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The follow up to the original, this collection in many ways surpasses the initial effort. Duets seem to rule here, with Cyndi Lauper and Frank Sinatra double teaming on "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," while the irrepressible Ronnie Spector shares the mic with Darlene Love for a resplendent "Rockin'...

As emblematic of its time as of its sorcerer-like creator, 1967's Are You Experienced unleashed Jimi Hendrix onto a world in the midst of such cultural and musical shakeups that it really didn't seem as "far out" as it actually was. It wasn't just Hendrix's virtuosic skill as a pure player that was ...

Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound...

The aim was to do for country what Saturday Night Fever did for disco. The result was that bars from Kona to Kalamazoo suddenly had mechanical bulls, and slickers walking around in cowboy hats. You might also pinpoint this as the moment in time when "country" music suddenly went cosmopolitan, paving...

In an age when the old-timey soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? sells 5 million copies, it's hard to imagine how revolutionary Will the Circle Be Unbroken seemed upon its release 30 years ago. The triple album (now rereleased as a two-CD set) paired many of Nashville's venerable country and bl...

Less successful when it's sentimental (Waylon Jennings' "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys") than when it's wry (Willie Nelson's myth-puncturing "Me and Paul"), this cash-in compilation of previously released cuts was just in time to grab the first platinum record ever awarded a country album. It's...

Motown did so many things well in the '60s and early '70s that this overview of the label's smashes (and some lesser-known classics) practically demands four CDs. It gets them, too, filling them with single mixes of more than 100 tracks. That the running order begins with Barrett Strong's statement ...

Pure Disco...

Appalachian Stomp is an ideal starter disc for those just beginning to explore bluegrass. Mostly this is because its 18 selections are so immediately accessible. The "classics" here, in other words, are usually those infrequent bluegrass cuts to have gained radio recognition beyond a core bluegrass ...

Shindig! Presents: Groovy Gals...