Neil Young Lucky 17

Celebrating 20 years of the Academy Award-winning film by Cameron Crowe, the Grammy® winning Almost Famous soundtrack is reissued as a deluxe 2CD with 35 songs from the film including Stillwater, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, and many more. Unreleased songs: “Tiny Dancer (Almost Famous Version)” with Elton John & cast and the unique mix & edit for The Who’s “Amazing Journey / Sparks (Almost Famous Version).”

British guitar legend Bert Jansch has done far more constructive work (and certainly less damage) regarding authentic roots music than his fellow countryman Eric Clapton has, but tragically Jansch's works go relatively unnoticed, except for a fraction of the guitar-appreciating populace. Hopefully, Castle Music's anthology Dazzling Stranger can help to change that fact. Forty-two songs spread over two CDs tell the folk guitarist's story in chronological order from his Transatlantic recordings in 1964 through his home recordings in 2000, with an emphasis on his late-'60s and early-'70s works.

Everlast - Whitey Ford Sings The Blues
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 360 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Tommy Boy Music # BCD 1236 | Country/Year: UK 1998 | Hip Hop

Saying that Everlast showed a great deal of artistic growth between his first and second solo albums would be a understatement. While 1989/1990's Forever Everlasting was a decent, if uneven, debut, Everlast's second solo album, Whitey Ford Sings the Blues is an amazingly eclectic gem that finds him really pushing himself creatively. Between those two albums, Everlast joined and left House of Pain, which evolved into one of the most distinctive rap groups of the 1990s…

This extensive 18 track, nearly 80-minute compilation is an excellent and much needed summary of the plaintive singer/songwriter's rather turbulent career. An American who is much better known in Europe, Casal's eight albums and EPs over the titular decade show glimpses of brilliance amidst material slightly less stellar. In other words, his output is inconsistent, which makes this a perfect entry point for those who haven't tuned in previously. Possessing a lovely, lilting tenor voice – at times sounding like Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook – Casal is often compared to Jackson Browne and Neil Young due to introspective songs similar to the former ("Free Light of Day") and the ability to rock out when necessary with layered guitars ("Eddy & Diamonds") of the latter.

At age 54, Elliott Murphy has been recording albums of his original compositions regularly for 30 years, and unlike some musicians who have been at it that long (such as Neil Young, whose raucous, Crazy Horse-style guitar playing is echoed on this album's leadoff track and whose After the Gold Rush ballad "Birds" is covered under the title "Bird"), he hasn't changed much about his musical or lyrical approach in that time. The Elliott Murphy of 2003 is not very different from the Elliott Murphy of 1973. He still writes semi-autobiographical songs full of poetic imagery and literary references (The Great Gatsby and Samuel Beckett are favorites), and he still sets them to folk-rock arrangements that call to mind Bob Dylan.