On "The Heroines," Tony Joe White, the swamp fox, rides high again. Two of the tracks are songs from his excellent 2001 effort "The Beginning." "Ice Cream Man" sounds as excellent as when it rode into my personal top ten in 2001! The new version has a more full band sound and pours on the smoking White guitar. "Rich Woman Blues" is another excellent track that smolders with White's growl-sing blues groove, "Got a telephone call this morning, My baby wrecked her Mercedes Benz, she totaled out her Mercedes Benz, I said long as you're alright baby, that's all that matters, let them tow the thing on in." One of my favorites is the duet with Jessi Colter, "Fireflies in the Storm" with its searing slow burn, "Out of the shadows the wildness begins, we wait for morning & darkness moves in, but there's a light that keeps shining warm like fireflies in the storm." "Chaos Boogie" is a great rocking TJW track that sets your toe to tapping. The duets with Shelby Lynne, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, and Tony Joe's daughter Michelle are all excellent. The set begins & ends with two brief guitar instrumentals. "The Heroines" continues Tony Joe White's artistic peak. Enjoy!

"Winter In Hiroshima" – the fourth part of The Five Atomic Seasons is another document of the remarkable wide range of musical landscapes created by Tangerine Dream. Even if the music never left the sad background the story itself requires, the fourth season will explain some of the positive vibes which guide two protagonists far beyond the prevailing circumstances. So take over the positive energy filling this production in order to become part of an astonishing turn the story has to offer. Wintertime in its description here will move you gently away from the hopeless land of horror over to a new silver lining of new challenges within everybody’s day to day life back in 1945. Read and then listen to an outstanding hour of personal experiences.

These 1977-78 recordings are Karajan's best Brahms–better than his somewhat mannered digital set. The Berlin Philharmonic, as ever, is amazingly smooth and accomplished, playing with great class without losing any power–as an example, just listen to the finale of the second symphony. DG's engineers have turned this always-good recording into something truly magnificent to hear, and, at the price, this is a sure bet.
Robert Levine

Q65 was formed in early 1965 when guitarists Joop Roelofs and Frank Nuyens decide to start a band with singer Willem Bieler. The line-up is completed by bass player Peter Vink and drummer Jay Baar.
The band is inspired by Rhythm and Blues traditionals and the songs of Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon as well as The Kinks, The Animals and The Rolling Stones. Q65 started their performances in the Spring of 1965. During a concert at skating rink De Eenhoorn, they met producer Peter Koelewijn. Very impressed by their show, he invited them to an audition at the Phonogram studio, where they record two of their own songs: And Your Kind and You're The Victor. Koelewijn decided to release them on vinyl.

This string quartet tribute to Rush delivers 12 instrumental versions of the Canadian power trio's material, focusing mainly on their breakthrough years of 1975-1981. Given the band's penchant for grandiosity, their material lends itself particularly well to the violin, viola, cello, and bass. Of course, Neil Peart's drum fills aren't replicated, nor are his lyrical flights of fancy. But hits like "Tom Sawyer," "Spirit of Radio," and "Freewill" retain their resonance, while the melodies of "A Passage to Bangkok," "Xanadu," and especially "Red Barchetta" only seem to get stronger in this format. ~ Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

The Smetana Quartet was a Czech string quartet that was in existence from 1945 to 1989. The Smetana Quartet arose from the Quartet of the Czech Conservatory, which was founded in 1943 (during the Nazi occupation) in Prague by Antonin Kohout, the cellist. With J. Rybensky and L. Kostecky as first and second violins, and Vaclav Neumann as violist, the group gave its first perfirmance as the Smetana Quartet in November 1945, in Prague. Neumann left to pursue conducting in 1947, at which point Rybensky went to the viola desk and Jiri Novak (who shared first violin desk with Josef Vlach, founder of the Vlach Quartet, under Vaclav Talich in the Czech Chamber Orchestra) came in as first violin...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chris Spheeris is a Greek-American New Age composer. Inspired by the sacred and folk music of his Greek heritage and other world music, classical music, and pop, Spheeris fused these elements together into his own unique musical style. The folk aspects of his music were prominent early in his career as part of a duo with guitarist and composer Paul Voudouris in the '70s and early '80s. After they disbanded, Spheeris began to create a more complex, keyboard-based sound, which he documented on self-produced demo tapes. One of these demos found its way to the AR department at Columbia Records, with whom Spheeris signed a deal in 1985. The label released his debut album, Desires of the Heart, and Pathways to Surrender before he left in the early '90s to form his own label, Essence, which released most of his solo output and two reunions with Voudouris: Enchantment and Nothing but the Truth. Along with his solo albums, Spheeris has also composed scores for cable and public television documentaries. He released his Higher Octave Records debut, Dancing with the Muse, in early 2000.