Dream Daddy

Born in Chicago in 1949, Gil Scott-Heron became one of the inspirators of Rap Music. With very much of a political viewpoint, Gil became a mouthpiece for the Black Person in America during the Seventies and Eighties. Gil was the son of a Jamaican professional soccer player and a college graduate mother who worked as a librarian. His father played for the Scottish football side, Celtic. Both parents divorced whilst Gil was still a child and he was despatched off to his grandmother in Lincoln, Tennessee. His grandmother helped Gil musically, however, early racial tensions at school, in Jackson, led him to relocate again to the Bronx during his adolescent years to live with his mother and he later moved again to the Spanish neighbourhood of Chelsea.

At the age of 13, Gil had already written a book of poetry. Gil attended college in Pennsylvania and then left to concentrate on writing his first novel entitled 'The Vulture' in 1968. It was at college he met Brian Jackson, who was later to be a long time musical collaborator.
He released his debut album, 'New Black Poet: Small Talk at 125th and Lennox', in 1970, the title of which was influenced by a piece of poetry written by his mentor, Bob Thiele. The album contained the powerful 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', a damning political attack on the media and the treatment of Black People in the U.S.

Darts were a nine-piece British doo-wop revival band that achieved chart success in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With four singers, five backing musicians and a repertoire that mixed '50s nostalgia with punky '70s energy, Darts had it all. Hits like `Daddy Cool', `Come Back My Love', `The Boy From New York City' and `It's Raining' established them as ones to watch, while they were so hot live that in 1978 they sold more tickets in the UK than any other act. This package contains all the hits, stage favorites and more. This collection features highlights from across four hit albums including two Top 10 albums as well as six Top 10 singles. The Darts is still in the Top 500 selling list according to the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles.

For generations, Sidney Bechet's legacy of great jazz recordings has been reissued carefully, both casually and haphazardly. One of several chronological options, the 12-volume Masters of Jazz "Complete Edition" takes a most exactingly thorough approach, mapping Bechet's every appearance in the recording studio, week by week and session by session, regardless of who was initially designated as the primary artist. 1923, Vol. 1 in the series covers a four-month period from late July to early November 1923…

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's In the Hot Seat is an album, not unlike their 1978 album Love Beach, which was made for the wrong reasons, at a bad time, and probably shouldn't have been made at all. Speculation is that ELP was contractually obligated to record the third of a three-album deal at a time when Carl Palmer had required minor surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome and Keith Emerson had required major surgery for performance-induced damage to his right arm…

The stellar 45-year career of singer-songwriter-guitarist Nils Lofgren receives a comprehensive retrospective in Face the Music, a Limited Edition 9CD + Bonus DVD boxed set that is individually hand signed and numbered by the artist.

Nils Lofgren has a story unlike any other in rock & roll. Something of a teenage rock & roll prodigy, he first made waves when he played on Neil Young's After the Gold Rush at the tender age of 17, just around the time his D.C.-based band Grin relocated to Los Angeles in hopes of hitting the big time. Grin never became stars, but Lofgren did. His association with Young provided a launch pad for a solo career that was acclaimed and fitfully commercially successful, with the late-'70s albums Cry Tough, I Came to Dance, and Night After Night all making waves in album rock…

Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1974. The band currently consists of vocalist Robin Zander, guitarist Rick Nielsen, bassist Tom Petersson, and touring drummer Daxx Nielsen. Original drummer Bun E. Carlos stopped touring with the band in 2010 but remains a partner in their business organization…