Frank Kern

Beethoven and Bebop, Debussy and The Doors, Mozart and Mash-Ups. Such pairings are strange, even improbable bedfellows, yet the pianist Friedrich Gulda, one of 20th-century music’s most capricious rebels, managed to connect the dots and bring these disparate musical worlds together throughout his life, to the delight of many and perhaps the disdain of others. Gulda signed to Decca as a teenager, and his first recordings (presented in this set for the first time internationally) are indicative of the repertoire he would continue championing to the end. His complete recordings on Decca are brought together in one edition for the very first time, 40 years after he recorded his last recording for the label, the Beethoven Concertos with the Wiener Philharmoniker and conductor Horst Stein.

In 2017, many of country’s biggest and most iconic stars came together for a special tribute concert in honor of the late Merle Haggard. The group celebrated the legend’s long list of music and now, fans can bring the live concert home.Media company Blackbird Presents has revealed plans to bring the concert special, Sing Me Back Home: The Music Of Merle Haggard, to CD and DVD on December 11, 2020. Fans will be treated to a multi-disc package, featuring 29 performances from artists including Alabama, Ben Haggard, Billy F Gibbons, Bobby Bare, Buddy Miller, Chris Janson, Connie Smith, Dierks Bentley, Hank Williams Jr., Jake Owen, Jamey Johnson, John Anderson, John Mellencamp, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Richards, Kenny Chesney, Aaron Lewis, Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Miranda Lambert, Rodney Crowell, Ronnie Dunn, Sheryl Crow, Tanya Tucker, The Avett Brothers, Toby Keith, Warren Haynes, and Willie Nelson.

In early 1956, Bing Crosby ended the two long-term company affiliations that had defined his career for more than 20 years, leaving his exclusive associations with Paramount Pictures and Decca Records. Thereafter, he made movies and records on a freelance basis. The immediate results were more felicitous for his film work than his recording, as he went to MGM for the successful movie High Society. As a recording artist, in rapid succession he cut the movie soundtrack for Capitol (January-February); a new album for Decca, Songs I Wish I Had Sung (The First Time Around) (April); and a new album for Verve, Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings (June).

These rare treasures take you all across Billie's career-from '35, the year she debuted at the Apollo and first charted, to '59, the year she died. The stunning early performances include a 20-year-old Billie with Ellington in '35 and a 1937 radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in NY with the Basie Orchestra; you'll also hear rare rehearsal tapes, her Monterey '58 performance, songs on The Eddie Condon Show, The Tonight Show, The Steve Allen Show, an impromptu recording of Billie and friends singing My Yiddish Mamma, and more with Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and more! Includes 129 tracks: Swing Brother Swing; Fine and Mellow; I'll Get By; Billie's Blues; All of Me; Lover Man; Them There Eyes; You're My Thrill; I Cover the Waterfront; Porgy; Tenderly; God Bless the Child; My Man; Moanin' Low; Ghost of a Chance, and more.

Only Frank Sinatra has put his indelible stamp on as many pages of the American Popular Songbook as Ella Fitzgerald. But while Sinatra specialized in mood-themed albums (his composer-based collections were compiled from material already released), Fitzgerald's ambitious songbooks devoted themselves to one great songwriter after another: Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, and so on. The two-volume Rodgers and Hart project ranks with the best, and if Buddy Bergman's arrangements are a bit sweeter than his Cole Porter settings, or Nelson Riddle's Gershwin treatments, they suit the material just fine. And what a wide range of material it is (with original verses intact!), intermingling novelty show tunes ("Give it Back to the Indians," "Johnny One Note"), sophisticated standards ("Manhattan," "Blue Moon," "The Lady Is a Tramp"), and lush ballads ("Isn't it Romantic," "It Never Entered My Mind"). But for my money, the most exquisite thing Fitzgerald ever recorded is her seven-minute "Bewitched" (a.k.a. "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered") on Vol. 2, casting a spell of hushed reverie that makes time stand still.