(I Got No Kick Against) Modern Jazz is a 1995 tribute album by various jazz artists and bands (George Benson, Diana Krall, Lee Ritenour, Chick Corea, David Benoit, Arturo Sandoval, Dave Grusin, and many others) from the GRP Records label. It consists of jazz cover versions of songs originally by The Beatles. The album's title comes from the lyrics of the Beatles's cover of the Chuck Berry song, "Rock and Roll Music", which was originally released on the studio album Beatles for Sale. Dave Grusin was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his cover of "Yesterday" on the album.

After being intermittently active during the mid-'80s, Ian Hunter returned full force to the world of rock & roll with this 1989 album. As usual, Mick Ronson plays an important role, making a substantial contribution to the songwriting and supplying an array of tasty guitar licks. The result is a strong outing that brings Hunter's classically styled rock up to date: the standout example of this is "American Music," a heartfelt tribute to the music that inspired "Hunter" as a child that combines power chords with a slickly harmonized chorus to create a punchy slice of pop-flavored rock & roll. YUI Orta is the slickest-sounding album in Hunter's catalog thanks to the efforts of Bernard Edwards, the producer best known for being half of the creative brain trust behind Chic and producing slick outings for the Power Station and Robert Palmer. This pairing might seem odd in concept but it results in an effective sound that rocks hard but offers enough ear candy elements to make the whole package listener friendly. For instance, Edwards adds a serpentine horn riff to "Cool" that cleverly enhances its soulfulness without taming the song's hard rock edge.

Human's Lib is fueled by the nonstop synth-pop hooks and brightly textured melodies that went on to be a trademark of Howard Jones. His brand of spirited keyboard-and-lyric exuberance lent itself to a large part of the mid-'80s, especially in Britain. The tracks on Human's Lib are energetic and colorful, coming to life the best on "New Song," a number 27 hit for Jones in the U.S., and on the finely structured "What Is Love?," which gave him the number 33 spot on the singles chart four months later. While both of these songs rested at the bottom end of Billboard's Top 40, they went to number three and number two, respectively, in the U.K., with the album going all the way to number one, proving that his techno-pop stylings were better-appreciated on his side of the Atlantic. Outside of the singles, the album still holds well, with efforts like "Hide and Seek," "Conditioning," and "Pearl in the Shell" following through with a buoyant but orderly techno-pop keenness mustered through his clean use of the synthesizer. Although 1985's Dream Into Action is tighter both musically and lyrically, Human's Lib acts as a well-grounded starting point for Jones' future success.

Blues to the Bone is a 2004 album by Etta James. The album contains a selection of twelve blues standards which are among her favourites. The album was given a Grammy Award in 2005 for Best Traditional Blues Album.

Dionne Warwick enjoyed a career revival in the late '70s and 1980s when she teamed with such producers as Barry Manilow, Barry Gibb, and even Luther Vandross. They returned her to the elaborately arranged and structured soul-tinged pop that had marked her finest hits, although the lyrics and compositions weren't as consistent as they were during her Burt Bacharach/Hal David period. This album collects the biggest hits from this second phase of Warwick's career, including such triumphs as "Deja Vu" and "I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again"; it also introduced a new tune, "Take Good Care of You And Me".

Pure… Singer/Songwriter is a brave album that showcases strong song writing, sometimes by avoiding the artists most prominent work in lieu of a lesser known piece. Simon & Garfunkel, John Denver, Lou Reed, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, George Michael and Bruce Hornsby are all represented by one of their better known tracks. However, Bowie, Hall & Oates, Alicia Keys, Nillson and even Sarah Bareilles are represented but obscure tracks. As well as the well known artists this compilation also goes back to includes lesser known artists from the 60s and 70s such as Colin Blunstone, Laura Nyro and Phoebe Snow.

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez (July 10, 1942 – August 8, 2023), mononymously known as Rodríguez, was an American musician from Detroit, Michigan. His music career initially proved disappointing in the United States, but unknown to Rodriguez his albums became extremely successful and influential in South Africa, where he is believed to have sold more records than Elvis Presley. His work also found a following in some other countries in Africa, and also in Australia and New Zealand. Because information about him was scarce, it was incorrectly rumored there that he had committed suicide shortly after releasing his second album. In the 1990s, determined South African fans managed to find and contact Rodriguez, which led to an unexpected revival of his musical career. This was told in the 2012 Academy Award–winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man and helped give Rodriguez a measure of fame in his home country.

Although the cover art might suggest that this compiles, features, or in some way includes material from Michael Nesmith's four-year (1966-1970) tenure as a Monkee, this isn't the case at all. Additionally confusing matters is that the same 25 tracks on this collection are replicated – right down to the exact running order – on the unimaginatively titled Best Of: Original Hits. Regardless, the contents of both have been culled from Nesmith's first half-dozen post-Monkees long-players. The tune stack is well represented by the First National Band LPs Magnetic South (1970), Loose Salute (1970), and Nevada Fighter (1971) – plus, to a much lesser extent, Tantamount to Treason (1972), And the Hits Just Keep on Comin' (1972), as well as Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash (1973).

The Anthology 1961-1977 is a compilation album of songs by Curtis Mayfield when he was with the Impressions and when he was solo. Of the 40 tracks, 30 are from Mayfield's time with the Impressions. The album includes liner notes written by Robert Pruter. In 2003, the album was ranked number 178 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Cut in front of an appreciative throng at FitzGerald's in suburban Chicago, Mack cuts loose the way he so often does in concert, sticking almost exclusively to his Alligator-era tunes ("Satisfy Suzie," "Cincinnati Jail," the tortured soul ballad "Stop") and never looking too far backwards.

The ultimate violin virtuoso, Niccolò Paganini also wrote more than 100 pieces for guitar, including these Ghiribizzi (‘whims’). Composed for ‘a little girl in Naples’ who must have been both talented and eager to develop her technique, these whimsical works explore a wide range of musical styles idiomatic to the guitar. Many of the 43 short movements draw on themes by Rossini, Paisiello, Süssmayr, Mozart, Giuliani and, of course, Paganini himself. Praised by Les cahiers de la guitare as ‘inspired’ and Koelner Stadt Anzeiger as a ‘genius’, Denis Sungho Janssens made his 2005 Carnegie Hall début as a Rising Star of the European Concert Hall Organization.

Recorded in the UK in late 1971, First Album was a fine addition to the small but burgeoning British country rock scene that encompassed the likes of Matthews Southern Comfort, Quiver, Help Yourself, and Brinsley Schwarz. Roger's band on this album features some of the finest musicians of the era, including Glenn Campbell, fresh out of Juicy Lucy (and formerly of The Misunderstood), drummer Rod Coombes, sax player Chris Mercer and bassist De Lisle Harper. Harper, who has played with everyone from Gass and Bond & Brown to the Strawbs and Whitesnake also did the atmospheric brass, string and woodwind arrangements. Ex-Family man John Weider was present on fiddle and guitar, whilst drum duties were shared additionally by Kokomo's Terry Stannard and the Greaseband's ever reliable Bruce Rowlands. The late Tommy Eyre handled most of the keyboard chores. This is the first time this album has ever been released on CD. This issue boasts an additional four bonus tracks, which were all recorded a year after the original LP. The accompanying 12 page booklet includes comprehensive liner notes and full lyrics to every track.

Irish pianist Barry Douglas has largely avoided recording, but has made a substantial reputation on the concert stage. You'd think he might have cultivated a commanding, public style, but in this first-in-a-series album of Brahms piano works, he instead offers quiet, finely wrought interpretations. The programming concept itself is a bit involved, but Douglas pulls it off: instead of offering short works in complete sets, he picks and chooses in order to create a convincing sequence of moods and modes of expression. Here, Douglas sets Brahms' late works against broader works from earlier in the composer's career. His control over the Intermezzo, Capriccio, and Romance sets of Opp. 116, 117, and 118, is extraordinary, and few pianists have ever evoked so well the quintessential reaction to late Brahms: that when you hear the performance just once, you have an uncanny feeling of barely having scratched the surface. In Douglas' hands, the larger Rhapsodies, Op. 79, and the Ballade in B major, Op. 10/4, almost inspire relaxation: here Douglas turns up the volume and revels a bit in the melodies.

Deep in the heart of the Cold War, there was once a miracle in Moscow – Texas-based classical pianist Van Cliburn, of whom no one had heard, conquered at the First Tchaikovsky Competition, an event set aside to showcase Soviet talent. Cliburn was warned by his own government not to go, given the tense political relationship between the United States and Soviet Union at the time, and once he arrived he was greeted as a party crasher, subject to hostile stares and animosity of the kind he had never dreamed of back in Texas. And it was Cliburn, at the end, which brought down the house, and held the award. Back in America, he was greeted with a ticker tape parade and was the subject of a best-selling biography by Abram Chasins, The Van Cliburn Story, copies of which continue to clog the shelves of American thrift stores five decades hence. Ultimately, though, Cliburn's celebrity lost its luster. Nerves, ultra-picky perfectionism, and mishandling by management led to his early retirement from the concert scene; his greatest latter-day achievement being the force behind the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, America's most prestigious such event.

This CD contains selections from a triumphant Japanese tour which saw three-fourths of the original lineup augmented by such guest stars as guitarists Barry Finnerty and Roland Bautista, percussionist Rafael Cruz, and bassist Alphonso Johnson. But the interaction and contributions of Joe Sample, Wilton Felder, and Stix Hooper make this memorable, plus the fact that this is the first time the complete concert has ever been available on a domestic release. It's really a "greatest-hits live" CD, with such familiar numbers as "Spiral," "Rainbow Seeker," "So Far Away" and "Put It Where You Want It" part of the menu. While not in the class of such classic releases as 1, Scratch, or Second Crusade, this is still a welcome addition to the legacy of a sorely underrated group.