Amazon Review by happy zaz
I love *feel-good* songs. Especially in summer, there is a certain free-ness about them. this cd sums up my summer, its content has something for everyone! I get the feeling my mum, dad and grandparents could find something they'd enjoy on this album, and there are also many modern tracks. eg.the Thrills-Big Sur. I think both young and old could find a track to love on this cd.

Peter Green was regarded by some fans as the greatest white blues guitarist ever, Eric Clapton notwithstanding. Born Peter Greenbaum but calling himself Peter Green by the age of 15, he grew up in London's working-class East End. Green's early musical influences were Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Freddie King, and traditional Jewish music. He originally played bass before being invited in 1966 by keyboardist Peter Bardens to play lead in the Peter B's, whose drummer was a lanky chap named Mick Fleetwood. The 19-year-old Green was with Bardens just three months before joining John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, whose rapidly shifting personnel included bassist John McVie and drummer Aynsley Dunbar.

Skid Row is the debut studio album by American heavy metal band Skid Row, released on January 24, 1989 by Atlantic Records. After being noticed by manager Doc McGhee, Skid Row signed with Atlantic and began recording its debut. The album was recorded in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener, and received favorable reviews upon its release. The band promoted Skid Row mainly as an opening act on worldwide tours by Bon Jovi and Aerosmith in 1989–1990. The album peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 and was certified 5× platinum in 1995 for shipping five million copies in the United States. It generated four singles: "Youth Gone Wild", "18 and Life", "I Remember You" and “Piece of Me”, all of which were accompanied by music videos and received heavy rotation on MTV. The album's commercial and critical success made Skid Row a regular feature in rock magazines and brought the group nationwide popularity.

2007 release from the former guitarist, singer and keyboardist for Uriah Heep. Blood On The Highway is an autobiographical album dealing Hensley's experiences during his '70s heyday. Featuring a number of special guests, the rock opera Blood on the Highway was recorded at the end of 2006 and released in May 2007. The story portrays the rise and fall of a rock'n'roll star and the eventual restart. The lead vocals role was split between Hensley himself, plus Glenn Hughes (ex-Deep Purple, Trapeze, Black Sabbath), Jorn Lande (ex-The Snakes, Masterplan), John Lawton (ex-Lucifer's Friend, Uriah Heep) and Eve Gallagher.

In the summer of 1971, BANG, a trio from the Philadelphia area, decided to take a road trip to Florida to try their fortune. While buying some rolling papers in the Sunshine State, they learned about a Small Faces and Deep Purple concert nearby in Orlando. They showed up at the venue and brazenly declared they were ready to go on stage. The concert organizer asked them to set up and play for him. After a couple songs, he told them they were opening for Rod Stewart and Faces. Before they knew it, BANG was playing with Bachman Turner Overdrive, Deep Purple, Three Dog Night, Fleetwood Mac, Ike and Tina Turner, The Doobie Brothers, and even Black Sabbath. Capitol Records signed them, and three LPs were released. This CD was put out by the band and has the albums Bang and Mother/Bow To The King both on the same cd. This was self released and not on any label.

Despite benefiting from the expert assistance of legendary producer Martin Birch (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, later Iron Maiden) Whitesnake's early studio albums all tended to sound unexplainably flat. Their fourth effort, 1980's Ready an' Willing, was no exception, but it did make up for this somewhat with solid songwriting. In fact, David Coverdale and company were growing increasingly more consistent and self-assured with each record, and this album's first half shows great progress over the previous year's hit-and-miss Lovehunter. Opener "Fool for Your Lovin'" was their best single yet, as well as their highest charting; with its clever combination of hit-savvy chorus and authentic bluesy resignation, it set the template for subsequent triumphs, and the fact that Coverdale re-recorded it (in disappointing pop-metal fashion) over a decade later for 1989's Slip of the Tongue is a testament to its staying power.

It was distinctly ironic: at the very zenith of America's postwar space-age love affair with TV, 3-D, and rock & roll (and other disposable cultural ephemera), a grassroots movement set out to recapture the country's lost musical heritage. These curious minds not only found it in a wealth of seemingly forgotten protest songs, spiritual blues, and country laments, but also forged new songs in its image. That this crusade sprang from lower Manhattan's Washington Square and the doorstep of New York University made the paradox all the sweeter. Ted Myers, the producer of this triple-disc anthology, grew up just blocks from the epicenter of that folk-quake, and his generous sense of place and time permeates this rich collection. Generally misunderstood and historically pigeonholed, the era finally gets its due, chronicled here by 72 tracks that extend far beyond the roots-conscious work of Woody Guthrie, the Weavers, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Pete Seeger on one hand, and the more popular material by the Kingston Trio, Limeliters, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan on the other. Culturally, the Folk movement was the alt-rock of its day–if eminently more conscious of history and politically committed. Musically, it encompassed an ethos that enthusiastically blurred the boundaries between blues, Appalachian ballads, jug music, pure country, honky-tonk, work songs, and even unbridled novelty; this set explores them all, often with a palpable sense of discovery. Historically, the movement championed preservation at the same time it gleefully tweaked old sensibilities in pursuit of new inspiration. Listen and you'll hear music that became touchstones for artists as diverse as the Byrds, Roberta Flack, Rod Stewart, and–wittingly or not–every passionate coffeehouse minstrel who's strode on stage with a guitar ever since. –Jerry McCulley

This new CD from BR-KLASSIK features the ballet music 'Carmen Suite', based on the famous melodies from George Bizet's eponymous opera and masterfully arranged and adapted by the composer Rodion Shchedrin in 1968, and Ottorino Respighi's well-known symphonic poem 'Pini di Roma' (The Pines of Rome), written in 1924. The name of the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin is primarily associated in the West with his 'Carmen Suite', which has been highly popular ever since its first performance. The thirteen movements of this ballet music are based on Bizet's opera Carmen, and carefully adapted to the musical language of the present day.

This recording of the BBC’s broadcast of the coronation service from Westminster Abbey was taken by means of a direct line to Abbey Road Studios in St John’s Wood, London.

Fine set presenting vintage barrelhouse piano and stomping blues by Big Joe Duskin, one of the last true stylists in both genres. Duskin's album was released with no fanfare and didn't attract the widespread notice it deserved.

Niccolò Paganini’s Quartets for Strings and Guitar offer some of the best examples of his inexhaustible creativity, including ideas and themes that were later included in his more famous concertos. The Seventh Quartet combines mastery of form with endless melodic inventiveness, while the Fourteenth is more virtuosic, allowing its dedicatee to shine as a violinist with splendid effectiveness. The dark colour of the viola gives unique timbre to the Fifteenth Quartet which, with its moments of operatic expressiveness, is outstanding in Paganini’s chamber music output. Volume 1 of this edition (CDS7912) was considered “first-rate” in every regard by the American Record Guide.

Full Dynamic Range Remastered edition of At The Gates fourth studio album.
When it was first released, At the Gates' Earache debut Slaughter of the Soul was regarded as a generally excellent example of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal, and certainly the band's best and most focused album to date. But the commonly held view was that it wasn't anything all that special, either. After all, it lacked the intricate twin-guitar leads of In Flames, the complex song structures of Dark Tranquillity, the progressive artistry of Edge of Sanity, or even the rock & roll underpinnings of latter-day Entombed. Slaughter of the Soul was more obviously rooted in American thrash (especially Slayer) than its peers, and didn't seem to be consciously trying to break new ground…

Armenian-born pianist Marianna Shirinyan and Polish pianist Dominik Wizjan began their collaboration at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where Shirinyan is a professor. On this Orchid Classics release they play both Suites for Two Pianos by Rachmaninov – works that are relatively rarely heard compared with much of the composer’s output, yet which reveal much about the evolution of his style. The Suite No.1 for two pianos, ‘Fantaisie-Tableaux’, was composed when Rachmaninov was only 20 and is unusual in his output for its programmatic movements, each one inspired by a poem and already exhibiting his characteristic virtuosity and aching expressivity. The Suite No. 2 was written seven years later in the wake of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2; he was at the peak of his powers, resulting in music that is both staggeringly demanding to play and bewitching to hear.

The new recording is entirely dedicated to British music and offers a great selection of works by famous but also lesser-known composers: recorded are works by Edward Elgar (1857-1934), Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Peter Warlock (1894-1930) and Karl Jenkins (b. 1944). The album opens with the earliest masterpiece, the famous Serenade in E minor for string orchestra by Edward Elgar, one of the greatest British composers and leading European composers of his generation. Among the hallmarks of Elgar's compositions are ingratiating character pieces that often share elements with English folk music.

This cycle of 21 spiritual madrigals for seven voices is at once the swan song of the most famous composer of his time, who died in 1594 at the age of 62 just three weeks after dedicating the work to the Pope, and the high point of Counter-Reformation polyphony. More than four centuries later, Philippe Herreweghe's superb performance of the Lagrime di San Pietro proves that the work still has the power to touch the hearts of sensitive listeners.