Perhaps realizing that Down on the Farm wasn't the proper swan song for Little Feat, the group persuaded Warner Brothers to release a compilation of rarities and overlooked tracks as a swan song and farewell to fans. Filled with live performances, obscurities, album tracks, and a new song apiece from Bill Payne and Paul Barrere, Hoy Hoy is a bit scattered, a bit incoherent, a little bewildering, and wholly delightful – a perfect summation of a group filled with quirks, character, and funk, traits which were as much a blessing as they were a curse. Hoy Hoy is one of those rare albums that may be designed for diehards – who else really needs radio performances, early recordings from before the band was signed, and outtakes, especially if they're surrounded by early album tracks? – but still is a great introduction for novices. That doesn't mean it's as good as such masterpieces as Sailin' Shoes, Dixie Chicken, or Waiting for Columbus, but it does capture the group's careening, freewheeling spirit, humor, and musical versatility, arguably better than any single album.
From West Side Story and Gypsy to Into the Woods and The Frogs , here's the first set to cross the whole career of Broadway's foremost living composer/lyricist! Along the way you'll dig into a treasure chest of unreleased tracks (33 including 12 performed by Sondheim, pieces from eight un-produced shows and films, songs cut from Company, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music and more) plus Everything's Coming Up Roses Ethel Merman; Comedy Tonight Zero Mostel; A Parade in Town Angela Lansbury; (If You Can Find Me) I'm Here Anthony Perkins; I'm Still Here Carol Burnett; Children Will Listen Bernadette Peters; Finishing the Hat Mandy Patinkin, and more.
Deriving their name from the metric total of semen ejaculated by the average male, the tongue-in-cheek British art pop band 10cc comprised an all-star roster of Manchester-based musicians: vocalist/guitarist Graham Gouldman was a former member of the Mockingbirds and the author of hits for the Yardbirds, the Hollies, Herman's Hermits and Jeff Beck; singer/guitarist Eric Stewart was an alum of Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders; and vocalists/multi-instrumentalists Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were both highly regarded studio players…
10cc has been subjected to countless compilations over the years – the hits get recycled regularly and the early stuff for Jonathan King's U.K. Records gets shuffled around – but they've never had a testament to their weird work until the 2012 box set Tenology. Running four CDs and one DVD, Tenology is certainly generous, but a case could be made that it could have been even longer, encompassing a disc of their early work making bubblegum for Strawberry Studios (in lieu of that, the 2003 Castle compilation, Strawberry Bubblegum serves as an excellent supplement to this), but what is here shows that 10cc was far stranger, savvier, funnier, and wilder than "I'm Not in Love" and "The Things We Do for Love" might suggest…
This is a fantastic example to the 60's Soul Jazz movement. Cox, an accomplished musician, didn't want to be a basketball coach. When he was growing up in Cincinnati, he wanted to be a great baseball player, another Jackie Robinson. And he wanted to be a great jazz saxophone player, another Charlie Parker. After graduating from Kentucky State, Cox came to Chicago with classmate Joe Henderson, the famed tenor sax player. They were en route to California to become professional musicians. But Cox never left. He found a home – and another occupation – on the South Side.