Sweet

Recollections of Britain's arch-glam gods generally inspire two theories of their producers, Mike Chapman and his partner, Nicky Chinn. Either they knew just what they were doing and calculated accordingly, or blindly hit pay dirt, following toothless early singles like "Funny Funny" (none of which grace this disc). By this reckoning, Sweet was a '70s-era pinup band or a closeted hard rock quartet who only got their due after breaking the Chapman/Chinn combination…

Featuring seven original studio albums and two discs of rarities, ‘Sensational Sweet (Chapter One: The Wild Bunch)’ is set to be the most thorough account of glam icons Sweet yet. Fully documenting the classic line up (Andy Scott, Steve Priest, Mick Tucker and Brian Connolly) the nine disc set includes 1971 debut studio album ‘Funny, How Sweet Co Co Can Be’ and the five following album…

This UK studio group comprised several of the country’s leading blues musicians. Saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith was a veteran of Blues Incorporated, the Graham Bond Organisation and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers before becoming a founder member of Colosseum, while John O’Leary (harmonica) and Keith Tillman (bass) were concurrently members of the John Dummer Blues Band. Stuart Cowell (guitar), Sam Crozier (piano), Junior Dunn (drums) and vocalists Annette Brox and Alan Greed completed the Sweet Pain line-up featured on the unit’s lone album…

Although they were often dismissed as a fluffy singles group in their day, Sweet crafted a handful of strong albums in the mid-'70s that sported some surprisingly muscular hard rock. A fine example of this trend is Sweet Fanny Adams. Although this album got little exposure in America on its own, over half of this album's contents ended up on the American edition of Desolation Boulevard. Sweet Fanny Adams' tone is set with the opening track, "Set Me Free," a fiery rocker that blends ultrahigh vocal harmonies to a furious succession of guitar riffs that jack the song up a level of speed metal frenzy…

Emerging as one of the 62 bands signed out of the Northwest during the post-Nirvana explosion, Seattle's own Sweet Water signed to Atlantic Records in 1992. Fronted by charismatic front man Adam Czeisler and the songwriting team of guitarists Dudley Taft and Rich Credo, the band created a little buzz for itself in the Seattle region prior to releasing its self-titled debut in 1993…

By 1973, Uriah Heep had progressed from an English heavy metal band to a worldwide success. They moved on to a new label (Warner Bros.) and began to explore new styles to flesh out their combination of prog complexity and heavy metal muscle…

After seemingly coming out of nowhere to be hailed as a major songwriter and roots music stylist, it took Lucinda Williams four years to prepare the follow-up to her masterful 1988 eponymous album. When it finally arrived, Sweet Old World proved to be every bit the equal of its predecessor, if not even better…