Barbra Streisand makes a point of noting that she completed this, her second Christmas album, before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, even going so far as to list the recording dates (July 19-September 7, 2001). And listening to the disc, you can see why. If great artists sometimes demonstrate an uncanny ability to take the temperature of the times with their work, this one can be said to have anticipated the dramatic change in mood that the terrorist attacks occasioned. Christmas music always mixes the celebratory with the nostalgic, some of its classic songs dating from the World War II era when families were separated and feared they might not be reunited. But Streisand's Christmas Memories accentuates that tone well into melancholy.

Few young singer/songwriters have quite so quickly won the sort of acclaim that Idaho-born Josh Ritter gained with his first self-released album, which won rave reviews, earned him slots opening for Bob Dylan, and made him a minor celebrity in Ireland, where he's already headlined several tours. Ritter's second disc (and first nationally released album), Golden Age of Radio, makes it clear that his sudden success is well deserved, and based on genuine talent. Ritter's moody, evocative songs seem to reside in a middle ground between Richard Buckner and Ryan Adams, but without suggesting he's lifted anything from either of those performers.

One of the most successful and admired opera singers of all time, Luciano Pavarotti was king among tenors from the late 1960s through the 1990s. His voice was noted for its exciting upper register, and tailor-made for the operas of Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti, and Puccini, and as it darkened slightly over the years, for the verismo composers as well. His vocal longevity, which kept him singing youthfully well into his sixties, and still beautifully after that, was a credit to his commanding technique and artistry, and remarkable considering his nearly 40 years of performing. Pavarotti's father was a baker, and his mother worked in a cigar factory.

In another of those two-fers that are going to tangle discographies for some time to come, this bears the title of a Don Patterson album, The Boss Men, and includes all of the material from that LP. However, this CD, though it's also called The Boss Men, is billed to both Sonny Stitt and Don Patterson, and combines the original Patterson The Boss Men LP with another album cut in 1965, Night Crawler, that was billed to Sonny Stitt, although it featured the exact same lineup (Stitt on alto sax, Patterson on organ, Billy James on drums) as The Boss Men. Not only that, the CD adds two cuts from a Patterson 1964 LP, Patterson's People, also featuring the Stitt-Patterson-James trio. As for the original The Boss Men, it's a respectable straight-ahead jazz-with-organ session…

Graham Bonnet is an English rock singer and songwriter. He has recorded and performed as a solo artist and as a member of several hard rock and heavy metal bands including Rainbow, the Michael Schenker Group, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri. Sometimes titled 'the most powerful voice in rock' by his fans, Bonnet is known for his powerful voice and wide vocal range. The Day I Went Mad is the sixth solo album by Graham Bonnet, originally released in 1999. Much like his previous solo efforts, Bonnet enlisted a host of guest musicians for the recording, including former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell and Vanilla Fudge bassist Tim Bogert. The album cover was illustrated by guitarist Mario Parga, who plays on several tracks.

Three decades ago Bruce Iglauer founded Alligator Records, selling his hero Hound Dog Taylor's records out of his car trunk. Since then, Alligator has become America's best-known and most prolific blues label, and many of the reasons for its success appear on this two-disc 30th anniversary collection. Much of the material, including Marcia Ball's "Louella" and Shemekia Copeland's "Turn the Heat Up," comes from relatively recent recordings, since the label also released anthologies honoring its 20th and 25th anniversaries.
But the 30th holds its own, presenting guitar greats like Lonnie Mack ("Stop"), Johnny Winter ("My Time After Awhile"), and Lonnie Brooks ("Two-Headed Man"), as well as harmonica heroes James Cotton ("When It Rains It Pours"), Junior Wells ("Keep Your Hands Out of My Pockets"), and William Clarke ("Broke and Hungry")…

With shared love for the tradition of Renaissance and Folk-Rock music, legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and award-winning lyricist and singer Candice Night founded Blackmore’s Night in 1997. They have been enchanting audiences around the world ever since.

The Experience is a 2001 live album by gospel singer Yolanda Adams. The album also includes a two covers of R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly": one studio version featuring R&B vocalist Gerald Levert, and a live solo version. Both were released as singles. The album was nominated for and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album the following year (the second win for Adams).

By now, the story behind the reunion which begat CPR is well known. David Crosby, while awaiting a life-saving liver transplant, was found by keyboardist James Raymond, whom Crosby had given up for adoption years before. This would just be great People magazine rock & roll fodder if not for the great fortune that Raymond is an incredible keyboardist whose harmonies blend in sweetly with his legendary dad's. Veteran Jeff Pevar's crack guitar work once again helps drive these provocative pop/rock tunes, particularly on the few more aggressive tracks like "Katie Did"; elsewhere, he's a little more restrained on acoustic, and Raymond's blues-influenced keyboard and piano playing dominated behind the powerful vocals.

In the spring of 1966, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears represented a genuinely new sound, as fresh to listeners as the songs on Meet the Beatles had seemed two years earlier. Released just as "California Dreaming" was ascending the charts by leaps and bounds, it was the product of months of rehearsal in the Virgin Islands and John Phillips' discovery of what one could do to build a polished recorded sound in the studio – it embraced folk-rock, pop/rock, pop, and soul, and also reflected the kind of care that acts like the Beatles were putting into their records at the time. "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'" are familiar enough to anyone who's ever listened to the radio, and "Go Where You Wanna Go" isn't far behind, in this version or the very similar rendition by the Fifth Dimension.

"…there are so many classics included in this deluxe set that this box deserves the highest rating anyway. Beiderbecke was at the peak of his powers in 1927. His cornet playing was simply beautiful and he had a very original tone, full of inner heat and thoughtful beauty. His playing … were among the top moments of 1920s jazz. These include such classics as "Clarinet Marmalade," "I'm Coming Virginia," his piano solo "In a Mist," and "Royal Garden Blues." … A master of the soon-to-be-extinct C-melody sax, Trumbauer was one of jazz's first great saxophone soloists and an influence on both Benny Carter and Lester Young. His sessions gradually evolve from classic jazz to swing, and even with a few novelty numbers, the post-Beiderbecke dates are mostly of strong interest. Teagarden, whose arrival in New York in 1928 found him immediately being recognized as jazz's top trombone soloist in addition to being considered a fine blues-oriented vocalist, is heard with Rodin and leading dates of his own during 1930-1934, before he became a sideman in Trumbauer's later sessions (during a period when they were both regularly employed with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra). In addition to the principals, along the way such major performers as clarinetist Jimmy Dorsey, guitarist Eddie Lang, violinist Joe Venuti, bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini, clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, Bing Crosby (on his most jazz-oriented sides), Johnny Mercer, tenors Eddie Miller and Bud Freeman, pianist Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, and trumpeter Charlie Teagarden (Jack's younger brother) make significant contributions to the music. Listeners who do not already own this music and want a large slice of late-'20s/early-'30s jazz history should acquire this valuable box while they can."

This is where fans of the group can sort of stop and settle down at last. MCA Records had previously let the Mamas & the Papas' music out on CD in a trickle; the debut LP was upgraded and a compilation of remastered hits showed later in the decade, but the rest was left to languish. This two-CD set makes up for that neglect, assembling all four of the quartet's '60s albums on two CDs and augmenting them with the mono single versions of "I Saw Her Again," "Words of Love," and "Creeque Alley," plus the non-LP single "Glad to Be Unhappy." One just wants to luxuriate in the sound of this reissue and its little details, like the rhythm guitar on "Do You Want to Dance" that cuts right through the air, the string basses on "Go Where You Want to Go" that sound like they're just across the room, and the rest of the first album.

Few rock artists have been more influential without achieving superstardom than Lou Reed. While he flirted with mainstream success between 1970 (when he left the Velvet Underground) and 2013 (when he succumbed to liver disease), he most often played to a large cult following that only occasionally expanded into mainstream visibility. However, his songwriting – unusually literate and often embracing themes that flouted society's conventions, especially in terms of drugs and sex – broke fresh ground that other artists would follow, and his willingness to confront his audience made him a vitally important precursor to the punk revolution of the mid- to late '70s. (He often said that his goal was to apply the freedom and creative sensibility of literature to rock music.) Reed was not as celebrated as a guitarist, but the energetic report of his rhythm playing and the noisy grace of his leads and solos made him a hero to musicians who valued passion and feel over chops.

The Portuguese school of Renaissance composers is only just beginning to be explored. It came to maturity relatively slowly, and when it finally did, in the first half of the seventeenth century, much of the rest of Europe had moved on to a new musical world. Only countries on the edge of the continent – especially England, Poland and Portugal – continued as late as 1650 to give employment to composers who found creative possibilities in unaccompanied choral music. Even so, very few of these composers remained completely untouched by the experiments of Monteverdi and the new Italian Baroque school, so that their music became a fascinating hybrid, looking forward and back, often unexpectedly introducing twists and turns to what otherwise might be taken for pure ‘Palestrina’.

This best-of collection tellingly starts off with four consecutive, woefully banal tracks from Elias' 1991 album A Long Story. It's certainly her most commercial work; whether it's her best is highly debatable. The disc doesn't get out from under the fluffy wordless vocals and synth pads until track seven, "Fantasia (To Amanda)," a teasingly short duet with bassist Eddie Gomez.