"Lay It Down" is the 29th studio album by American recording artist Al Green, released May 27, 2008, on Blue Note Records. The album was produced by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots and James Poyser. Four tracks feature guest artists, two with Anthony Hamilton, and one each with John Legend and Corinne Bailey Rae. "Lay It Down" is Green's first Top 10 Album since 1973, and, according to Metacritic, has received widespread acclaim from critics. "Stay With Me (By the Sea)" won Al Green and John Legend a Grammy award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group given in 2009.
Herbie Hancock's star-studded The Imagine Project was several years in the making, recorded in seven countries with musicians from all over the globe. Hancock's band with producer/bassist Larry Klein, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, percussionist Alex Acuña, and guitarist Lionel Loueke is a common denominator. Much of what's here is interpretations of well-known pop, folk, and soul songs. That said, The Imagine Project (named for the John Lennon song) feels more like an overreach than a seamless or successful series of collaborations.
Released as part of Apple/EMI’s extensive 2010 John Lennon remasters series, the single-disc Power to the People: The Hits covers familiar territory, but then again, that’s the point of this collection. It’s not designed to dig deep into John's catalog, it’s designed as the latest iteration of the canon, replacing 1997’s Lennon Legend, the last big-budget single-disc compilation. Power to the People is five cuts shorter than Lennon Legend, ditching album cuts “Love” and “Borrowed Time,” swapping the charting singles, “Mother” and “Nobody Told Me,” for the non-charting “Gimme Some Truth” and the actual number 18 hit “Mind Games,” but the end result is the same: Power to the People feels interchangeable with its predecessors because it is another collection with “Imagine,” “Instant Karma,” “Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” “Jealous Guy,” “(Just Like) Starting Over,” “Watching the Wheels,” “Stand by Me,” “#9 Dream,” “Give Peace a Chance,” “Power to the People,” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” The remasters are excellent so if you are in need of a tight Lennon comp this is a good choice but if you already have a hits collection, there’s no reason to replace it.
John Mayall is rightly considered one of the pioneers of British blues music. Many stars of the scene, including Eric Clapton, Walter Trout, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Ginger Baker, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, learned from the singer and musician and started their careers with his Bluesbreakers. Today, Mayall has long since achieved legend status, but he never rested on it. At the proud age of 82, he released his album "Talk About That" in 2017, for which he brought not only his old familiar band, but also a real rock legend into the studio.
The singer and musician recorded eleven songs for this CD, eight Mayall originals and the three blues classics "It's Hard Going Up," "Goin' Away Baby" and "Don't Deny Me," which he and his band gave their very own interpretations…