Karol Szymanowski spent his early years in Ukraine (where many affluent Polish families still owned land at the time). An injury to the leg forced young Karol into a life of relative inactivity, and, from age seven on, attendance at school was replaced by rigorous musical studies (first under his father's tutelage, and then, from 1892 on, at Gustav Neuhaus' music school in Elisavetgrad). Although early training focused on the piano, Neuhaus was quick to observe his young student's potential as a composer. While in Elisavetgrad, Szymanowski was introduced to the German classics as well as to Chopin and Scriabin. After studies with Noskowski in Warsaw from 1903 to 1905, Szymanowski lived for a time in Berlin, helping to found ……

All Music Guide

Karol Szymanowski spent his early years in Ukraine (where many affluent Polish families still owned land at the time). An injury to the leg forced young Karol into a life of relative inactivity, and, from age seven on, attendance at school was replaced by rigorous musical studies (first under his father's tutelage, and then, from 1892 on, at Gustav Neuhaus' music school in Elisavetgrad). Although early training focused on the piano, Neuhaus was quick to observe his young student's potential as a composer. While in Elisavetgrad, Szymanowski was introduced to the German classics as well as to Chopin and Scriabin. After studies with Noskowski in Warsaw from 1903 to 1905, Szymanowski lived for a time in Berlin, helping to found ……

All Music Guide

In 1978 Eliades Ochoa took the lead of Cuarteto Patria (literally Motherland Quartet) as director, music arranger, leading voice and guitarist. They toured around the world with great success. In 1989 Francisco Repilado (aka Compay Segundo) joined the band. His composition "Chan Chan" made the opening track of Chanchaneando, the album they recorded that year, and eventually the opening track of Buena Vista Social Club. Eliades Ochoa took from Compay his long experience. Compay provided compositions and second voice, hence the nickname Segundo (Second). Little did they know 10 years later crowds around the world would be crazy about them.

Gothenburg based metal outfit Death Destruction – super group, side-project, hobby-band – not one is correct. Rather, one could view the band as the collective results of four master musicians joining forces. With a background in progressive metal (Evergrey), power-metal (Hammerfall) or metal-core (Dead By April), the members Henrik Danhage, Jonas Ekdahl, Fredrik Larsson and Jimmie Strimell prove that the sum of their efforts reach far beyond the separate components. The debut-album “Death Destruction” is recorded in Gothenburg, at IF-Studios and is produced by Roberto Laghi – the producer behind In Flames, LOK and Hardcore Superstar etc.

The second acoustic album of viking metal проекта FOLKEARTH«Minstrels By The River” was released in September 2011.Album includes 8 acoustic versions of previous albums’ songs and cover of traditional Russian song «Сон Степана Разина» («Stepan Razin’s Dream»).

Although Hammond had already recorded electric material, he went back to a solo acoustic format for his fourth album, accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica on faithful interpretations of standards by Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, John Lee Hooker, Sleepy John Estes, Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, and Bo Diddley. If it sounds a bit unimaginative and routine today, one has to remember that the general listening audience was much less aware of these artists and songs in the mid-'60s. Hammond did a commendable job of rendering them here, with fine guitar work and vocals that were a considerable improvement over his earliest efforts.–by Richie Unterberger

Seriously forgotten Finnish progsters offering delicately crafted songs in a beautiful mix of Scandanavian & 70's English styles. Wigwam are an astonishing band really with some unbelievable gut wrenching instrumental interplay. Keyboards carry a nice deep and mystical analog effect which is layered over with some lovely clean sounding yet complex guitar, bass and drum interplay. "Nuclear Nightclub" is a simply breathtaking album full of loads of nice rich textures and enough progressive aspects to make you never put this album away. At times the album sways slightly into the psychedelic experience with some Canterbury leanings as well.

While this two-disc compilation is hardly definitive, it does contain many, many classic performances and it lists for a good price. There are original recordings of "That's Amore," "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," "Lucky Song," "Georgia on My Mind," "That Lucky Old Sun," "Under the Bridges of Paris," and a few dozen others. What a compilation like this reveals about an artist like Dean Martin is simply how talented he was. Sure, there are the sappy Italian songs and the saloon songs, but there are also country songs, pop standards, and jazz tunes thrown in this mix, and like his pal Frank, Martin could sing anything he wanted to at will. Memories Are Made of This portrays how gifted he was, and makes even the most casually curious listener want to dig for more. That is the function of a good compilation, and this one merits attention for that alone.

"Serious Hits… Live!" is the name of Phil Collins' 1990 live album with a CD of that concert. Even though it does sound like the CD was recorded over one entire concert, the songs on the CD version are taken from various concerts during the Serious Hits! tour.