Black Rock

Just awarded the Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award at the UK’s prestigious Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards, blues-rock guitar hero and singer-songwriter Joe Bonamassa is set to release his tenth full-length solo album, BLACK ROCK, on March 23, 2010. This album was recorded at, and named for, Black Rock Studios in Santorini, Greece. With this album, we wanted to explore a world feeling, and this was the inspiration behind going to record in Greece and using some of the best Greek musicians to add a little flavor to a couple of the tracks. But it s by no means a world album. We wanted Joe s usual youthful and energetic tones to play alongside the worldly vibes of the Greek bouzouki and clarino, said producer Kevin Shirley. Bonamassa says, It was the kind of record Kevin and I wanted to make. We needed to rock again a bit like on my first album. I wrote the whole thing there. Also Joe signed up Blues legend B.B. King for a duet on his new album. The song they perform together is a rendition of the Willie Nelson-penned song, Night Life, which appeared on King s 1967 album BLUES IS KING. Shirley says about the experience, This is a rollicking Stonesy-vibe version of the Willie Nelson song on which B.B. King duets with Joe, both vocally and on his famous Lucille guitar. What a joy and an honor to work with the legend who is possibly the pivot point and unifying musician between Blues and Rock. Other tracks appearing on BLACK ROCK include Jeff Beck s Spanish Boots, Leonard Cohen s poetic Bird On A Wire, Otis Rush’s Three Times A Fool, Bobby Parker’s Steal Your Heart Away, Blind Boy Fuller’s Baby, You Gotta Change Your Mind, John Hiatt’s I Know A Place, and James Clark’s Look Over Yonders Wall, as well as the originals When The Fire Hits The Sea, Quarryman’s Lament, Wandering Earth, Athens To Athens and Blue and Evil.

Price: $12.99

David Garrett

Garrett’s unique, and wholly individual style, pays as much homage to Metallica as to Mozart. His forthcoming record covers an incredibly diverse selection of repertoire, representing his love for many genres, and the ability to tackle each successfully. Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” is cleverly reinterpreted, as is Queen’s ballad, “Who Wants to Live Forever.” AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” is given a memorable new twist, alongside, “He’s a Pirate,” from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Given his enduring commitment to his first musical love, David still includes some classical selections on his American debut, including the last movement of Vivaldi’s “Summer” from The Four Seasons, and Bach’s “Air”. Not to be satisfied with only imaginative covers, David also displays his own deft writing skills with notable originals, including “Chelsea Girl.”

Price: $6.68

American VI: Ain’t No Grave

American VI: Ain’t No Grave, is the sixth and final installment of Johnny Cash’s critically-acclaimed American Recordings album series. As with the previous five albums in the American Recordings series, American VI was produced by Rick Rubin.

American VI is deeply elegiac and spiritual, with each song its own piece of the puzzle of life’s mysteries and challenges – the pursuit of salvation, the importance of friendships, the dream of peace, the power of faith, and the joys and adversities that entail simple survival. It is an achingly personal and intimate statement, as, from the end of the line, Johnny Cash looks back on a most extraordinary life.

Price: $7.98

I and Love and You

There is no harmony like brotherly harmony. Something indelible in the weave of voices and play of sensibilities is stamped into the fraternal DNA and also stems from a lifetime of shared experiences. You can hear it in classic brother acts across the musical spectrum, from the Louvin Brothers to the Everly Brothers and on down the decades through the Wilson brothers (Beach Boys), the Davies brothers (Kinks), the Allman Brothers and even the Brothers Gibb (a.k.a., the Bee Gees). You can clearly hear fraternal magic at work in the songs of Scott and Seth Avett, better known as the Avett Brothers, as well.

That magic is abundantly evident on I and Love and You, the Avett Brothers’ big-label debut, produced by Rick Rubin. Its 13 songs are delivered in a style that defies pigeonholing but might be described as a rootsy amalgam of folk, country, bluegrass, rock and pop – even a jab of punk-style dynamics here and there.

With I and Love and You, The Avett Brothers have taken a giant step forward.

Price: $8.79

Perfect Gift

The Canadian Tenors have gone Gold in Canada and will be releasing their debut album in the US this fall. THE PERFECT GIFT is the debut holiday season album from The Canadian Tenors which includes new songs and traditional repertoire with the unique and sublime Canadian Tenors Treatment!

Price: $27.98

Genuine Negro Jig

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are as much about revelation as revival. On its Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, the trio brings exuberance, humor, virtuosity and an infectious
acoustic groove to its exploration of a near-forgotten brand of banjo-driven string-band music originating more than a century ago in the foothills of North Carolina, the Piedmont region where band members Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson were raised. In this rural area, musicians, both black and white, once shared and swapped tunes. Over the decades, the importance of the African-American role in string-band music was diminished, its sound and significance
co-opted by minstrel shows and segregated by record labels. CCD — under the tutelage of nonagenarian fiddler player Joe Thompson, one of the last surviving Piedmont musicians – have reclaimed the old-time songs, making them vital and fresh for right now, reasserting in the process the African roots of the banjo.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops have won over crowds at the Newport Folk Festival, on such National Public Radio shows as Mountain Stage and A Prairie Home Companion, and on tours through Europe. Denzel Washington personally selected the trio to appear in his critically acclaimed 2007 directorial effort, The Great Debaters. In a review of a CCD Kennedy Center performance, The Washington Post declared, ‘Their set was anything but academic… these instrument-swapping residents of Durham, N.C., kept the audience active with speedy strumming, jug-blowing and percussion via carved
hand-held bones and foot-banging syncopation.’ The Boston Globe concurred: ‘The acoustic trio – banjo, fiddle, guitar – managed the minor miracle of evoking a sepia- drenched era of mountain music… Giddens, Robinson and Dom Flemons, all multi- instrumentalists and vocalists, conveyed their deep knowledge with a sense of reverence and studied antiquity- including their simple, era-appropriate costumes – and a contagious, abundant joy.’
After two self-recorded independent releases, CCD chose to work with producer Joe Henry on Genuine Negro Jig. As with his production on Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi, Henry emphasizes simplicity, clarity, interaction; with its striking lack of studio frills, the emphasis is on the spirit of these performances, which are often as intense as they are exhilarating.
Uptempo numbers like live-show favorite ‘Cornbread and Butterbeans’ and ‘Sandy Boys’ are immediate standouts, though slow-burning, moody tracks like ‘Kissin’ and Cussin’ and ‘Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig)’ prove to be
downright haunting. The versatile Giddens performs the Celtic-style balladry of ‘Reynadine’ acapella; she’s equally convincing taking lead on a brilliant recasting of the 2001 Blu Cantrell R&B-dance hit, ‘Hit Em Up Style’ Genuine Negro Jig starts out with the specific but winds up with the universal; this is music that has literally traveled continents and
centuries to achieve a brand new relevance, a shared history still in the making.

Price: $10.98

The Sound Of Madness

Shinedown’s highly anticipated third album, The Sound Of Madness, is due out on Atlantic Records on June 24, 2008. The record opens with lead single “Devour.” Its heavy onslaught of ripping guitars and relentless drums would not sound out of place on a Guitar Hero soundtrack. Of the album, frontman Brent Smith says “In the seven years of this thing called Shinedown, I’ve seen a lot of different things – what we’ve all gone through on the road, things in our personal lives or witnessed firsthand through the fans that we’ve made and the relationships we’ve built with our audience. I think the biggest thing was I didn’t want to sugarcoat the way life can be sometimes.” Their face-melting rock comes as no surprise, considering that the band hails from sultry Jacksonville, Florida. Their 2003 debut album, Leave A Whisper, and sophomore follow-up, Us And Them, have been RIAA-certified platinum and gold respectively and they have had songs featured on the WWE, ESPN and in various video games. Shinedown will be out on the road this spring and summer, playing a handful of radio shows and outdoor festivals including Rock On The Range before setting out on their own headlining tour.

Price: $11.09

The Resistance

Following seven years of near solid touring, Muse escalated from being the biggest band in Teignmouth in 1997 to one of the biggest bands in Europe by 2004. With each successive album, they pushed the musical envelope with a fusion of progressive rock, electronica, and Radiohead-influenced experimentation, creating an emotive, passionate sound. Muse’s reputation as one of the best live rock bands in the world is well deserved with their exhilirating live performances drewing critical acclaim, industry buzz, and a loyal and rabid fan base.

Price: $8.49

Recollection 2 CD Set

k.d. lang is a once-in-a-generation artist who has consistently displayed an extraordinary interpretative range as well as remarkable vocal prowess. It’s no wonder she has, over the course of more than two decades, attracted such collaborators as Roy Orbison and Tony Bennett, along with admirers like Philip Glass and Madonna. As lang has matured, she continues to surprise and impress. With the 2008 release of her self-penned, self-produced Nonesuch disc Watershed, Rolling Stone declared, “k.d. lang does what the gifted and the lucky always should: improve as time passes.” The Times of London agreed: “It’s a quirk of the music industry that one of the sexiest, most sensual voices in all of pop music comes not from some raven-tressed siren in a glitter-dress but a middle-aged woman with a utility haircut and a penchant for male tailoring.” lang herself called the album “a culmination of everything I’ve done — there’s a little bit of jazz, a little country, a little of the Ingénue sound, a little Brazilian touch.”

This two-disc retrospective — which includes favorites like “Constant Craving” and “Smoke Rings,” as well as ten tracks that never appeared on k.d. lang albums; and interpretations of classic songs like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and The Hollies “The Air That I Breathe” — illustrates how lang got to this significant point in her career, 25 years after the independent release of her debut, A Truly Western Experience. As lang moved from the subversively whimsical cow-punk sound of her early career in Western Canada to a broader pop palette, she has shown an ever-increasing sophistication, both as songwriter and interpreter. Dramatic, country-meets-lounge opener “Trail of Broken Hearts,” from her 1989 Grammy Award-winning Absolute Torch and Twang album, encapsulates where she came from and where she was heading. The luxurious adult pop of “Constant Craving,” from the platinum-selling 1992 Ingenue, garnered her a Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female Grammy and remains her best known and most successful single. The effervescent “Miss Chatelaine,” also from Ingenue, remains a concert favorite and “I Dream of Spring,” is a particularly lush example of what she so artfully created for the acclaimed Watershed.

Her bravura rendition of “Crying,” originally cut with Orbison for the soundtrack to the movie Hiding Out, has become a showstopper in her live performances, perhaps rivaled only be her beautifully restrained version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” This soaring signature tune appears here as both a new recording, and in its original studio version. On her 2004 Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel, she explored the work of her fellow Canadian songwriters, including Neil Young (“Helpless”) and the woefully underrated Jane Siberry (the sublime “The Valley”). Regardless of its source, her choice of cover material has always been inspired, as evidenced by her take on the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe,” Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me,” the Beatles’ Golden Slumbers,” and Chris Isaak’s “Western Stars,” produced by Nashville legend Owen Bradley, Patsy Cline’s mentor, for Shadowlands. lang is equally adept with such standards as Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale” and “So In Love,” and the jazz classic Moonglow” (performed here with Tony Bennett), and that has endeared her to a multi-generational audience.

Price: $13.36

Rebirth

EXPLICIT. 2010 release, a crossover Rock album from the self-proclaimed ‘greatest rapper of all time’. Lil Wayne’s previous full-length, the Grammy Award-winning The Carter III has been certified triple platinum with over one million sold in it’s first week of release! Rebirth, his long rumored Rock album, is still Rap heavy and features guest appearances from Eminem, Shanell (AKA SNL), Kevin Rudolf, Nicki Minaj and others. Includes the first single ‘Prom Queen’.

Price: $8.51

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