Three CD set. 2017 release in the ever reliable Soul Lounge series. The strong line-up of soul, R&B and jazz artists include Shaun Escoffery, Tony Momrelle, Simon Law featuring Caron Wheeler, Jarrod Lawson, Avery Sunshine, Incognito, Beverley Knight and Down To The Bone. Released for the first time on this album is a stunning, much requested live TV recording of Shaun Escoffery singing "A House Is Not A Home" at a Royal Festival Hall Burt Bacharach concert.
Britain's Katie Melua returns to her intimate pop sound with 2020's artfully textured Album No. 8. The album is Melua's first proper studio follow-up to 2013s Ketevan and arrives four years after her majestic holiday collaboration with the Gori Women's Choir, In Winter. While a return to her original alternative pop style, Album No. 8 is nonetheless a creative departure from her past work. Produced by Leo Abrahams, it finds Melua in a deeply introspective mood, crafting lightly experimental songs that evince the influence of '70s Krautrock and more-contemporary indie rock influences. Most noticeable in this tonal shift is a change in Melua's vocals.
Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album is a soundtrack for the film of the same name, released on November 14, 1995 by Arista Records. Written and produced by Babyface, the soundtrack features appearances by some of the biggest names in the industry, including Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, TLC, Brandy, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Faith Evans, Patti LaBelle, SWV and Mary J. Blige. The album remained at number one on the US Billboard 200 album chart for five weeks and Top R&B Albums chart for ten weeks, going 7× platinum, on September 4, 1996. The album received a total of eleven Grammy nominations in 1997, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year for "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)". Three songs were nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. It won the Grammy for Best R&B Song for "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)," written by Babyface. The soundtrack has sold over twelve million copies worldwide.
Sam Phillips didn't record anybody else the way he recorded Jerry Lee Lewis. With other artists, he pushed and prodded, taking his time to discover the qualities that made them uniquely human, but with Jerry Lee, he just turned the tape on and let the Killer rip. There was no need to sculpt because Lewis arrived at Sun Studios fully formed, ready to lean back and play anything that crossed his mind. Over the course of seven years, that's more or less how things were run at Sun: Lewis would sit at the piano and play, singing songs that were brought to him and songs that crossed his mind, and Sam never stopped rolling the tape.