Of all Robert Cray albums, over a career that has now spanned 20 years, this is the one I keep coming back to time and time again. I Was Warned is not one of Robert Cray's more critically acclaimed or commercially successful albums, yet for me it's a handsome, undemanding record that is full of great songs and superb playing. As a practitioner of the blues, Cray has been instrumental in it's re-emergence as a popular art-form in the 80's and 90's, however he has never considered himself to be a 'bluesman' - preferring to call his sound a blues/soul/rock hybrid. I Was Warned tends towards soul and rock. There is a definite feel-good factor to 'Just A Loser' and 'I'm A Good Man', both carry an irresistable groove and Cray clearly revels in his everyman tales of love and life. 'The Price I Pay' is a meditation on fading love, it is one of Cray's finest ballads - a side of his music that seems to get overlooked. 'On The Road Down' is blisteringly good also and showcases some fine guitar-work.

This Italian funky progressive/fusion album is absolutely charming and funny. The influences are so numerous that it is impossible to mention all of them. The miscellaneous keyboards and percussions are very nervous and complex; the keyboards can be also very floating and relaxing. There are rhythmic piano, moog solos a la Triumvirat, rhythmic organ, and the album has an obvious jazzy/funky influence a la Weather Report of the 70's. The very elaborated, precise and fast drums have a structured Phil Collins' or Bill bruford's style of the mid 70's. There are tons of miscellaneous Latin & African percussions. The bass is quite loud and elaborated. The album is fully instrumental.

Adelbert von Deyen is a relatively obscure electronic artist whose style is very similar to the famed Klaus Schulze, even down to the album covers! Rightfully so, he claims Schulze as his main influence. His career lasted from the late Seventies to the early to mid-Eighties. "Atmosphere", Adelbert von Deyen's third release, is the first album on which he starts to show his own musical style and direction rather than sounding like a clone of Klaus Schulze. The title track still has a strong Schulze influence but there are now unique touches and differences that distinguish this as Von Deyen's work. The result is a much more satisfying release than either "Sternzeit" or "Nordborg".
The two short opening tracks are reminiscent of Ashra. "Time Machine" is bouncy, fast paced electronic music while "Silverrain" is a gentler, melodic piece which reminds of some of the tracks on Ashra's "New Age of Earth"…

Jim Steinman (the melodramatic writer behind Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell) is the author of many of the tracks here, and they have his typical rock & roll Sturm und Drang, especially when the backup group consists of members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Also on hand are The Blasters, Maria McKee, and Ry Cooder. The album's hit single turned out to be Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream about You".

This five-LP box set (which has been reissued on CD) contains nearly all of Stan Getz's classic bossa nova sessions, five wonderful yet diverse LPs (Jazz Samba, Big Band Bossa Nova, Jazz Samba Encore, Stan Getz/Laurindo Almedia, and Getz/Gilberto). The cool-toned tenor is heard on his groundbreaking collaboration with guitarist Charlie Byrd (which resulted in the best-selling "Desafinado"), is showcased with a big band arranged by Gary McFarland (introducing "No More Blues" and "One Note Samba"), stars in recordings with guitarists Laurindo Almeida and Luiz Bonfa, and is heard at the famous meeting with composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim, guitarist João Gilberto, and singer Astrud Gilberto, which resulted in the major hit "The Girl From Ipanema." This essential set finishes off with three previously unissued performances from a 1964 Carnegie Hall Concert, concluding with a remake of "The Girl From Ipanema." These recordings stand as proof that it is possible for good music to sell.

The Peppermint Trolley Company are quintessentially '60s Southern Californian, capturing the soft fallout of folk-rock and psychedelia, all wrapped up in the studio gleam of Hollywood. Tinsel Town played a large role in the group's existence as they became best-known as the singers of the theme songs for the Brady Bunch and Love, American Style, gigs they received because they had a sweet commercial sound that should have hit the Top 40 even if it never did (the closest they came is with the minor hit "Baby You Come Rollin' 'Cross My Mind," a bubblegum spin on Glen Campbell). The Peppermint Trolley Company's problem wasn't a lack of good collaborators - on their eponymous 1968 debut, Chad Stuart of Chad & Jeremy, provided arrangements, Roger Nichols appears on his song "Trust" - or a dearth of material but that they lacked a strong identity, too easily moving from lite psychedelia to gently rolling folk-pop to slightly tougher rock…