Kathrine Jenkin

The Complete Jan Akkerman is a new 26 CD box set which brings together all the studio albums (and more) of Dutch guitar legend Jan Akkerman, who found international success with the band Focus. The creative guitarist is well known for his individualistic style, combining rock, jazz, blues, and baroque into his solo projects. This 26-disc set includes the solo studio long-players, his most important live recordings and a CD of rare and previously unreleased tracks.
The booklet includes a biography, some unpublished photos and an album-to-album breakdown, featuring full credits (including never-before-published facts about who played what on specific albums) and Jan’s own memories about the 23 studio and live albums, taken from recent interviews with Jan…

With apologies to groups like The Meters, Bar-Kays, and Average White Band, when it comes to all-time great instrumental R&B bands, for most folks Booker T. & the MG's represent the gold standard. And with good reason'or, actually reasons! First of all, as the house band of the hallowed Stax label, The MG's pretty much invented the sound of Southern soul, playing on records by everybody from Otis Redding to Wilson Pickett to Carla Thomas. Second, on their own as Booker T & the MG's, they came up with some of the most indelible instrumental jams of all time, including'but by no means limited to!''Green Onions.' And, third, each member of the band was an absolute monster on their instrument, to this day revered and copied by untold numbers of musicians. Indeed, by the time the mid '60s rolled around, bands on both sides of the Atlantic wanted to sound like Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Jr, and Lewie Steinberg (replaced about halfway through this collection by the great Donald 'Duck' Dunn).