White Gold

The Moody Blues get the two-disc treatment on the latest installment of Polydor's surprisingly thorough Gold series. Rather than just assemble the usual suspects around staples like "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Story in Your Eyes" (which are here), the compilers dove deep into the group's career, providing tracks from solo recordings like "Remember Me My Friend" from Justin Hayward and John Lodge's excellent Blue Jays album and their gorgeous follow-up single, "Blue Guitar," as well as lesser-known late-'70s/early-'80s cuts from Octave, The Present, and Sur la Mer…

Heart of Gold is an impressive showcase for W.C. Clark's deep talents, giving him the opportunity to flaunt his chops and prove that he can play nearly anything. Clark's foundation is in greasy roadhouse Texas blues and while there's a number of wonderful cuts in that style here, he doesn't limit himself to Texas shuffles. Instead, he turns out some sweaty soul — including a seductive, passionate reading of Latimore's "Let's Straighten It Out" — and some organ-drenched Tex-Mex workouts which not only give the album diversity, they also give the album depth. And that's the reason why Heart of Gold is the definitive W.C. Clark release — it's the first (and arguably only) time he's gotten it completely right on record.

This was the soundtrack to a motion picture documentary of the same name of the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Olympic Games…