Bob Dylan - The Genuine Basement Tapes 1967 (5 CD, 1990/FLAC)

 

On July 29 1966, Dylan suffered a mild concussion and cracked vertebrae when he crashed his Triumph motorcycle near Woodstock, New York. While he was recovering, Dylan reviewed a preliminary cut of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary of the 1966 world tour.  Dissatisfied with Pennebaker's results, Dylan re-edited the footage into a surrealistic film, titled Eat the Document. 

Dylan spent this time thinking a lot about the direction he had been going, in which he felt exhausted from non-stop touring. Dylan later recalled, "The turning point was back in Woodstock. A little after the accident. Sitting around one night under a full moon, I looked out into the bleak woods and I said, 'Something's gotta change.'"

 According to the late Rick Danko, he, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson joined Robbie Robertson in West Saugerties in February 1967. Sometime between March and June (the date is uncertain) Dylan and the Hawks began a series of informal recording sessions. These sessions eventually moved to the basement of Big Pink. Garth Hudson set up a recording unit, using two stereo mixers and a tape recorder borrowed from Grossman, as well as a set of microphones from Peter, Paul and Mary. Dylan would later say "That's really the way to do a recording-in a peaceful, relaxed setting-in somebody's basement with the windows open ... and a dog lying on the floor."

In a matter of months, Dylan would record at least thirty new compositions with the Hawks, including some of the most celebrated songs of his career: "I Shall Be Released," "This Wheel's On Fire," "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)," "Million Dollar Bash," "Tears of Rage," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Going To Acapulco," "I'm Not There (1956)," "All You Have To Do Is Dream," "Apple Suckling Tree" and others. Eventually, rumors of Dylan and The Band's enormous stash of unreleased recordings began to circulate.

Pink Floyd - The Endless River (Deluxe Edition, 2014) [FLAC-HD]

 

The Endless River is the fifteenth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released in November 2014 by Parlophone Records in Europe and Columbia Records in the rest of the world. It was the third Pink Floyd album recorded under the leadership of guitarist David Gilmour after the departure of bassist Roger Waters in 1985, and the first following the death in 2008 of keyboardist Richard Wright, who appears posthumously. Gilmour said it would be the final Pink Floyd album.

The Endless River is a double-album that comprises instrumental and ambient music based on material recorded during sessions for the band's previous album, The Division Bell (1994). Additional material was recorded in 2013 and 2014 on Gilmour's Astoria boat studio and in Medina Studios in Hove, England. It was produced by Gilmour, Youth, Andy Jackson and Phil Manzanera. Only one track, "Louder than Words", has lead vocals. After the death of longtime Pink Floyd artist Storm Thorgerson in 2013, the cover was created by artist Ahmed Emad Eldin, design company Stylorouge, and Aubrey Powell, co-founder of Thorgerson's design company Hipgnosis.

The Endless River was promoted with the "Louder than Words" single and artwork installations in cities around the world. It became the most pre-ordered album of all time on Amazon UK, and debuted at number one in several countries. The vinyl edition was the fastest-selling UK vinyl release since 1997. The album received mixed reviews; some critics praised the nostalgic mood, while others found it unambitious or meandering. 

John Fahey discography [1964-2005]

John Aloysius Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian music into his œuvre. Fahey wrote a largely apocryphal autobiography. He spent many of his later years in poverty and poor health, but enjoyed a minor career resurgence with a turn towards the more explicitly avant-garde, and created a series of abstract paintings during the last years of his life. He died in 2001 from complications from heart surgery. In 2003, he was ranked 35th in the Rolling Stone "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list. 

Steve Howe – Unplugged : Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 1979 (DVDRIP video)

 

Steve Howe's all-acoustic solo live show during a solo performance at the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival.

 

Big Bill Broonzy – The War And Postwar Years 1940 - 1951 (4 CD, 2007)

 

Mississippi-born guitarist Big Bill Broonzy had a voice that could really grow on you. The living embodiment of the rural-to-urban blues tradition, he often infused the gutsy, sometimes brutally honest immediacy of acoustic Chicago blues and good time hokum with the lonely intensity of the field holler. Vol. 3 in JSP's extensively complete Big Bill Broonzy retrospective covers his recording activity between the years 1940 and 1951, a time span that takes in the Second World War and its aftermath. His musical companions during this decade included the mighty Washboard Sam, a wonderful string bassist named Ransom Knowling, harmonica ace Jazz Gillum, blues saxophonist Buster Bennett, pianists Blind John Davis, Big Maceo Merriweather and Memphis Slim, and seasoned jazzmen Punch Miller, Don Byas and Slick Jones. This excellent set offers 99 examples of Broonzy's personalized musical responses to everything that life had to offer or snatch away. Topics include romance, jealousy and heartache; honest labor, conscription and prison, as well as betrayal, alcohol and insomnia. Big Bill was also fond of old-time folk melodies and included them regularly in his repertoire. This outstanding tribute is the perfect introduction to Broonzy; it will also delight those who already know his music, love and respect his memory, and who will hasten to track down the rest of his recordings as reissued by JSP.