night. The only conceivable reason is, perhaps, that on the latter recording, Orbison re-recorded the title track and "Candy Man." They were included on the special as a career-spanning look at his collection of smashes played by an all-star cast of musicians including Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and k.d. lang. Weird.