My Secret Studio really isn't a secret, and never has been, unless you count the period of time when problems of life and surroundings seemed to make it impossible for Bill Nelson to actually get anything musical out into the open. His larger commercial connections had evaporated, his own label had been wracked by unethical behavior by his manager, and his life as a whole seemed to be one gigantically complex knot. Rather than letting these problems crushing the inspiration out of him, Nelson was energized by them. He might not have been able to release much of a anything for a while, but this didn't stop him from recording hundreds of new songs and instrumental pieces.
7 February 2009 will forever be known as Black Saturday. On this day the worst bushfires in the history of Australia caused devastation across Victoria like never seen before. The effect this terrible tragedy had was felt not only here, but worldwide. Almost simultaneously Queensland was undergoing its own tragedy, with the state experiencing widespread flooding. In response to our nation's greatest ever natural disasters, Australia's music community, along with some of the biggest music names internationally, banded together for two stadium benefit concerts that ran simultaneously in both Melbourne and Sydney under the unified banner SOUND RELIEF. 9 hours of footage over 4 discs featuring every artist, documenting the biggest concerts in Australian music history.
Few front men can claim to have had such a lengthy and far-reaching career as Graham Bonnet; first finding fame as part of The Marbles, enjoying a hit with the Bee Gees’ ‘Only One Woman’ in 1968; a solo career across the 70s; further success with the Bee Gees’, and the disco flavoured ‘Warm Ride’. But Graham found what was possibly his greatest success replacing Ronnie James Dio in Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow for 1979’s “Down To Earth”, and the worldwide hit singles ‘All Night Long’ and ‘Since You Been Gone’. Solo success beckoned with ‘Night Games’ and the “Line-Up” album in 1981, before briefly joining The Michael Schenker Group for 1982’s “Assault Attack”.
On the face of it, John Denver was an unlikely candidate for pop stardom. He achieved fame with a message of wide-eyed optimism at a time when the U.S.A. was wracked by political scandals, economic uncertainty and the after-effects of the Vietnam War. His boyish looks and wholesome persona went against the grain of a society obsessed with hipness.
Denver provided an alternative vision and millions responded to it. A veteran of the folk movement (including a stint with the Chad Mitchell Trio), he emerged as a positive voice who could reach across the generational divide with his music.
Included in this definitive set of John Denver's recordings are his many gold and platinum-selling LPs including Poems, Prayers and Promises (with the hits "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Sunshine on My Shoulders"), Rocky Mountain High and Windsong (with such enduring compositions as "Annie's Song" and "I'm Sorry") as well as later forays into country and pop, all of which contain hidden gems worthy of deeper investigation.
A highlight of this set is a true rarity, the 1966 LP John Denver Sings, a privately pressed, limited-run album released only to John's friends and family. The recording captures Denver's youthful idealism and guileless spirit qualities that remained a part of his music until his tragic death in a 1997 plane crash.
The most complete package to date of John Denver's The Complete Studio Albums.Contains 24 original RCA albums released between 1969 and 1986, plus Denver's rare privately pressed 1966 LP, John Denver Sings. Many of these albums have never been available on CD. Each individual album is packaged in a replica mini-LP sleeve reproducing that album's original cover art.