The two-year interval covered in this volume of Time-Life Music's Singers & Songwriters series was one of consolidation for the many singer/songwriters who had emerged in the early '70s. Carole King followed up Tapestry, the album that established her as a performer after years as a songwriter, with Music, which spawned the hit "Sweet Seasons." James Taylor was on his second follow-up to his commercial breakthrough Sweet Baby James with One Man Dog, which produced "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight." His new wife Carly Simon released her third album, No Secrets, which gave Simon her biggest hit yet with "You're So Vain." John Denver, too, hit new sales peaks with Rocky Mountain High and its title single. And Cat Stevens had followed the success of Tea for the Tillerman with Teaser and the Firecat and its second single "Morning Has Broken." Meanwhile, several new singer/songwriters were crowding the field, among them Don McLean with the epic allegory "American Pie," America with its Neil Young sound-alike "A Horse With No Name," and Seals & Crofts with the lilting "Summer Breeze".

Guy Davis has developed into a consummate bluesman. He's listened hard to classic Delta blues and based his style on it, without ever becoming a carbon copy of the greats. Instead they're his jumping-off point into something as individual as "Layla, Layla," where didgeridoo makes an appearance, or the poignant "Joppatowne." Equally adept on guitar, banjo, and harmonica, he's become a force of nature, with the ability to write a song like "I Don't Know" that sounds as if it had come directly from the '30s, alongside covers of Fred McDowell, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sleepy John Estes. The originals and older work mesh perfectly, the sign of a real bluesman. And, of course, he's capable of working the other side of the coin to blues, in gospel, as the closer, "God's Unchanging Hand," clearly shows. This is the tradition reborn and revitalized. Davis' support is wonderfully sympathetic, but he's completely at the center of things, the motivator and mover of this music, and a purveyor of the real blues. His lineage is obvious, and he's the new generation, doing it right and keeping it real.

After their internationally successful 1988 self-titled debut, few have followed the the Gypsy Kings' noteworthy fusion of their distinctive flamenco-inflected pop with other international influences. Love & Liberte, a 1994 Elektra Records release, is one of their few compilations of all-new material, one that demonstrates this growth perhaps more than any of their other projects. One of their more extravagant songs, "No Vivire" implements a prominent bassline and strong brass accents in the chorus. Equally pleasant but slightly less authentic, "Escucha Me" crosses their Spanish guitar sound with a full reggae ensemble. The album's zenith hits with two instrumental tracks, "Guitarra Negra" and "Love and Liberte." "Guitarra Negra" shows off castanets with bongos. Every few bars, the intensity seems to reach a peak, only to retreat and regroup for another charge.

This double-disc reissue documents one of the more curious careers in country music. Both 1978's White Mansions and 1980's The Legend of Jesse James are Southern song cycles that were conceived by Britain's Paul Kennerley, then an unknown songwriter who somehow recruited a high-profile cast for each. A Civil War saga from the Southern perspective, White Mansions suffers from caricature and cliché but benefits from signature contributions by Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Eric Clapton. Jesse James has more focus and narrative momentum, with Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris in lead roles. Though the albums are more noteworthy for artistic ambition than memorable material, Kennerley subsequently became a successful Nashville songwriter.

This is part of a series of illustrated biographies of musicians in an hardcover CD book (vinyl LP book in 2022). The 'Bob Dylan ' volume has 26 pages of illustrations by Pablo, with a preface by the French rock critic Philippe Manoeuvre. BDFolk 1961/1962. 2016 edition is more restrictive; the text by François Kahn is in French only, and there is only one CD inside: the First Album plus Mixed Up Confusion and 9 tracks of the 1961-1962 radio broadcasts.

A Man I’d Rather Be' (Part II) comprises Jansch’s late ’60s and early ’70s output, an under-rated era, no doubt influenced by the now well-established Pentangle sound. Bandmates Danny Thompson (bass) and Terry Cox (drums) regularly feature among the musicians as well as cameo appearances by Mary Hopkin, Toni Visconti and Dave Mattacks.

Sequana is the tenth album by Franco-Algerian singer-songwriter Souad Massi. If her music was previously coloured with folk and chaabi, the sound palette broadens here as far as the Sahel, the Caribbean and Brazil, with Justin Adams (Rachid Taha, Tinariwen, Robert Plant) on production. Souad Massi continues on her path as a committed, liberated woman singing about the causes close to her heart. Sequana is a collection of ten songs, nine of which were written by her, with the intention of capturing the passage of time and that which we must strive to preserve and pass on. The album draws on a diversity of musical styles – folk, country, rock, calypso, bossa, along with sounds of the Middle East and the Algerian desert.

Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You is a tale as old as time. It’s an album. Its songs and music are by and for people together. For listening together. Before it gets too late. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy stands at the nexus of all the kinds of music he can summon, with friends, with family and community. All roads roll though him. There can be no holding back. A million billion moments are on the line. He’s gonna tell us about a world…

For Toronto, ON's Charlotte Cornfield, 2021 was a year of massive growth - Her critically acclaimed full-length album, Highs in the Minuses, was heralded as her best work yet, with Rolling Stone declaring her "Canada's best-kept secret" and The Alternative calling it "one of the year's best records." The album showcased Cornfield's knack for crafting deeply personal songs with an observational tone and witty lyric delivery.

The Best of Tanita Tikaram sums up the singer/songwriter's first five albums, with a little too much emphasis on material from Lovers in the City and Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, and not enough from Everybody's Angel and Sweet Keeper (only one song from each album made it onto this set). Still, this is a lovely collection from start to finish, and showcases Tanita Tikaram as a singer who deserves much more attention than she has received. The album contains all of her U.K. hit singles, including four from her stellar debut, Ancient Heart, among those the sublime "Twist in My Sobriety," easily one of the greatest songs to have come out of the 1980s (an additional dance remix of that song closes out the album). Other highlights include the astounding, heartbreaking "Only the Ones We Love" (quite possibly the best song on this collection), the Phil Spector-ish "You Make the Whole World Cry," and the haunting "I Might Be Crying." Another definite standout is this album's only new recording (and the only cover), which is her version of "And I Think of You" (originally titled "E Penso a Te").