Pop & Rock News

A gritty bodacious masterpiece!
Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar was not only Cash's debut album, it was also the first full-length LP released by Sun. The LP's twelve tracks include one side of his debut single, 'Cry, Cry, Cry,' along with two of his best-known recordings, 'Folsom Prison Blues' and 'I Walk the Line.' Backed by 'The Tennessee Two,' Luther Perkins on guitar and Marshall Grant on bass, the tracks are spare, direct and intense. Cash's distinctive 'boom-chicka' rhythm propels every song as his commanding voice captures and holds the listener.

Though Cash had been at Columbia for several years by the time this LP was originally released, he recorded and released such a tremendous amount of music between 1955 and 1958 at Sun Studios in Memphis, that Sun Records was releasing his work long after he had defected to a new label. Featuring 12 fantastic recordings with his Tennessee Two and others, including The Ballad Of A Teenage Queen', his wonderful take on Goodnight Irene', and the immortal Big River'. Repressed in a beautiful limited edition picture disc LP on DOXY.

Getting to This was the second album by British blues-rock band Blodwyn Pig, released in 1970. The album was the band's last until a brief reunion in the 1990s: Peter Banks joined from Yes after the recording of Getting To This, but the band split up at the end of 1970. The album reached 8 on the UK album chart.

Bobby Womack's move to Columbia Records heralded a shift from the earthy deep Soul sensibility of his previous records to a slicker, more sophisticated approach in step with the changing sound of contemporary R&B.

The transition not only proves seamless, but in fact Home Is Where the Heart Is (1976) looms as Womack's most compelling LP in some time. Recorded in both Muscle Shoals and Los Angeles, its disparate parts fit together like a well-oiled machine.

Womack's wonderfully gruff vocals adapt well to the warmth and elegance of songs like 'How Long', 'Something for My Head' and 'One More Chance on Love' and he performs with unprecedented passion and focus.

Where It All Begins (1994) is the eleventh studio album by the Allman Brothers Band. 'No One to Run With' obtained the greatest amount of album-oriented Rock airplay, while 'Soulshine', written by Warren Haynes, gained success as a concert and fan favorite.

Gregg Allman also started to confront his substance abuse problems in the past on songs such as 'All Night Train'. In
1998, the album went Gold. This was also the last studio album the group recorded with original guitarist Dickey Betts.

This is the first ever vinyl release of this essential Allman Brothers Band album! The D-side features beautiful etched artwork in the vinyl.

A lovely, understated exercise in minimalism, Deep Dead Blue documents a set of otherwise unaccompanied guitar/vocal duets between Bill Frisell and Elvis Costello, recorded live at the Meltdown Festival in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on June 25, 1995. Frisell co-wrote the title track, one of the five songs bearing a Costello credit; the others are underexposed items from Costello's mid- to late-'80s catalog, plus selections by Charles Mingus ('Weird Nightmare') and Lerner & Loewe ('Gigi').

Costello is once again the refined, mature vocal stylist of Painted From Memory, but Frisell expertly controls the dynamics of each piece, often stripping his part down to single-note lines, which lends surprising emotional impact when he allows full chords to wash over Costello's voice.

Richard Hawley follows his hugely successful UK tour with the release of 'I Still Want You', the second single to be lifted from his massively acclaimed new album 'Hollow Meadows'. The single includes a beautiful live, acoustic recording of album cut 'Tuesday PM' on the b-side.

The world turns. Fashions change. Bands rise and fall. But you can't stop the boogie.

Fifty years after Canned Heat was founded by blues scholars Bob 'The Bear' Hite and

Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson in Topanga Canyon, California, the West Coast legends just keep

rolling on down the road.

Until they pull up in your town, there's "Live 2015". This live recording finds the modern Canned Heat lineup on blistering form, shaking Bonn's Harmonie club with a 14-song set driven by the boogie groove that's practically a strand of rock 'n' roll's DNA.
Led from the back, as ever, by iconic drummer and guardian-of-the-flame Adolfo 'Fito' De La Parra, the rhythm section is given further pedigree by Sixties bassist Larry 'The Mole' Taylor. On lead vocals and harp, give it up for New Orleans legend Dale Spalding, while John 'JP' Paulus capably covers guitar duties for Woodstock-era bandmember Harvey 'The Snake' Mandel (as he recovers from recent health issues). "It's a capsule," explains manager and producer Skip Taylor, "of where the band was at on that particular night."

On his tour of Japan in early 1975, Miles Davis presented some of the most searing, electric fusion ever heard in concert. The performances on this 2CD set taken from an FM broadcast, hail from a January 22 gig at Shinjuku Kohseinenkin Hall in Tokyo. Staged ten days earlier than the February 1 shows at which his Agharta and Pangaea LPs were recorded, this includes some songs not contained on those albums, and spotlights one of the most adventurous bands Davis assembled.

Original Batman theme song Pressed on 'Zapping' Yellow 45 Features 'Batman Theme b/w 'Batusi'

With Samantha on guitars and Luther on various stringed instruments; they rounded out the lineup with Grammy Award-Winning Brady Blade (Emmylou Harris/Bob Dylan) on drums. Special guests include Lightnin Malcolm (guitar), Sharde Thomas (drums) and Memphis session singers Shontelle Norman-Beatty and Risse Norman. The result is a stunning representation of Hill Country Blues, blues rock all with a gospel tinge.



'The young blues chanteuse has little problem vocalizing her sadness, anger, and pain—and doing so in a bewitchingly seraphic timbre.' - Guitar Girl Magazine

The lascivious pen of Henry 'Hank' Ballard was responsible for many risqué odes, including The Midnighters' 'Work With Me Annie,' 'Sexy Ways,' and 'Get It,' major R&B hits of the early '50s all included on 1956's Their Greatest Hits! The FCC banned several of the band's songs from airplay, which only made them that much more desirable for the growing teenage market, and this Sundazed edition—pressed on 180 gram audiophile vinyl at RTI—is the ultimate way to experience the best of the throbbing fury of this storied ensemble at its peak. GET IT!

Every shade of blue is reflected in this retrospective of classic tracks from the Bethlehem catalog, a source of premier musicians playing world-class jazz during the 1950s and early '60s. Blue World, a collection of blue-themed songs, features one side of impeccably rendered ballad vocals from Mel Tormé, Chris Connor, Betty Blake, and Bobby Troup, with jazz instrumentals from the Pete Brown Sextet and Booker Ervin on the other. The great Cary Ginell provides liner notes. 10-inch LP, limited pressing.

Calypso, kwela, highlife and bebop, a little rock n roll and an Indian mambo, a shango hymn, some Sun Ra-style cha cha cha. A lake in a Johannesburg zoo, a Chinese on the Harrow Road; astronauts and prostitutes, landlords, streetfighters and cricketers.

'As well as the appeal of this little-known music — inventive, precocious and fluent by turns — there's the pleasure of discovering the rich, frequently moving histories of the players, thanks to the exceptional sleevenotes... CD Of The Week' (The Observer).
'... matches the superlative standard of its predecessors' (Independent On Sunday).

The music and notes are presented alongside rare artist photographs by Val Wilmer.

Almost all of the afro-Cuban music in this compilation fell under the new marketing category 'salsa' (up till then it would have been simply called Latin music), and its cradle was New York City, where the tradition flourished amidst the constant mix of ethnicities and so many styles of music.

It was inevitable that afro-Cuban music would proliferate in new genres reflecting its new home. Afro-Cuban jazz was born in New York City, through the amalgamating creativity of musicians like Chano Pozo, Machito, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. Likewise Boogaloo in the mid sixties, coming out of Harlem, joining Guajira and son with soul, R and B and doo-wop.

The recordings on Son Cubano NYC were made over the decade beginning 1972, for the new Salsoul and SAR labels and their sisters Mericana and Guajiro. For the trumpeter Chocolate, the music has 'broader harmonies and touches of jazz phrasing, but never leaves the raices and cinquillo... Cuban music is natural - its essence is its raices [roots]'. For the singer Henry Fiol, 'New York salsa is a hybrid. When Cuban music moved to New York it added another flavour.'

Latin music was exploding in the City. You could hear deejays like Polito Vega playing on the radio at any time of day; you could go dancing any night of the week, throughout the boros, at clubs like Corsos, Casablanca, Bronx Casino, Ochentas, Club Cabrojena, Carlos Ortiz' Tropicana, Hunts Point Palace. And yet — held back because of the unmistakable Cuban personality of its music — 'the success of SAR was due mainly to word of mouth', as co-founder Sergio Bofill recalls. 'We didn't get airplay and found that we could do without it and still sell albums in the USA, Europe, and Africa'. This was still the period of the Cold War — when Eddie Palmieri was accused of 'communist salsa' for his song Mozambique (which isn't even salsa) — and the radio stations did their bit to suppress Cuban culture.
Within a few years — by the mid-80s — New York salsa was becoming stagnant: 'boring and monotonous', in the words of historian Max Salazar; for Charlie Palmieri, 'Europeanized' in its disavowal of improvisation. The music-making on this album was dismissed as old-fashioned. Actually — in the glory of its long, flowing, rootsy forms, in the irresistible spell it casts on dancers everywhere — it is timeless.

Al Angeloro

'Vibrant and beautiful almost beyond words, the fifty year old recordings being collected on Honest Jons' London Is The Place For Me series are giant and precious treasures of early black British music. Exquisite artistic achievements in their own right, they also throw light on the early development of post bop jazz in the UK.
Volume one in the series, released in '02 and subtitled Trinidadian Calypso In London, 1950-1956, features all-but-forgotten masterpieces of reportage, social commentary and louche wit from Lord Kitchener, Lord Beginner, the Lion, and other recently arrived young calypsonians. This second volume, subtitled Calypso And Kwela, Highlife And Jazz From Young Black London, concentrates on the same period but widens the geo-stylistic net.

'Featured musicians, caught early in their careers and still working within the rich contexts of their native folk musics, include trumpeter Shake Keane from St. Vincent, later a collaborator in Joe Harriott's free jazz explorations, but in '55 on Baionga in exuberant jazz-highlife mode; clarinetist Willie Roachford and trumpeter Harry Beckett, from Barbados, soloists in Ambrose Campbell's jazz-infused West African Rhythm Brothers highlife band; and from South Africa, alto saxophonists Gwigwi Mrwebi and Dudu Pukwana, together with two of Pukwana's Blue Note colleagues, pianist Chris McGregor and trumpeter Mongezi Feza.

'Mrwebi's Nyusamkhaya, which also features Pukwana, is a Fort Knox-certified 24 carat early kwela mothernugget, the man's Africanized Earl Bostic sound fully and gloriously developed. The bass player is Coleridge Goode, from Jamaica, who later played key roles with Harriott and with John Mayer's seminal Indo-Jazz Fusions project. Pukwana, Feza and McGregor add a township-jazz dimension to Nigerian Tunji Oyelana's Omonike.

'Jazz also gets lyric and stylistic look-ins on two early-mutant calypsos: Young Tiger's Calypso Be and King Timothy's Gerrard Street. Tiger ridicules the 'monstrosity' which is bop, but nonetheless includes a stirring bop-informed solo from Jamaican tenor saxophonist Sam Walker. Timothy instead celebrates the music, and London's modest then-answer to 52nd Street, Soho's Gerrard Street (but asks, 'Another thing I don't realise/Why they all have dark glasses on their eyes')

'Straightahead calypso at its finest comes on Kitchener's My Wife's Nightie — where, unembarrassed by his own infidelity, the singer demands of a one-night stand that she 'Come back with mi wife's nightie/Or I charge you for larceny' — and Lion's masquerade-spooky Kalenda March, catching a similar shiver-up-the-spine vibe as Beginner's awesome 'Fed-A-Ray' on volume one.

'Truth is, there are no standout tracks here. It's all wall to wall magic and beauty and loose-limbed dance rhythms. But Campbell's percussion-only Ashiko Rhythm — a mellow hand drums, thumb piano, and gong-gong workout on the basic shave-and-a-haircut/two-bits beat — and the Rhythm Brothers' delicate and lullaby-like closer Sing The Blues can't go by without mention.

There will be no digital release for these big dancefoor versions... strictly vinyl only!
Witching Hour - Jonny takes DJ Shadow's 'Midnight In A Perfect World' into Jungle/D&B territory
Inhale - Pink Floyd's 'Breathe' taken to the Soulecton dancefoors
Super Skunk - All-tme classic from Reprazent gets the Footwork/Juke treatment
Tempest 2 - The Doors get a beat-head makeover
Jonny Faith says: 'These were an exercise in taking some classics from my past and remoulding
them into the present day so they can fnd their way into to modern sets and dancefoors. Also, the
Reprazent and DJ Shadow ones in partcular are meant as tribute to two artsts/acts who had a major
infuence on me as a youngster. I used to listen to Shadow's 'Endtroducing' on my way to study my frst
music producton course back in Edinburgh, and it has a strong place in my musical psyche. And 'New
Forms' was THE record that really turned me on to Jungle/D&B, which became my obsession for some
years although downbeat and broken beat stuf was always there for me too'.
This is the frst release on Zorite Records, and the aim of the label is to put out vinyl only versions of
music for the DJs. So, frst up is Jonny Faith - a purveyor of Future Beats, Organic Sounds and Space
Age Synths, whose burgeoning career has seen him release well-received tunes on Civil Music and Tru
Thoughts.

The very first rock and roll album to reach #1 on the charts and sell over a million copies, Elvis' debut LP is a classic piece of American music history, from the iconic cover to the unforgettable track listing. Recorded in Nashville, New York, and at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, this is THE KING's most famous moment, a debut LP that changed the course of music history.