Considering his 45 and counting years doggedly playing blues and blues-rock with a mind-numbing assortment of backing musicians in Savoy Brown, it's unfortunate and unfair that U.K. guitarist Kim Simmonds isn't given more respect in the music world. That is partially due to bad choices and an array of ordinary, sometimes subpar albums that have cropped up on a variety of small or difficult-to-find imprints throughout the decades. Simmonds has trudged on, beaten but undeterred in the understanding that he will likely never regain the theater-headlining status his group achieved in its late-'60s/early-'70s prime.

Donald Smith Airey is an English musician who has been the keyboardist in the rock band Deep Purple since 2002, after the retirement of Jon Lord. He has had a long and productive career, playing with such acts as Gary Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Whitesnake, Saxon, Wishbone Ash, Colosseum II, Ten, Sinner, Michael Schenker, Rainbow, Empire, Brian May, Divlje jagode and Living Loud. He has also worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Reading the full name of this release - Jakszyk, Fripp And Collins With Levin And Harrison - A Scarcity Of Miracles - A King Crimson ProjeKct - leads to one central and almost unbelievable thought: this must be a new King Crimson album after all these years (the last album was released in 2003). But it is just like Robert Fripp, King Crimson’s mastermind and guitarist, wrote in the album’s liner notes: listening to A Scarcity Of Miracles is “like meeting a close member of the (King Crimson) family for the first time”. The music on this album is consistently mellow, sophisticated prog, similar, but smoother than the soft tunes from the Belew era, perhaps closer in tone to the Sylvian/Fripp albums.

You have to feel for those artists that didn’t get the breaks at Motown. Most that didn’t were every bit as good as those that did. Their lack of success was the result of being some way down a pecking order dominated by acts such as the Temptations, Four Tops and Supremes. Even the second wave of higher profile acts had to battle to be heard above the big noise made by the hits of those groups. With hindsight, the Monitors hardly stood a chance.

Count Basie is known as one of the most influential big band leaders of the 20th century and a key figure in swing music. His music is characterized by energetic rhythms, sophisticated arrangements, and musical elegance.

“It was with Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord, on an old black record, that I first heard the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. My favourites were those that showed some Spanish influence: that rugged pride, those implacable rhythms, that mad vitality, what splendour! I have chosen mostly sonatas that are joyful or humorous in character, though among them I have slipped two little masterpieces of miraculous simplicity (K32, K40) as well as a few compelling meditations (K8, K69, K144). Wandering from nostalgia to sorrow, as though improvised, these last, void of any pathos, are yet bathed in the radiant beauty of the sunny climes of Italy and Spain.” Alice Ader

Roomful of Blues is an American blues and swing revival big band based in Rhode Island. With a recording career that spans over 40 years, they have toured worldwide and recorded many albums. Roomful of Blues, according to The Chicago Sun-Times, "Swagger, sway and swing with energy and precision". Since 1967, the group’s blend of swing, rock and roll, jump blues, boogie-woogie and soul has earned it five Grammy Award nominations and many other accolades, including seven Blues Music Awards (with a victory as Blues Band Of The Year in 2005). Billboard called the band "a tour de force of horn-fried blues…Roomful is so tight and so right." The Down Beat International Critics Poll has twice selected Roomful of Blues as Best Blues Band. Hook, Line & Sinker features twelve carefully chosen songs from Little Richard, Dave Bartholomew, Amos Milburn, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Floyd Dixon and others. Produced by Vachon, the CD is a ferocious and enthusiastic blast of rocking guitars, punching horns and huge, room-filling vocals. The results are a non-stop hip-shaking party. It’s clear why People magazine said Roomful’s music “can turn a dull evening at home into a heel-clicking night of fun.

The Pasadena Roof Orchestra was formed in Nov. 1969 by Johnny Arthy, a lover of 1920's jazz who sought to lead a dance-oriented jazz-influenced big band specializing in music from the 1923-37 period. The British band gained its name because Arthy liked the obscure song "Pasadena." The orchestra had its first gig in April 1970 and soon Arthy came across a windfall, 1, 500 original arrangements from the 1920's practically given away by an elderly lady whose father had been musical director of a dance band in the twenties. The P.R.O. started out playing once a week but, after the success of their first album in 1974, they turned professional and began working much more often.

This first disc from the muso label features the young early music generation in France. Julien Léonard, one of the finest gamba players of his generation, champions these works with brio and elan. He is accompanied by Thomas Dunford on theorbo and François Guerrier on harpsichord. A fantastic first disc for this dynamic trio.

As a longtime member of one of the groups that helped create heavy metal (Deep Purple, for the uninitiated), it's understandable to expect a solo outing by bassist Roger Glover to be geared toward headbangers. But as evidenced by his fifth solo album overall, 2011's If Life Was Easy, Glover has opted to follow a bluesier, roots rocky path. Which is understandable, because the whole point of doing a solo album should be to step out from under Purple's high-decibel shadow. As a case in point, a pair of tunes feature Glover's daughter Gillian Glover on vocals: "Set Your Imagination Free" and "Get Away (Can't Let You)," with the former falling in "ballad" category while the latter is a blues-rocker with blaring horn work.

When musicians of our generation seek to provide musical depictions of the pilgrimages to St. James of Compostela, they turn most frequently to the Middle Ages. The La Fenice ensemble, however, has chosen a different approach by taking a map of the Camino Francès (1648) as its inspiration. Here they bring formal as well as popular repertoire of the time back to life with songs both sacred and secular, combining these with the joyfully festive music that accompanied the travellers from France to Galicia via Languedoc, Aragon and Castile.

Judas Priest have announced they’re celebrating their 50th anniversary with a gargantuan limited-edition box set called ‘50 Heavy Metal Years of Music.’Released on Friday 15th October 2021 via Sony Music, the expansive collection boasts all 18 of Judas Priest’s studio albums to date, all the band’s live albums and 13 discs of unreleased music.
The veritable smorgasbord of heavy metal music contained within ‘50 Heavy Metal Years of Music’ was restored and mixed by Tom Allom at La Cucina W8 and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios.
Judas Priest Lead singer Rob Halford said: “Judas Priest’s curated box set representing 50 heavy metal years is the ultimate treasure trove defining the band’s unwavering commitment to keeping and defending the heavy metal faith.”
Guitarist Glenn Tipton adds: “If there’s one box set you should have in your Heavy Metal collection it should be this one – it’s immortal – proclaiming and truly representing Metal for over 50 years – Flying the Flag and proudly leading the way inspiring many bands throughout the years—-this 42 CD selection says it all——it’s a big part of Metal history and as such will live forever.Bassist and founding member Ian Hill succinctly comments: “AMAZING – 50 years of metal crammed into a small box…..!

The clavichord enjoyed widespread popularity during the 18th century and was particularly appreciated in the Germanic countries. With its soft sound and extremely sensitive ‘dynamic’ keyboard, we are immersed in a particularly intimate relationship with the music. This programme is created around the Bach family and features works for flute and keyboard obligato, which are richer and denser than those with continuo.

Peter Philips was the most famous English composer of his time, and only Byrd, a generation older, had more compositions published. Much of Philips’s life was spent on the Continent, where he wrote music of intricate, text-conscious colour, both deeply expressive and architecturally powerful. His motets and anthems, whether celebratory, meditative or dramatic, embrace the widest range of feeling and texture. The much-admired Sarum Consort’s disc All the Queen’s Men (8572582) was praised for its ‘energy and aplomb’.

Midwest psychedelic warriors Bump let their freak flags fly high on this previously unreleased gem. The Bump (as they were originally known) formed in 1969 out of the same wild Detroit scene that birthed the MC5 and Stooges. Bump’s music may have been less confrontational than some of the other Detroit bands, but they make up for it in sheer lysergic exuberance.
Their music is prime garage/psych of the era, and it didn’t take long for some in the local scene to take a chance on them. This would be in the form of a “conglomerate” who called themselves Pioneer. Pioneer provided the studio, equipment, rehearsal space, management, and record label for the guys…