VA - Take Me To The River: A Southern Soul Story 1961 - 1977 (3 CD, 2008/FLAC)

 

Take Me to the River chronicles the story of Southern Soul, from it's advent in 1961 to it's apex in the early 1970s. It's track listing was carefully chosen to reflect and demonstrate every facet of the genre, and to appeal to both long time collectors and those who we hope will enjoy it deeply enough to delve further into the genre's breadth of repertoire. The track listing embraces everything from million selling, international hits to 45s that barely sold enough to cover their pressing costs.

 

 

VA - AUDIO’s Audiophile (24 CD, 1993 - 2005) Vol. 20-24 (FLAC)

 

German series with audiophile recordings (24 Karat gold).  

Vol 21 - Acoustic Moments

Vol 22 - Hit Magic

Vol 23 - More Voices & Instruments

Vol 24 - Singers. Songwriters

 

Counting Crows discography [1993-2021]

 

With their angst-filled hybrid of Van Morrison, the Band, and R.E.M., Counting Crows became an overnight sensation in 1994. Only a year earlier, the band was a group of unknown musicians, filling in for the absent Van Morrison at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony; they were introduced by an enthusiastic Robbie Robertson. Early in 1993, the band recorded its debut album, August and Everything After, with T-Bone Burnett. Released in the fall, it was a dark and somber record, driven by the morose lyrics and expressive vocals of Adam Duritz. The only uptempo song, "Mr. Jones," became their ticket to stardom, and Counting Crows enjoyed a significant amount of success throughout the '90s and beyond.

 

 

Linda Ronstadt - Box Set (5 CD, 1999/FLAC)

 Linda Ronstadt's generically titled four-CD, five-hour, 86-track box set retrospective attempts with considerable success to encompass the many types of music she's sung from the mid-'60s to the late '90s. The album is divided into five unequal parts, with 31 tracks given over to an "Album Retrospective," followed by seven tracks from "The Nelson Riddle Sessions," her three albums of classic pop, then five songs "En Español," drawn from her three Spanish language albums. That takes up the first two discs, with the third disc consisting of 20 "Collaborations" and the fourth 23 "Rarities." It is significant that the first section is called "Album Retrospective," signaling to the listener that Ronstadt is not interested in presenting her hit singles as such. In fact, most of her chart hits do turn up somewhere on the set, but a whole chunk of them is missing. At the time that Ronstadt was peppering the singles charts in the late '70s, she caught flack for her covers of Motown and rock & roll standards, and she herself has disavowed her recordings of such work, so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that she has chosen to forget "Heat Wave," "Tracks of My Tears," "That'll Be the Day," "It's So Easy," and even modern rock songs like "How Do I Make You," with "Back in the U.S.A." and "Tumbling Dice" included only in live versions. A critic can hardly object, but Ronstadt fans should note that, as a result, the box set will not allow them to throw their Greatest Hits albums away. Also, the omissions tend to make Ronstadt seem like more of a balladeer than she has been in her career. She is much more interested in emphasizing her non-rock work. The "Rarities" disc really only contains five previously unreleased songs, and they are hardly revelations, including outtakes of material written by the likes of J.D. Souther and Karla Bonoff, longtime Ronstadt favorites. But the disc does suggest the singer's range, from the art songs of Carla Bley and Philip Glass to theater songs from The Pirates of Penzance and Randy Newman's Faust. The Linda Ronstadt Box Set clearly had major input from the artist herself, and its contents may not be what a Ronstadt fan or chart researcher would have chosen. But it certainly makes the case for Ronstadt as a hard-working performer who constantly challenged herself by trying styles beyond the Southern California folk-rock for which she remains best known. 

 

 

Rory Gallagher - Rory Gallagher (50th Anniversary Edition - Super Deluxe 4 CD, 2021/FLAC)

 

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Rory Gallagher’s eponymous 1971 debut solo album, UMC/UMe is pleased to announce the September 3 release of a five-disc deluxe box set of the album. Rory Gallagher 50th Anniversary Edition will include a brand-new mix of the original album, 30 previously unreleased outtakes and alternate takes, a six-song 1971 BBC Radio John Peel Sunday Concert, plus four 1971 BBC Radio Sounds of the Seventies session tracks, all mastered at Abbey Road Studios.