This story played out locally all across the USA in the wake of the paradigm changing Beatles / British Invasion of 1964. Childhood friends Jimmy Stewart and Larry Farrar heard electric guitars and started a garage band, evolving into Rat Salad by 1970, Hit And Run after that, and finally the Tennessee River Crooks. The band name is taken from the cigar box roadie/manager Jerry Crouch used to stash cash in while working the door at countless gigs across Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois… like most regional working bands of the day these guys played crowd pleasing cover versions at live shows to pay the bills. However, they intended to do their own material from the very start. Originally issued as a private pressing in 1976, this rare LP is an unfiltered slice of real life in the Southern Rock genre. We are lucky some slick producer didn't stumble across them and water it down with dollar signs in his eyes! This stuff is as pure as it gets!

By the time of his fifth album, Havana Daydreamin', Jimmy Buffett seemed to have established a pattern for what a collection of his songs would be. The best one-word description for the musical style still would have to be "country," but Buffett, and probably his record label, had given up on trying to sell him to the conventional country audience, and instead aimed at a slice of the pop market. That was fair enough, since he had evolved a persona as a Gulf Coast ne'er-do-well in compositions full of sentimentally viewed oddball characters ("Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street," co-written with Steve Goodman, a re-recording of "The Captain and the Kid" from his first album, Down to Earth), self-deprecating self-portraits ("My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don't Love Jesus"), and humorous depictions of life on the road for the working musician ("Big Rig," written by Gregory "Fingers" Taylor, harmonica player in Buffett's Coral Reefer Band, "Kick It in Second Wind," co-written with girlfriend Jane Slagsvol), with plenty of references to alcohol and recreational drugs thrown in. It was perhaps unfortunate that the two best-written songs on the album, each of which ended one side of the LP, were written by others, Jesse Winchester's touching, whimsical "Defying Gravity" and Steve Goodman's road song "This Hotel Room." But that suggested that Buffett was looking for good songs to sing, whether he wrote them himself or not. © William Ruhlmann

At the time of its release, Frampton Comes Alive! was an anomaly, a multi-million-selling (mid-priced) double LP by an artist who had previously never burned up the charts with his long-players in any spectacular way. The biggest-selling live album of all time, it made Peter Frampton a household word and generated a monster hit single in "Show Me the Way." And the reason why is easy to hear: the Herd/Humble Pie graduate packed one hell of a punch on-stage – where he was obviously the most comfortable – and, in fact, the live versions of "Show Me the Way," "Do You Feel Like I Do," "Something's Happening," "Shine On," and other album rock staples are much more inspired, confident, and hard-hitting than the studio versions.

Lester Flatt is a name familiar to most any bluegrass fan. His work with Earl Scruggs is considered essential by many and his later work with the Nashville Grass helped pave the way for traditional bluegrass and bluegrass gospel in the decades to come. Heaven's Bluegrass Band was Flatt and the Nashville Grass; first album for CMH. Here, Flatt is joined by an all-star ensemble featuring Curly Seckler, Marty Stuart and Paul Warren among others, presenting some of the warmest and most authentic bluegrass gospel recordings of the era.

Woody Herman and His Orchestra was a jazz band led by Woody Herman, which had its great successes in the late swing era from the late 1930s to the 1980s.

BRAIN LABEL Brain: History Of German Rock 1972 - 1976 (1976 German 13-track double compilation LP, stickered gatefold picture sleeve. Great primer for the cult German Krautrock label, features tracks from some of the genre's most celebrated acts; Neu, Grobschnitt, Harmonia, Klaus Schulze alongside several that have slipped into relative obscurity such as Jane, Release Music Orchestra and Novalis.

The legendary 101 Strings Orchestra are joined by the Alshire Singers to presents The Songs of Carpenters. The collection comes courtesy of Countdown Media's restoration of the master tapes from renowned legacy label, Ashire/Somerset.

Released in 1976, Oxygene proved to be a massive hit for French electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre.

Immediately upon their debut at the 1969 Marlboro Festival, four brilliant young American musicians calling themselves the Cleveland Quartet were hailed as a chamber ensemble of exceptional quality.

The moment the instantly recognizable intertwined guitar passage on the title track to the Eagles' "Hotel California" begins, the record's genius becomes obvious all over again. Ranked the 118th Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone, certified by RIAA as the third best-selling LP in history, and considered the foundation on which the Golden State's mid-‘70s music scene was built, the 1976 landmark is a music staple immune to shifts in trends, eras, and styles. Fearlessly addressing the chaos and consequences of American life, its songs remain strikingly prescient and gain creedence with each passing day.

As one of the three inaugural 1976 releases to ignite the mythical Mustevic Music catalogue, David Wertman’s elusive Kara Suite LP was the first record to turn jazz drummer Steve Reid’s vanity imprint into a bona fide cooperative record label with a multi-artist repertoire.

Cal Tjader's Brazilian explorations continue and actually deepen with this release, as he joins forces with a host of progressive young Brazilian musicians, all overseen by producer Airto Moreira.

Carlos Kleiber's bat from 1975 is a discographic highlight. Inspired by an unforgettable production at Munich's Staatsoper, where Kleiber conducted almost all the performances of this bat production up to 1988, the recording from the Herkulessaal presents an unrivalled degree of presence and stage magic, also in the dialogues.

The album was one of Billboard's Top Album Picks for the week ending April 24, 1976.

Vivian Reed a.k.a. "Ms. Bubblin' Brown Sugar," never made the splash in the record industry that she did as a Broadway actress. The talented New York native is the daughter of Lucille, and the late Clyde Reed. She starred in Bubbling Brown Sugar on Broadway, as Queenie, and with off Broadway productions in Toronto, Paris, and other cities. Her acting acumen, earned the vivacious actress, a Tony nomination, the Drama Desk Award (outstanding feature actress in a musical), Outer Circle Critics Award, the NAACP Award, and many more honors. In the early 90's she won a Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club. She began recording in the 60's and enjoyed her highest charting single "Yours Until Tomorrow," in 1968 on Epic Records who released Vivian Reed, in 1969 hot on its heels. Another single "Let Me Be Yours Til Tomorrow," made a little noise primarily in the New York City area. Her next LP was the soundtrack Brown Sugar, on H & L Records in 1976, then Another Side, on United Artists Records in 1979; a second United Artists album Ready and Waiting dropped in 1980.