Album Reviews

There's still time to order online this double LP set curated with love by Lee's granddaughter Holly Foster Wells—or if your local vinyl emporium has a copy—pick it up "live". The 22 song compilation of course includes ten tracks from Lee's Christmas album Christmas Carousel (1960), but it also features songs from her earlier Decca catalog along with from the Disney animated classic "Lady and the Tramp", and a pair of duets with Bing Crosby. Six of the album's songs were written or co-written by Lee.

Should you ever flip through my music library you’d notice that I actively avoid accumulating too many “simple” pop albums. Needless to say, my selective collecting has its reasons. At this point in time, I’d not be shocked to discover that there are a million songs containing the simple lyric “I love you”; of course, that’s just what that line is: simple. That is exactly why my probable million song estimation truly disappoints.

One ferocious and one mellow, these two John Coltrane albums dropped last month by Verve in association with Acoustic Sounds serve as both a great intro for the unfamiliar and as possibly the best sounding versions of both and of course affordable too.

Shortly after their 1970 sophomore album Fun House’s release, Detroit proto-punk legends the Stooges played the Goose Lake Festival in Jackson, Michigan, 80 miles west of Detroit. Intended to be a Midwest Woodstock of sorts, with acts like the Small Faces, Jethro Tull, and Chicago (among many more) the 3-day festival drew 200,000 attendees over a stifling weekend. The environment became tense; in this LP’s liner notes, Jaan Uhelszki writes of 500 people attending the Open City LSD bad trip rescue tent, with countless others also being stoned on PCP masquerading as cocaine. Still, the festival itself was well-organized. Bands played on a rotating stage, were limited to 45-minute sets without exception, and a six-foot fence and trench blocked performer/crowd interaction.

Analogue Productions returns with another in its very popular “Wonderful Sounds” series that began with a Christmas compilation and followed up in 2018 with a female vocalist assemblage.

As promised in the original Starz vinyl report, I got the standard edition to compare to the disappointing glow-in-the-dark 2LP.