Born Again is the sixth album by American composer Randy Newman. Newman later said he thought the album, "was great and would create a big stir. I was looking forward to it coming out so much that I didn't fly any small planes before it was released. It's a weird album full of peculiar songs like the one about an ELO fan getting everything wrong. It's very idiosyncratic, with small subjects. If it had been a hit to follow it might have been different but I have always written the same way."

James Blunt may never live down the success of his first single, "You're Beautiful." It made him a star in 2004 yet it also pegged him as the kind of sad-sack singer/songwriter beloved of doctors' offices the world over, which may be enough to sustain a living but not a career. Blunt is savvy enough to realize this and he started to broaden and enliven his craft fairly quickly, abandoning the slow-footed ballads of Back to Bedlam for a richly textured pop that eventually gained some semblance of color by the time Some Kind of Trouble rolled around in 2010. Three years later, Moon Landing arrived and although its title suggest some kind of spectral scope, it's not quite as lively as its predecessor, preferring the exquisitely textured adult contemporary pop of Dido, but giving those intricately produced ballads insistent melodies and rhythms. Sometimes, Blunt's phrasing can lapse into solipsistic moans – this is especially true when the electronics are stripped away and the tempos slow – but when everything is relatively sprightly, the feel is surprisingly appealing, even though Blunt can't help but piggyback on styles that are a guaranteed rocket to the Top 40.

Luther Allison seemed to be on a roll when he died in 1998. He was back home after many years in Europe, and was winning awards and making a good living. This, his debut album, was cut in 1969 when he was 30 years old. He sang as if barely able to keep a lid on his emotion, and the elegance and precision of his guitar playing belied the fact that he had only been playing the instrument for a few years. If this debut can be faulted it's only in that it relies too heavily on overfamiliar standards like "Little Red Rooster," "Five Long Years," "Dust My Broom," "Sky Is Crying," and "Every Night About This Time." The CD reissue has been expanded with alternate takes and bonus cuts.

Superstition is a similar album to that of Peepshow, this time with more precise production and a lighter feeling to many of the songs. While Siouxsie and the Banshees albums like Tinderbox and Juju were dark affairs, Superstition's sound is representative of the pink of the album cover. A softer pop sound, mixed with the Banshees' penchant for minor keys and strange imagery. They manage to pull it off quite well on most tracks. "Fear (Of the Unknown)" and "Drifter" are classic Siouxsie stuff, and "Kiss Them for Me" gave them their first significant entry into the U.S. singles charts. But it's tracks like "Silly Thing" that hold this album back. This track manages to do what the Banshees had avoided all their career – sounding like someone else. One of their most accessible albums, Superstition has appeal without losing its edge.

The Trio Wanderer pays tribute to Dvorák and his last two trios. Alongside the sombre interiority and fiery intensity of the Trio No. 3 in F minor, this programme presents a new version of the famous Dumky Trio, to which the Wanderers owed their first great success on record. Passionate and melancholy by turns, it is also the most innovative and the freest of Dvorák’s trios. A fine symbol for the Trio Wanderer, which has just reached its 30th year of existence without ever ceasing to surprise and touch us. Happy anniversary and hats off!

Danny Gatton was truly the guitarist's guitarist. Hailed by Guitar Player as the "World's Greatest Unknown Guitar Player" he was cherished by the likes of Les Paul, Joe Perry, Steve Vai, Joe Pass, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Vince Gill, Albert Lee and countless other guitar luminaries. Until his tragic and untimely death in 1994 he was every guitar players best resource for a treasure of "hot licks". Never one to tour he remains an underground treasure for those "in the know". If you play the guitar, you owe it to yourself to check out this great instrumental genius. This is a scorching live set from June 10th and 11th,1988 at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. This set features the legendary pedal steel guitarist Buddy Emmons, who also collaborated with Gatton on Redneck Jazz Explosion, (to be reissued late summer 04’). This is also the only Gatton release to feature Danny’s jazz unit known as “The Funhouse”.

Badfinger is the fifth album by British rock band Badfinger. The album was recorded in autumn 1973 and released in 1974 on Warner Bros. Records. It was the first of two albums released by the band on the Warner label. The cover art for the album shows a woman wearing a riding outfit and hat from the 1920s and smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder. Features some melodies & vocal harmonies which are reminiscent of the group's mentors, the Beatles. Includes 'Love is Easy', 'Shine On', 'Song for a Lost Friend' & nine others.

ABC's debut album combined the talents of the Sheffield, U.K.-based band, particularly lead singer Martin Fry, a fashion plate of a frontman with a Bryan Ferry fixation, and the inventive production style of former Buggles member Trevor Horn and his team of musicians, several of whom would go on to form the Art of Noise. Horn created dense tracks that merged synthesizer sounds, prominent beats, and swaths of strings and horns, their orchestrations courtesy of Anne Dudley, who would follow her work with the Art of Noise by becoming a prominent film composer, and who here underscored Fry's stylized romantic lyrics and dramatic, if affected, singing. The production style was dense and noisy, but frequently beautiful, and the group's emotional songs gave it a depth and coherence later Horn works, such as those of Yes ("Owner of a Lonely Heart") and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, would lack. (You can hear Horn trying out the latter band's style in "Date Stamp.") Fry and company used the sound to create moving dancefloor epics like "Many Happy Returns," which, like most of the album's tracks, deserved to be a hit single.

Two Classic Edwin Starr Albums, from 1968 and 1969, Released on One CD. All Tracks have Been Remastered and Packaging Includes a Full Color Slipcase, Rare Photos, Track Annotations, Release Info and Original LP Artwork.

One of the leading young soloists to emerge from Scandinavia in recent years, noted particularly for her superb musical expression, as well as her well-developed virtuosity and musicality. Young Norwegian violinist, Vilde Frang brings together a diverse, yet complimentary selection of sonatas for her second EMI Classics release. The youthful, spirited Grieg: Violin Sonata No.1 in F Major, Op. 8 and Richard Strauss: Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 18 are paired with Bartók’s technically challenging, musically complex Sonata for Solo Violin, BB 124, Sz. 117. Frang frequently performs the later, which Bartók composed as an homage to Bach, with the Strauss in concert. Vilde is joined by pianist Michail Lifits for this recording.

This recording is a re-issue of the romantic chamber music recording that Lydia Mordkovitch made in 1989 with the pianist Marina Gusak-Grin. It featured pieces for violin by such famous composers as Wagner, Rachmaninoff, and Chausson, neither of whom played the violin or favoured it as a solo instrument. If there were any doubts about the lyrical potential of the violin, however, this would be an album to confirm its true status as the poet among instruments. The prime example is Chausson’s Poème – a title applied to the whole collection, as the other pieces make the same point. Two pieces complement this recording: the one movement sonata of 1897 (the Sonate posthume) by Ravel, which was both his first chamber work and his first attempt at sonata form, and Sospiri, Op. 70, Elgar’s last short piece for violin and piano. These pieces were recorded in 1989 and 1996, respectively.

Herbie Hancock's V.S.O.P. project with his former bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet – Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams – and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was a band that almost single-handedly tried to re-establish acoustic jazz in the United States. And though they made three recordings, all of which were favorably reviewed and heralded by true jazz fans, none of them sold very well, and the band could find few gigs in the United States. The 1978 tour of major cities was thought to be a triumph at the time, but the unit could find few gigs afterward, and so its various members all went back to their other projects. In 1979, they got the opportunity to tour Japan and jumped at the chance. Sony, Hancock's Japanese label, recorded the two evenings, and the first, which took place during a furious rainstorm, was broadcast live on national television! Live Under the Sky marks the first time that this album has been available in the United States in any form.

This delightful LP features Art Farmer with a large orchestra not long after he switched from trumpet to flügelhorn. Oliver Nelson's arrangements provide great backdrops for the leader, as do the mix of dependable studio musicians and outstanding jazzmen assembled for the three sessions, including Tommy Flanagan, Phil Woods, Clark Terry, and Jim Hall, to name a few. The choice of material is inspiring: a snappy "Raincheck," and Farmer's moody "Rue Prevail," and a relatively (then) new work by John Coltrane, "Naima," which turns into a richly textured tour de force in the hands of Farmer & co.

The debut release for the second-generation bayou blues guitarist/harpist, whose gruff-before-their-time vocals retain their swamp sensibility while assuming a bright contemporary feel that tabs him as a leading contender for future blues stardom.

Alone with Everybody is the first solo album by English singer-songwriter Richard Ashcroft, released in June 2000. The songs "A Song for the Lovers", "C'mon People (We're Making It Now)" and "New York" were initially recorded with the Verve for their 1997 album Urban Hymns, but were never released. The two bonus tracks feature on the Japanese version of the album.