The type of warm, sophisticated jazz-inflected pop/rock proffered by Bruce Hornsby & the Range was probably the last thing anyone expected to find at the top of the charts in the late '80s. Yet Hornsby, with his virtuosic piano playing and mature song craftsmanship, placed six consecutive singles into the Top 40 between 1986 and 1990, among them the number one "The Way It Is" and the equally solid "Mandolin Rain" and "The Valley Road," both of which reached the Top Five. Hornsby's career has taken many turns in the two decades since his first appearance, and while his commercial fortunes have dissipated, his willingness to grow as a musician, to dodge stagnation, has only expanded. That's what Intersections 1985-2005 is all about…
Finally, a long overdue collection from vocalist/pianist Bruce Hornsby was issued in 2004. The superb Greatest Radio Hits compiles 15 songs, including his charted singles. Eight Bruce Hornsby & the Range numbers and seven solo tracks are featured. Adding "radio" to the greatest-hits title and Hornsby's comments in the liner notes indicate a strong belief in the unpredictability of what becomes a hit…
Michigan's Bob Seger is an American treasure, but he doesn't get the full respect or attention of, say, Bruce Springsteen or John Mellencamp because he wasn't as visible. His late-'70s prime was pre-MTV, New Jersey-born Springsteen had the fawning support of the New York-based media, and Mellencamp embraced high-profile political causes like Farm Aid and married model Elaine Irwin…
Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead is a live album consisting of audio and video recordings from the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead concerts performed by surviving members of the Grateful Dead Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, with Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti…
Don Henley took some time before completing his highly anticipated third album, The End of the Innocence. Although he manages to duplicate much of the magic of his previous album, Henley has backed off of the synthesizers and expanded his musical palette…
Robbie Robertson's 1987 solo debut was an ambitious but only intermittently successful attempt to chart a new musical direction for himself 11 years after the Band had publicly called it quits. Four years later, Robertson's second solo set, Storyville, found him in much more familiar musical territory, as he steeped himself in both the music and the lore of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz and home to many of the R&B masters who had been a primal influence on Robertson and the other members of the Band…
Almost anything could be called "driving music" if one drives to it, so this four-disc set of songs to drive to takes that theme pretty loosely for the most part, but it does include some classic odes to the joys and hazards of motion and movement like Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone," Ram Jam's "Black Betty," Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train," Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," the Edgar Winter Group's "Free Ride," and, of course, Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again," among dozens of other would-be road anthems.
Pure… America collects 68 original hits featuring Boston ("More Than a Feeling"), Boz Scaggs ("Lido Shuffle”), REO Speedwagon ("Keep on Loving You”), America ("Ventura Highway”), Steve Perry ("Oh Sherrie”), and Cheap Trick ("I Want You to Want Me”). Tracks by Blue Öyster Cult, Cyndi Lauper, Poco, and Kenny Loggins are also included on this four-disc compilation.