Gap Band

The Allman Brothers Band has announced the expanded release of the band’s entire 1970 three-night run at Fillmore East as the latest installment of Bear’s Sonic Journals.

Disco and funk combine on Phat Trax: The Best of Old School, Vol. 5, which pays tribute to the sounds that inspired hip-hop. Rolling, voluptuous basslines, uptight guitars, and vibrant brass sections drive tracks like the Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," the Emotions' "Best of My Love," and Cheryl Lynn's "Got to Be Real," bridging the gap between funk and disco and providing countless rap and hip-hop artists with ample sampling material. Heatwave's "Groove Line," Natalie Cole's "Be Thankful," GQ's "Disco Nights (Rock Freak)," and the Dazz Band's "Joystick" are among the other highlights of this funky, stylish compilation, which documents just how integral these songs were to hip-hop's development.

Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when African American musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B). Funk de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions used in other related genres and brings a strong rhythmic groove of a bass line played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a drummer to the foreground.

MICHAEL SCHENKER'S TEMPLE OF ROCK features legendary German guitarist Michael Schenker alongside vocalist Doogie White, guitarist/keyboardist Wayne Findlay, bassist Francis Buchholz and drummer Herman Rarebell. The CD marks the first time Schenker and fellow ex-SCORPIONS members Buchholz and Rarebell have appeared on the same album since the classic 1979 SCORPIONS LP "Lovedrive".