LATEST ADDITIONS

Gregg Allman left his mark on the music world at large as a natural-born blues-hewn vocalist, insightful and revelatory songwriter, and a consummately influential keyboardist. To properly fete him in style, a multi-generational all-star lineup of musicians from the worlds of rock, blues, and country joined together at Atlanta’s historic Fox Theatre on January 10, 2014 for All My Friends, a once-in-a-lifetime concert event tribute. Eight years later, All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman will finally be made available on vinyl via a 4LP box set that will be released on September 30, 2022 by Rounder Records. Read on to learn more about this historic release, and all its color-vinyl variants. . .

Fleet Foxes’ new live and mostly acoustic A Very Lonely Solstice LP leans more toward the full-album concert experience I was hoping for on record. There is a nice sense of the church ambiance — this performance was recorded live at St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York in December 2020 — that wonderfully captures the woody essence of Fleet Foxes bandleader Robin Pecknold’s strummy nylon-string guitar. Read on to learn more. . .

To slightly modify a line from “Let the Good Times Roll” . . . hey y’all, tell everybody Ray Charles is back on wax — and this time, he's got the Count Basie Orchestra with him. To wit: Tangerine Records will re-release the October 2006 album Ray Sings, Basie Swings on September 23, 2022, in a 140g 2LP collection pressed by IRP.

The prospect of reviewing a new, ultra-deluxe 180g version of the March 1958 hard-bop classic Relaxin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet has been simultaneously daunting and exciting. It is the first time I’ve gotten my hands on one of these tasty, fancy editions that’s an upstanding member of Craft Recordings’ popular and acclaimed Small Batch series. This series uses RTI’s noted one-step vinyl manufacturing process, which effectively delivers a pressing made off a first-generation metal mother made from the original lacquer. Good news: The Craft Relaxin’ LP is nicely centered, fairly flat, and RTI’s special Neotech’s VR900 vinyl formulation is especially quiet and transparent. Read on to glean more. . .