Along with his own Grammy-winning catalog, Prince’s legacy lives on through the numerous hits he wrote for other artists. A forthcoming posthumous album will explore this songwriter side of The High Priest of Pop through his own demos.
Along with his own Grammy-winning catalog, Prince’s legacy lives on through the numerous hits he wrote for other artists. A forthcoming posthumous album will explore this songwriter side of The High Priest of Pop through his own demos.
Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of his generation, he was known for his flamboyant, androgynous persona and wide vocal range, which included a far-reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams. Prince produced his albums himself, pioneering the Minneapolis sound. His music incorporated a wide variety of styles, including funk, R&B, rock, new wave, soul, synth-pop, pop, jazz, and hip hop. He often played most or all instruments on his recordings.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy stays busy - in the past five years he has released albums of previously-recorded songs by Susanna Wallumrod, Mekons, Merle Haggard; even himself, and a collaborative record with Bitchin Bajas. The only thing he hasn't done is a new album of Bonny originals - in case you weren't counting, 2011's Wolfroy Goes To Town was the last one. That's from the first half of the Obama presidency!
Tremendous work from the legendary Prince Lasha – a rare UK-only date from 1966 – and one that has the reedman working away from more familiar contemporaries like Sonny Simmons and Eric Dolphy! The approach on this session is very unique – as Lasha includes harp with the instrumentation, played by David Snell in a style that's right up there with Dorothy Ashby's best jazz work.
I wouldn’t have thought the world was anxiously waiting for a historically informed performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade . Written in 1888 and a masterpiece of orchestration, it would seem that this was one work that really cries out for the full resources of a modern symphony orchestra. So I was surprised when I saw a listing for this new recording with the Bruges-based period-instrument ensemble, Anima Eterna. Despite all the heat generated in some quarters, I remain fairly neutral regarding H.I.P., seeing it neither as the salvation of music from 20th-century excesses nor as the death of music through formalism. At their best, H.I.P. performances throw a different light on the overly familiar.
BBE Records proudly presents its 5th and arguably most exciting compilation with the French dj and ambassador of disco, Dimitri from Paris. This compilation focuses on Dimitri’s essential disco era tracks - made in Philadelphia, that feature the core of the rhythm section that created and defined the sound of the genre. For this compilation Dimitri has exclusively reworked 5 tracks from the original multitrack tapes of Gamble and Huff with a further 4 being edited from the original 2 track stereo masters.