Tsuma Futari 1967

Albert King recorded a lot in the early '60s, including some classic sides, but they never quite hit the mark. They never gained a large audience, nor did they really capture the ferocity of his single-string leads. Then he signed with Stax in 1966 and recorded a number of sessions with the house band, Booker T. & the MG's, and everything just clicked. The MG's gave King supple Southern support, providing an excellent contrast to his tightly wound lead guitar, allowing to him to unleash a torrent of blistering guitar runs that were profoundly influential, not just in blues, but in rock & roll (witness Eric Clapton's unabashed copping of King throughout Cream's Disraeli Gears). Initially, these sessions were just released as singles, but they were soon compiled as King's Stax debut, Born Under a Bad Sign.

The Jefferson Airplane opened 1967 with Surrealistic Pillow and closed it with After Bathing at Baxter's, and what a difference ten months made. Bookending the year that psychedelia emerged in full bloom as a freestanding musical form, After Bathing at Baxter's was among the purest of rock's psychedelic albums, offering few concessions to popular taste and none to the needs of AM radio, which made it nowhere remotely as successful as its predecessor, but it was also a lot more daring…

Digitally remastered box set featuring all of the albums and singles recorded by the legendary American acid/progressive rock band Iron Butterfly recorded for Atlantic's Atco label between 1967 and 1971 and additional recordings made at the Fillmore East in New York City in April 1968. Iron Butterfly first came together in San Diego, California in 1966 with a line-up of Doug Ingle (vocals, organ), Danny Weis (guitar), Greg Willis (bass), Jack Pinney (drums) and Darryl DeLoach (vocals). After performing in the San Diego area the band relocated to Los Angeles in search of a recording contract, with Willis soon departing to be replaced by Jerry Penrod on bass. Jack Pinney also departed and was eventually replaced by Ron Bushy. The band’s psychedelic and acid rock style was honed during regular appearances at LA venues such as the Whisky a Go Go and the Galaxy Club, which saw Iron Butterfly develop a loyal following and led to the band signing with Atlantic’s Atco label in 1967…

Love’s FOREVER CHANGES is the psychedelic folk-rock pioneers’ finest achievement. The set features a few firsts for the album, including the CD-debut of a remastered version made by its original co-producer and engineer Bruce Botnick, as well as the first-ever release of the mono version on CD. Also included are alternate mixes of the album, as well as a selection of rare and unreleased singles and studio outtakes…

Procol Harum's debut album is amazingly engaging, considering that it was rushed out to capitalize on the hit title track. The material was all already written (before the hit, in fact), but the group recorded the LP in just two days, simply to get a long-player out, and came up with one of the more pleasingly straightforward releases in their history. The range of sounds here is the widest ever heard on one of the group's albums – "A Christmas Camel" isn't that far from the old Paramounts, the group tackling a sound inspired by Bob Dylan (and derived specifically from his "Ballad of a Thin Man"), while "Salad Days" and "Kaleidoscope" are hard-driven psychedelic rockers, stripped down to the basics, with no pretensions.

This two-fer brings together two key Gary Burton Quartet works of the the late '60s. After 1967's Duster, the Quartet went on to collaborate with composer Carla Bley on A Genuine Tong Funeral, a quirky, mordant jazz "opera" that owes as much to Kurt Weill as to Charles Mingus. Besides Burton, guitarist Larry Coryell, and bassist Steve Swallow, the free-spirited drummer Bob Moses makes his appearnce, having replaced veteran Roy Haynes. Other Bley stalwarts include saxophonists Gato Barbieri and Steve Lacy, who pop in and out of the vivid cartoon-like musical narrative.
The shaggy Moses is key to the musical feel of Lofty Fake Anagram, the official follow-up to the outstanding Duster. With the exception of Duke Ellington's "Fleurette Africaine" however, the writing isn't quite as strong as on the previous date's…