Morgana Best

One of the reasons American entertainment became such a strong cultural mix was because of the immigration from so many countries. Many of the great Broadway songwriters and comedians were Jewish, while blues, soul and gospel came from the African-Americans. Cajun music came courtesy of the French; while English and Irish ballads dominated folk music, and even the famed American balladeers were often immigrants of Italian extraction. There were many operatic singers from Italy or of Italian extraction and this inevitably crossed over into popular music. The American singers were largely from Italian families, based predominantly in New York or Philadelphia, and this 60-track collection features the very best of them.

Released in 1979, Kenny Rogers' The Gambler was a pop crossover success, topping Billboard's Country Albums chart at #1 and reaching #12 on the Billboard 200. The album's smash hit ballad, She Believes In Me, topped Billboard's Country and Adult Contemporary Singles charts and peaked at #5 on the Hot 100. The album's title track won two GRAMMY Awards: Best Country Vocal Performance, Male and Best Country Song. The album is five-times Platinum-certified by the RIAA with U.S. sales totaling more than five million copies.

Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre return to Handel with a complete recording of his opera Alcina.