Barclay James Harvest, the British progressive rock outfit, delivered some of its most innovative and accessible work on Once Again. An FM radio and dorm-room favorite when it first appeared in 1971, it has just been reissued as a deluxe box set. Like the group’s other early albums, this sophomore release incorporates a full orchestra […]
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The great songwriter Burt Bacharach, who teamed up most famously with lyricist Hal David, also worked for nearly three decades with Elvis Costello. That pairing may at first seem as unlikely as the one between Robert Plant and Alison Krause or the Christmas medley recorded by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Take a close look […]
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Germany’s Bear Family label often outshines all the competition with its gargantuan, career-spanning box sets. Not when it comes to rocker Del Shannon, however. Granted, that company’s eight-CD Shannon anthology, Home and Away, isn’t exactly insubstantial. But that 2005 collection covers nothing released after 1970, and its list of 226 selections falls short of what […]
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Grrr Live! is at least the 10th archival audio/video concert package that the Rolling Stones have issued since 2017, so some fans may be running low on spending money or shelf space or may simply have had enough of recordings that feature overlapping setlists. That said, this latest album may be the best of the […]
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Dexys’ Do-over Kevin Rowland’s overlooked 1999 album, My Beauty, got a deserved second chance with its 2020 rerelease. Now Too-Rye-Ay, the sophomore LP from Rowland’s band, Dexys Midnight Runners, is getting another shot in the spotlight as well, thanks to a recently issued three-CD 40th-anniversary edition. Unlike My Beauty, Too-Rye-Ay didn’t go unnoticed when it […]
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Carly’s Surprise The most you can usually hope for when you walk into New York City’s Grand Central Station is that your train will be on time, but travelers on April 2, 1995, got something more: a surprise concert by Carly Simon. The show—the first live performance in 14 years for the performer, who suffers […]
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Elvis Presley’s precipitous decline, which led to his death in August 1977, appears to have begun about four years earlier. He did perform a hugely popular TV special in January of 1973 (Aloha from Hawaii), but that’s the year when his divorce was finalized, the hit singles stopped coming, his drug use was rising, and […]
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An Unusual Anthology Collects Hits from 1957, plus Marvin Gaye and Diane Hubka Most multi-artist anthologies embrace some sort of cohesive musical theme, such as a focus on a particular genre or the work of a certain performer or composer. That’s not the case with American Bandstand US Top 100, 5th August 1957. This four-CD […]
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A Box Set Showcases Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind Sessions, plus Jeb Loy Nichols and Josh Sinton By 1997, many fans had probably lost track of the number of times Bob Dylan had fallen short or gone silent, been counted out, and then proved the critics wrong with yet another tremendous album. He did […]
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Bob Weir, the Impressions with Jerry Butler, Orchestra Gold, & Howdy Glenn “Hey, That Sounds Like a Dead Album” Though Bob Weir’s name is on the cover, 1972’s Ace sounds like a Grateful Dead album because…well, that’s what it is. True, Weir provided all the lead vocals for the record, which was ostensibly his solo […]
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