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There are several very distinct periods of Renaissance history - of which the most exciting may well be the time surrounding their best album, A Song for All Seasons, It is the album - along with Azure d'Or and Novella - that almost broke them as pop stars and was filled with some of the most interesting (in their prog rock roots) songs they had yet written. This live album is from the tour accompanying the Song for All Seasons tour - and, as such, it could be argued that it is Renaissance at the peak of their powers. Even more so than Live at Carnegie Hall or the welcomed reunion concert, In the Land of the Rising Sun, Dreams & Omens captures Renaissance as one tight pop band. They almost play like a cross between the Alan Parsons Project and late-era ABBA…

Universal's '2 For 1' series, compiling the albums 'Blues Dimension' (1968) and 'B.D. Is Dead, Long Live B.D.' (1969). The band was formed in Zwolle, Overijssel (The Netherlands) in 1966 by Leen Ripke. It was one of the first Dutch groups playing blues and rhythm & blues with horns. They were also one of the few bands in the 1960's that had a respectable three albums out! The band was troubled by the fact that another local band, the more popular Cuby & The Blizzards consequently stole musicians from Blues Dimension. Their biggest hit 'Get Ready' was a cover from Rare Earth. In 1969, the group's breakup was announced in the title of their last album.

Rhino's expansive six-CD box set of 1970s soul called Can You Dig It?, this wonderfully sequenced collection stands as an impressive survey of the genre in its own right, running the gamut from Al Green and Marvin Gaye to the Chi-Lites, Sly Stone, the Staple Singers, and Earth, Wind & Fire and beyond with nary a slack track in sight. It may technically be a sampler, but in being so it doesn't have the luxury of pausing for breath or historical reflection, which means this compilation, sampler or not, delivers bang for the buck from end to end.