Chuck Berry fanatics, your ship has come in, and it’s the Queen Mary — or maybe we should call it the Queen Maybellene. As you’d expect from the Bear Family label, which specializes in gargantuan reissues, this 16-CD, 396-song box doesn’t simply span Berry’s career, it embraces virtually every musical note the man has ever issued. You’ll find all of his released album tracks and singles, starting with an obscure 1954 recording and including everything from the Chess, Mercury and Atco labels, plus every surviving alternate take. Also here are five CDs’ worth of concert performances from 1956 to 1972.
Wanda Jackson was the first female rock and roll singer in the United States, releasing her debut record in 1956. She is often hailed as the "Queen Of Rockabilly." Inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 (Early Influence)…
On toward the mid-'70s, it dawned on the powers-that-were at Capitol/EMI that millions of listeners had come of age since the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 and, thus, had never experienced the group except in a historical context. (This notion was aided by true tales of younger Wings fans discovering – to their amazement – that Paul McCartney had been "a member of another group"). All of the Beatles' albums were still in print and easily available (and routinely stocked by most record stores), but it was thought that some new excitement was needed, some fresh exposure, to re-introduce their work to these younger listeners…
Rock & roll music scholars debate when the genre really began and which artist produced its first recording. But critics can agree that the music which defined a generation had its roots in the blues and rhythm & blues artists of the 1940s. Many of those early artists were African Americans who saw their songs recorded by young white musicians who liked their music so well they thought they wrote it. Setting aside the important issues of copyright piracy and musical equities, the kaleidoscope of contributors to the rock & roll idiom makes for interesting listening. This CD is part of a series that goes back to those days in the 1940s before rock & roll had a name and started a cultural revolution. This volume focuses on the year 1948, when an avalanche of great music was released, all bearing the throbbing beat that was to characterize the music later called rock & roll…
Prior to the 1992 release of the five-disc box set The King of Rock 'n' Roll: The Complete 50's Masters, RCA's approach to reissuing Elvis Presley on CD - or on LP, for that matter - was rather scatter-shot, seeming to follow the dictates of the market more than the demands of history. There were some excellent releases of archival material and in 1987, on the tenth anniversary of the King's death, there was a stellar series of compilations, but most of what was released was a constant stream of recycled hits, which this box most certainly is not. This set is sharply and expertly assembled, presenting Elvis' peak as a creative and cultural force in staggering detail…