The rest of J&R seems to be at the usual prices, but WTF - I remember Dust Bowl being $5.99 when it came out, before $6.49 became the new $5.99. His stuff is often a special at Amazon or 7dig when it comes out, but I hope this $8.99 thing is not a sign of the future.
@Doofy - Live at Royal Albert Hall is £7.98 on emusic in UK, but that is not too bad as we still pay 42p per track - it is 19 tracks or two CDs long. Amazon have it for £13.98, so £6 cheaper on emusic. itunes do not appear to have it!! And I must remember I still have my grandfathered plan, so I dare not say here how much it actually cost me
Hillbilly Blues - some stone hillbilly s....tuff, at $4.40 I'm liking the sound of this. Check out the sample for track 40 - a very interesting take on Sitting On Top Of The World.
Guess this is a companion album - Hillbilly Folk, very old-timey sounding.
This is new - the return of Chronological Classics under the Classics label. Only 12 albums so far but the ones I looked at were $5.99. Be nice to see more of these. Be nicer if I could remember which ones I had in my SFL a couple of years ago before they disappeared prior to album pricing. This Etta Jones album sounds good.
Just put this, Brazilian Lounge by Laurindo Almeida and Bud Shank, on my SFL yesterday but in doing some rummaging around I believe this is a compilation of their two albums Brazilliance Volumes 1 & 2 that were on Blue Note, very well regarded albums that were precursors of the bossa nova period. And $4.40.
From the early Western Swing genre 2 entries - Durwood Brown and his Musical Brownies - he was the brother of Milton Brown and tried to keep the band going a few years after Milton's untimely death in a car crash (really when is dying in a car crash timely?) - they had both been alumni of Bob Will's Light Crust Doughboys earlier. Also an album from Bob Dunn who had been incorporated into the Musical Brownies as a steel guitar player. Info on this site on Milton Brown's life suggests Dunn was the first band member to play an electric instrument in country music (circa 1934) although I don't know if that's true - certainly might be early enough.
Edit - Although I dig it the Bob Dunn album gets an official Olde-Timey warning sticker, very '30's. It is the real deal however for the genre.
Took a chance on this classical set - Mozart:The Piano Concertos - by Carmen Piazzini, 10 hours, $5.99. So far I liked the hour or so I've listened to, and it is not exactly a deal as it's only a couple of bucks more elsewhere.
I see this artist also has a Mozart:The Complete Sonatas for Piano, similarly priced.
A brace of intriguing blues releases on eMu - The Bobby Robinson Story Volume 1 and Volume 2. These comps are on JSP whom I have more faith in than the fly by night reissue labels, and have some interesting artists - Wilbert Harrison, Tarheel Slim, Elmore James, etc. It doesn't mention which label the said Bobby was the entrepreneur of, but both are 2 disc sets at $4.40 each - Deal! I'll see what else I can find out.
Edit - Aha, the Fire and Fury labels - good stuff. I'll need to check these against the Fire and Fury box set I've had at home since the '90's. Edit 2 - Although there's some overlap, there's a lot on these 2 releases not included there (I refer to the 2 disc box under the Capricorn aegis - there's also a 3 disc British set on Charly whose blues third disc resembles this material), so I'd recommend getting both for a good dose of '50's American blues from the heartland that's not strict Chicago, and not Delta.
After closer examination this classical release I thought might be a lame comp looks a whole lot better - 100 Solo Bach. What you're actually getting is all 6 Bach cello suites by Torleif Thedeen (who has a BIS release of said), a bunch of lute pieces by Jakob Lindberg, and a number of solo violin sonatas - not bad for $5.99.
Not finding Beethoven's music teacher? He's Haydn. All joking aside there are some large Haydn sets - from recently so they are not UMG 2010 tainted- from Antal Dorati. The first is this Haydn - The Operas, a 20 album set/$32.60, which to give eMu some due is a good price. I believe this is a single box reissue of the 2 10 disc sets that were originally issued on Philips. The second is Haydn - The Complete Symphonies, 33 discs/$32.60. I realize these are total boostersphere considerations but I'm putting them on my classical SFL for contemplation.
Well, I'm not convinced by quite a few of the tracks (e.g. the George Formby - is that there because of the word "Hindoo" in the title?) but quite a few of them do have an underlying core of "sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters" (=drone); the tie-in to bagpipe music is interesting, the Eastern references predictable, the Wam Tribe New Guinea track pretty cool. And there surely are connections between guitar-based drone music and certain lugubrious styles of electric blues. Choral music certainly belongs, but I would have thought some older chants would have been a better fit than "Little Drummer Boy" (yes, there's that repeating bass note, but that's tenuous), and there really ought to be some Eastern Orthodox church music there, and maybe, say, some Tavener. As for the rest, I'd take a stab at "how can we market a bunch of older music that we have rights to to folk who are into drone? Now then, which things to we have in our catalog that have the least melodic range or mention India?"
Actually if you look at that Wikipedia piece I linked, the album does seem to be pushing many of the right buttons. No mention of George Formby though. Certainly interesting to see Yves Klein, Webern, Sam Cooke and Rolf Harris on the same record!
ETA: having tracked down that Formby track on Spotify (see what you've driven me to?) I would say that the fact that he spends the first and last 5 seconds of the track parodying Indian music in a manner that sounds rather like a cat being tortured hardly qualifies this track as part of the "roots of drone" unless any track that references Indian music in some way qualifies. It's a generally rather offensive ditty as well. The project seems to confuse "roots of" with "has some kind of connection with".
Thank you, sir. Very interesting article. Took a look at the label that release is on and found Forbidden Planets : Music From The Pioneers of Electronic Sound which led me to Forbidden Planet, from which I'll have to download at least track 13 Ancient Krell Music. Doesn't every collection need a little Music of the Krell?
I see this dropped Friday - The Alligator Records 20th Anniversary Collection - now 20 years old this was an outstanding value then as a double CD at a fetching price as I recall, and at $5.99 is still a pretty good deal for a great blues sampler.
Also the 25th Anniversary Collection, $5.99 as well, although I'd give the 20th the nod for hotter song selections. And the 30th as well.
Here's something you don't see every day at eMu - a price reduction??!! Found this - The Divine Sarah Vaughan - The Columbia Years 1949-1953 - in one of my SFLs with a price of $13.10 in the Comment box - it is now going for $11.10. It appears I got it at 7dig during the Xmas sale anyway, but I figure I noted the first price because it would have been higher than a 2 disc set at $5.99 each should have been. Anyhow it's a nice set so if anyone's interested a lower price is always a good thing.
I'd imagine George Formby would be offensive in almost any British context...
In the United States we have Jimmy Buffett, who is still alive, even. Someday the long national nightmare will be over, but until then, we all try to pretend there's still some hope left for us.
Notice there are a whole lot of "newly added" New Rounder releases (I was browsing the Freshly Added Blues and Country). It includes a lot of real good albums by some excellent artists but gosh I just find it hard to get excited about stuff that's so old I have it on cassettes, that I'm supposed to cough up $6.99/album or $0.79/track. Petty of me I know, but I am sitting on a cassette deck with a USB out which I'll try out some day before all my teeth fall out or the cassettes turn to goo, or my neurons.
This, however, is a little more interesting - DGQ-20 A Twenty Year Retrospective 1976-1996 from The David Grisman Quintet on the Acoustic Disc label. It's no bargain at $17.97 but at least you get 3 CDs of respectable length worth, and it's the Gris - a number of them aforementioned cassettes are of the Gris (I think many were on the "old" Rounder label) back from the days of college radio discoveries. WFDU, WFUV, WKCR - they turned me on to a whole lot of great music.
EDIT - 5/2012 This baby's at 7digital for $9.99.
This is a strange one. I was browsing around eMu on The Shadows page, and found this in Compilations - Las 66 Favoritas de Jose Maria Inigo y Jose Ramon Pardo Volume 1 (1958-1961) . Now I don't know who these guys are but they apparently like American popular music, and you get 3 discs, 66 songs of stuff from Ray Charles to The Shadows, Jerry Lee Lewis to Frankie Avalon. $4.40, and I'm fairly sure they're originals. Anyhow there are more than enough songs I know I don't have to make it worth a go. I'll report back after digesting it, and yeah, there's a Volume 2.
Edit - Post-download report. After doing a head-to-head of several tracks I had other bona fide versions of they are as far as I can determine the originals, and the set has darn good bitrates too. Weird (eclectic?) mix but good songs I'm glad to have.
Here's an interesting concept album - The Black & White Roots of Rock'N'Roll. Head to heads of songs done by two different artists from different genres, jump vs. rockabilly, swing vs. hillbilly, but they share credit as rock'n'roll progenitors. What is very happening here is the song selection, many of which I (or you may) already have but it is a great playlist of sorts. I want to research which of the contenders I don't have, and at $0.49 can fill in very happily. I might just download the whole thing anyhow because the songs are so good. Only gripe - shouldn't it have been an even number per side?
EDIT - Ah, this is the same label that put out Elvis and the Originals, a similar concept with Elvis renditions with original artists that was kind of cool as well.
Edit 2 - Oh, Lord, it was only Sept. 3rd I posted about this album before and I had to do a Search to find that - a mind is a terrible thing.
Very exciting find for me - Lightning Fingers of Roy Clark - an early sixties all instrumental album from which came the tune Dented Fender that came up in the Country discussion a couple of weeks ago. Short, as LPs were back then, but as far as hot country guitar playing goes if you dig it you might want it.
As classical guitar samplers go this is pretty good stuff - Essential Guitar from EMI, from their budget line.
Another graverobber special for Halloween - Jazz Guitar Classics featuring Grant Green in a number of outfits, never mind the cover that says Jazz Guitar Essentials, it is 45 tracks for $5.84.
Then I don't know how I let this one sit on my jazz SFL this long but I remedied that - Jazz Essentials by Mundell Lowe, an undersung jazz guitar hero, very tasty, $4.40.
Comments
I've noticed your SMOD posts, did not know about the family connection. The SMOD album art makes me smile every time.
Hillbilly Blues - some stone hillbilly s....tuff, at $4.40 I'm liking the sound of this. Check out the sample for track 40 - a very interesting take on Sitting On Top Of The World.
Guess this is a companion album - Hillbilly Folk, very old-timey sounding.
This is new - the return of Chronological Classics under the Classics label. Only 12 albums so far but the ones I looked at were $5.99. Be nice to see more of these. Be nicer if I could remember which ones I had in my SFL a couple of years ago before they disappeared prior to album pricing. This Etta Jones album sounds good.
Just arrived at emusic. Very worth checking out.
- Together with a label called Jazz Engine
Quentin Rollet, Akosh Szelev
From the early Western Swing genre 2 entries - Durwood Brown and his Musical Brownies - he was the brother of Milton Brown and tried to keep the band going a few years after Milton's untimely death in a car crash (really when is dying in a car crash timely?) - they had both been alumni of Bob Will's Light Crust Doughboys earlier. Also an album from Bob Dunn who had been incorporated into the Musical Brownies as a steel guitar player. Info on this site on Milton Brown's life suggests Dunn was the first band member to play an electric instrument in country music (circa 1934) although I don't know if that's true - certainly might be early enough.
Edit - Although I dig it the Bob Dunn album gets an official Olde-Timey warning sticker, very '30's. It is the real deal however for the genre.
I see this artist also has a Mozart:The Complete Sonatas for Piano, similarly priced.
Edit - Aha, the Fire and Fury labels - good stuff. I'll need to check these against the Fire and Fury box set I've had at home since the '90's. Edit 2 - Although there's some overlap, there's a lot on these 2 releases not included there (I refer to the 2 disc box under the Capricorn aegis - there's also a 3 disc British set on Charly whose blues third disc resembles this material), so I'd recommend getting both for a good dose of '50's American blues from the heartland that's not strict Chicago, and not Delta.
Not finding Beethoven's music teacher? He's Haydn. All joking aside there are some large Haydn sets - from recently so they are not UMG 2010 tainted- from Antal Dorati. The first is this Haydn - The Operas, a 20 album set/$32.60, which to give eMu some due is a good price. I believe this is a single box reissue of the 2 10 disc sets that were originally issued on Philips. The second is Haydn - The Complete Symphonies, 33 discs/$32.60. I realize these are total boostersphere considerations but I'm putting them on my classical SFL for contemplation.
Actually if you look at that Wikipedia piece I linked, the album does seem to be pushing many of the right buttons. No mention of George Formby though. Certainly interesting to see Yves Klein, Webern, Sam Cooke and Rolf Harris on the same record!
ETA: having tracked down that Formby track on Spotify (see what you've driven me to?) I would say that the fact that he spends the first and last 5 seconds of the track parodying Indian music in a manner that sounds rather like a cat being tortured hardly qualifies this track as part of the "roots of drone" unless any track that references Indian music in some way qualifies. It's a generally rather offensive ditty as well. The project seems to confuse "roots of" with "has some kind of connection with".
Also the 25th Anniversary Collection, $5.99 as well, although I'd give the 20th the nod for hotter song selections. And the 30th as well.
In the United States we have Jimmy Buffett, who is still alive, even. Someday the long national nightmare will be over, but until then, we all try to pretend there's still some hope left for us.
EDIT - 5/2012 This baby's at 7digital for $9.99.
Edit - Post-download report. After doing a head-to-head of several tracks I had other bona fide versions of they are as far as I can determine the originals, and the set has darn good bitrates too. Weird (eclectic?) mix but good songs I'm glad to have.
EDIT - Ah, this is the same label that put out Elvis and the Originals, a similar concept with Elvis renditions with original artists that was kind of cool as well.
Edit 2 - Oh, Lord, it was only Sept. 3rd I posted about this album before and I had to do a Search to find that - a mind is a terrible thing.
Another graverobber special for Halloween - Jazz Guitar Classics featuring Grant Green in a number of outfits, never mind the cover that says Jazz Guitar Essentials, it is 45 tracks for $5.84.
Then I don't know how I let this one sit on my jazz SFL this long but I remedied that - Jazz Essentials by Mundell Lowe, an undersung jazz guitar hero, very tasty, $4.40.