The U.S. release of Melvin Taylor's two early-'80s LPs by Evidence a decade later was a shock introduction to a blues guitarist who seemingly blazed out of nowhere – outside of Rosa's Lounge in Chicago, that is. "Blazed" is the right word, too, because Taylor is a total maximalist who unleashes torrents of notes to fill up every space. But he's so convincing a player that the concept of "blues guitar hero" might get a good name again, even with fans dead-tired of excess who never thought they'd think things like, "Man, can Melvin Taylor play the ever-loving (add the expletive superlative of your choice) out of the guitar" again. Taylor's first real-time release, Melvin Taylor & the Slack Band, is a pretty straightforward affair – basic trio with minimal overdubs, servicable vocals in an Albert King mode, and a mix of originals and very classic covers. The opening "Texas Flood" lets him rip on a slow blues, constantly changing up his playing with wah-wah blitzes as the real ace in his sonic hole.

All the Best certainly lives up to its title, offering 17 of Leo Sayer's most popular pop efforts, including each of his Top 40 singles. Beginning with "The Show Must Go On," a frolicking vaudeville-type number with Russ Ballard playing banjo and a number four hit for Three Dog Night, the set entertainingly works its way through the years to reveal Sayer's adeptness at singing ballads and his overly effective pop melodramatics. The disco-flavored "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" was a number one hit for him in 1976, followed by the syrupy "When I Need You," which accomplished the same feat only four months later. Both singles came from Endless Flight, a platinum seller that also yielded a minor hit with "How Much Love," and would prove to be Sayer's strongest album.

This record was originally released in 1991 after Taj had taken a break for a number of side projects including children's records. He was obviously refreshed - the record is full of new ideas and incorporates new production techniques, check out the lovely song "Every wind in the river" and also the scratching and rap stylings of "Squat that rabbit". A bit radical for blues but both work very well. Taj revists the song "Giant step" and also takes the traditional blues "Blues with a feeling" to New Orleans, with an added dash of steel guitar (!?!). Guests include banjo player David Johnson, guitarist David Lindley, Andy Kravitz and Bill Summers and the backing band sound great throughout. This is a really good, imaginative record that saw Taj coming back to form and his next couple of records in the 90s were even better.

Georg Deuter is a German New Age composer known for his innovative blend of acoustic and electronic instruments, ethnic influences, and nature sounds.
Like many artists in the contemporary instrumental realm, Deuter mixes acoustic and electronic instruments, ethnic influences, and sounds from nature - only he's been doing it since the early '70s. His style is characterized by gentle melodies and joyful rhythms that render his music accessible even as he presents an intriguing blend of Eastern and Western styles…

Though they ultimately made their name as a blues-rock band, and Peter Green's admiration of artists like Jerry Garcia eventually found its way into their music, Fleetwood Mac began as a straight-ahead blues band. A bunch of Brits devoted to the music of Chicago and the Delta, Green and company couldn't help but put their own twist on the blues, but they were simultaneously reverential towards it. This is the situation presented in this 1968 live recording.

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 55 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has recorded songs in at least six other languages. She is regarded as a folk singer, although her music has diversified since the counterculture days of the 1960s and now encompasses everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music. Although a songwriter herself, Baez generally interprets other composers' work, having recorded songs by the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan and many others.

Forty-two songs cut between November 1940 and August 1946, and the perfect companion to Bear Family's It's Magic box set – anyone who's been even tempted to own that will have to get this more modestly priced precursor to that material. Day's period singing with Les Brown is, today, regarded with a degree of love and affection reserved for Ella Fitzgerald's era with Chick Webb, or Frank Sinatra's work with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Yet Sony Music's own releases devoted to Doris Day and Les Brown spread the music around to several different CDs, and suffered from sound that, today, seems substandard. These newly remastered tracks, offered in chronological order, including one previously unissued song ("Are You Still in Love with Me"), not only display a far richer, warmer sound, but have been presented with the kind of care that is normally reserved for the best parts of a label's catalog – which these sides definitely are. Day's voice during this period (she was 16 when she cut her first sides with Brown) was an astonishingly expressive instrument.

Passion rather than insouciance is Pires’s keynote. Here is no soft, moonlit option but an intensity and drama that scorn all complacent salon or drawing-room expectations. How she relishes Chopin’s central storms, creating a vivid and spectacular yet unhistrionic contrast with all surrounding serenity or ‘embalmed darkness’. The con fuoco of Op. 15 No. 1 erupts in a fine fury and in the first Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 1, Pires’s sharp observance of Chopin’s appassionato marking comes like a prophecy of the coda’s sudden blaze. Such resolution and psychological awareness make you realize that Chopin, like D. H. Lawrence, may well have thought that “there must be a bit of fear, and a bit of horror in your life”. Chopin, Pires informs us in no uncertain terms, was no sentimentalist.