Jackie Brown

Yes, it's that Jackie Gleason credited as "presenting" the 15 lushly orchestrated pop melodies on the suggestively titled (if not directly intentioned) Music to Change Her Mind (1956). However, to what extent "The Great One" was actually involved with the creation and/or creative processes remains up for debate.

At the start of the 1970s a select group of up-and-coming record company bosses who had first made their mark during the late ‘60s were seriously challenging the supremacy of Jamaica’s established musical elite. This soon-to-be reggae royalty included such influential figures as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Harry Johnson, Bunny Lee, Winston Riley and the man whose output provides the focus for this 2CD set, Joe Gibbs. Having already enjoyed numerous rock steady and boss reggae hits, Gibbs expanded an already impressive roster of artists to include some of the island’s most popular acts, notably The Heptones, Judy Mowatt and Dennis Alcapone. ‘Freedom To The People’ includes the very best of the producer’s output from 1971 to 1972, a period during which he further cemented his reputation as one of the most creative and successful forces on the Jamaican music scene.
Packed with an array of reggae hits alongside an equally impressive number of long-lost gems that have remained unavailable on any format for half a century, the collection is an essential addition to the collections of all self-respecting fans of vintage Jamaican sounds.

With the backing of a large orchestra, lush even by arranger Don Sebesky's standards, Jackie and Roy front an exquisitely recorded Creed Taylor production that mostly falls outside the idiom of jazz into a polished, jazzy, classical/easy listening plane. More to the point, the collective taste of Taylor and the Krals is incredibly rich, for they tap into a small mother lode of scintillating contemporary material that jazz people rarely touched…

4, 5 And 6 is the 1956 album by Jackie McLean. Originally released by Prestige Records. this CD was released by Fantasy Jazz on 13 March, 2001 (almost six months before 9/11) and was remastered by Shigeo Miyamoto under supervision of Tamaki Beck, utilizing the 20bit K2 Super Coding system. Only 10,000 copies of this were pressed.

Aladdin Records, based in Los Angeles, was a very influential label in American music history. This is not the full story of Aladdin Records but it's a very good sampler of the label's output from 1947-1961. It's 50 tracks, 25 tracks on each of the 2CDs in the set, of very good R&B from the period. Each CD is about 60 minutes playing time. The sound is good for recordings of this era. Amos Milburn, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lowell Fulson, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Billie Holiday, Shirley & Lee, Gene & Eunic, Bobby Wall, Thurston Harris, The Velvetones and many more.

Born and raised on folk music, Jackie Oates started her career as a finalist in the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards in 2003. Since then she has been nominated for twelve BBC Folk awards; at the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards she scooped Best Newcomer and Best Traditional Track on the same night.

When John Mellencamp left Mercury Records for Columbia in 1997, he owed his longtime label two more albums – one was a hits collection (The Best That I Could Do), the other was Rough Harvest. Not quite a rarities collection, not quite a live album, Rough Harvest offers a selection of acoustic arrangements of Mellencamp's personal favorites (which happen to lean toward album tracks from the '90s), plus several covers recorded live at his studio, Belmont Mall, in 1997.

Joe Gibbs: Scorchers From The Early Years 1967-73, available everywhere on April 14, 2009, is an amazing collection of Rocksteady & Reggae hits from the late 60’s and early 70’s, that helped break reggae internationally.
This essential jam packed 2 CD anthology, produced mainly by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry & Niney The Observer for Joe Gibbs, features the genre’s most influential icons and marks a momentous time in musical history.
This 17 North Parade release from the Reggae Anthology series contains many special edits only available on this album.

Jackie Wilson was one of the most important agents of black pop's transition from R&B into soul. In terms of vocal power (especially in the upper register), few could outdo him; he was also an electrifying on-stage showman. He was a consistent hitmaker from the mid-'50s through the early '70s, although never a crossover superstar. His reputation isn't quite on par with Ray Charles, James Brown, or Sam Cooke, however, because his records did not always reflect his artistic genius. Indeed, there is a consensus of sorts among critics that Wilson was something of an underachiever in the studio, due to the sometimes inappropriately pop-based material and arrangements that he used