A year after Les Paul's death, Jeff Beck saluted the guitar pioneer by staging a rousing tribute show to the great man at Paul’s regular stomping ground, the Iridium Jazz Club. Backed by his current running mates the Imelda May Band, Beck enlisted some heavy-hitters for help – Brian Setzer comes in for the rock & roll, Trombone Shorty for the jazz, Gary U.S. Bonds sings some oldies – all the better to get the party started. Despite its title, Rock 'N' Roll Party skews ever so slightly to the old-fashioned swing and standards that were Paul's specialty and with the notable exception of tightly wound versions of “The Train Kept A Rollin’” and “Twenty Flight Rock,” even the rockers feel closer to jump blues than rockabilly. And that’s fine: a tribute to Les Paul's music shouldn’t be greasy, it should be a jumping, joyous blast of nostalgia, which is precisely what this party is.
Acclaimed songwriter and guitarist Steve Gunn returns this summer with his stunning new album Other You. Recorded in Los Angeles with Grammy Award winning producer and engineer Rob Schnapf, Gunn sought to create an album that would push his melodic and compositional sensibilities to thrilling new heights. The resulting tracks find Gunn pushing his cosmic Americana to exciting new dimensions encompassing elements of prog, jazz, and contemporary classical music. The album also features contributions from Mary Lattimore, Juliana Barwick, Bridget St. John and Jeff Parker.
The Legacy Collection plunders the deepest depths of the Disney sound archive to collect, with unprecedented completeness, the audio histories of 11 classic animated films from each era of the Disney Studios, from Lady and the Tramp and Aristocats to Little Mermaid and the Lion King to Toy Story and Wreck-It Ralph, with one more CD devoted just to Disneyland. Each disc contains the full score of a film from opening to closing credits, unreleased rarities, and bonus material. Then there's the books.
In 1986, Duane recorded with Art of Noise, a collaboration that brought a new twist to his 1960 best seller, "Peter Gunn." The song was a Top Ten hit around the world, ranking #1 on Rolling Stone Magazine's dance chart for six weeks that summer. As further confirmation of it's success, "Peter Gunn" won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental of 1986. The following year, a new album, the self-titled Duane Eddy, was released on Capitol. As a tribute to his influence and inspiration to so many young players, a crowd of unbelievable talent came along to be a part of this project. Tracks written by Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne, and Ry Cooder were recorded. The "band" included Cooder, McCartney, George Harrison, John Fogerty, James Burton, David Lindley, Steve Cropper, and original Rebels, Larry Knechtel and Jim Horn.
Who knows what Dave Edmunds was thinking when he agreed to produce and assemble the soundtrack to 1985's Porky's Revenge! It's easier to see the motives of the movie's producers – they were flush with cash after two successful teen-sex comedies set in the '50s, and who would be better to create a new soundtrack of old-time rock & roll than Edmunds, who was not only well-known for his retro-rock, but was riding a wave of popularity after a pair of MTV-friendly Jeff Lynne-produced albums in the mid-'80s. That makes sense. What boggles the mind is that Edmunds, after accepting the job, decided to treat this soundtrack – which, let's remember, is the second sequel to a film best known for a scene of horny teenage boys spying on the girls in a gym shower and for a female character called "Lassie" who howls like a dog during orgasm – as a prestige project, recruiting such superstars as George Harrison, Carl Perkins, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson, and Robert Plant (performing under the Crawling King Snakes moniker with Phil Collins on drums!), along with the up-and-coming Fabulous Thunderbirds, to record new material for this exploitation film!
The Collection: An Adventure In Sound is a unique compilation conceived and produced by Audio Fidelity to showcase the superb sound quality of their 2-track stereo, Super Audio Compact Disc and 4.0 releases. It truly takes the music and artists here to a new sound level almost as if you're listening to them for the first time! Audio Fidelity has taken fourteen classic evergreens from the world of rock, jazz, soul and even big band based on the dynamics of each recording. From Miles Davis and Carlos Santana to "Peter Gunn" and "7 Screaming Diz-Busters," The Collection begs you to go ahead and turn up the volume and test the limits of your system. All of the selections have been remastered from the original stereo and multichannel masters.