|
|||
RUBY
RUTH BLOOMQUIST/One Day Ain’t Enough: When the 1974 oil crisis sent the acoustic music world underground, the Bloomquists were just finding their footing. As such, they’ve been fiercely independent all this time–after the missed the boast, they never bothered trying to get on when it docked again. 30 years of musical simpatico, blossoming in the obscurity of Michigan and winning high awards and recognition along the way are the sum total of whay made this record such a charmer. As organic as it gets, the bluegrass based playing behind the heartfelt singer/songwriter vocals of Bloomquist make this one of the top adult alternative sets you will find. Tasty stuff that just doesn’t quit.
UNIVERSAL MUSIC ENTERPRISES
BACHMAN TURNER OVERDRIVE/Definitive Collection: It was a lot of fun back in the day to call them Bachman Turner Overweight, but they wound up stuttering all the way to the bank, having a good laugh. 18 sorta fat cuts that give you a solid slice of what heartland rock was all about before John Mellencamp ditched Bowie. It certainly isn’t the kind of stuff that changes the world but even the Simpsons poke affectionate fun at them, so don’t worry about being too cool for school if you want to blast this through your Ipod.
(Mercury)
CHICK COREA and Return to Forever/Definitive Collection: How freaking typical. Last fall, I get on a classic fusion kick, I’ve got a bunch of 30% coupons at Borders and they have all the Return to Forever stuff just sitting in the rack mocking me. So I grab all of them, even the ones where Flora Purim wouldn’t shut up and the stuff just screamed ART! at you. Then they announce the reunion tour and look what we have here. A handful of albums boiled down to 11 killer tracks. I won’t bitch too much, there’s stuff here from his solo sides as well that I didn’t pick up. You want chops? This is some serious chops. All the chops you could want on a single disc, and they fly. If you are experiencing a similar fusion jones, grab this.
(Verve)
BILLIE HOLIDAY/Definitive Collection: How many ways can Holiday be repackaged? How many you got? 22 killer tracks that define the legend, with the essential tracks on board. There’s always new kids coming up that want to know what the hub bub is about and this set certainly serves as their point of entry to the wonderful sonic world of Holiday.
(Verve)
Volume 31/Number 105
February 13, 2008
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
©2008 Midwest Record
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI