Music CDs Reviews - Page 3

Here’s one CD kids and parents can agree on. It’s part of a new series of releases featuring “hit songs for kids that won’t drive parents crazy,” covering some of the classics of Motown, Broadway, jazz, the ‘80s and today’s hitmakers, all with songs parents will dig and even younger children will think are fun. These Car tunes include “Our House” by Madness, Chuck Berry’s rollicking version of “Route 66,” Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” and nine other tracks that’ll keep you rollin’ merrily down the road.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

from Amazon.com

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Time-Life combed through the Motown library for this assemblage of 150 classic tunes that helped define a style, a time and a place—the Motor City—in songs like “Tracks of My Tears,” “Heat Wave” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” A bonus DVD features a collection of performance clips of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and The Four Tops from TV’s Ed Sullivan Show. For music lovers who remember how Motown’s soulful, pop-polished mini-masterpieces brought radios vibrantly to life throughout the ’60s and ’70s, this comprehensive Collection is bountiful reminder of the musical dynasty that put Detroit on the musical map.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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You don’t have to be kosher to enjoy this all-star assemblage of Jewish entertainers singing traditional Jewish songs, a collection of 13 tunes ranging from faithful to funny. Performers include Jason Alexander from TV’s Seinfeld, pop superstar Barbra Streisand, movie funnyman Adam Sandler, David Letterman’s bandleader Paul Shaffer, pop crooner Neil Sedaka and composer Marvin Hamlisch. Whether recalling the ribald humor of the Catskills or the reverence of a Sabbath dinner table, this Songbook is a heartfelt celebration of a colorful culture that has long preserved, expressed and identified itself through music.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Now one of rock ’n’ roll’s elder statesmen, the gravel-voiced English belter of “A Little Help From My Friends,” 64, returns with this collection of gospel-ish, soulful cover tunes from the catalogs of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles, Steve Wonder and other artists tapped into timeless messages of peace, love and understanding.
¬—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Bluegrass titan McCoury corralled his musical friends and cherry-picked tunes pointing to the plight of rural America in this “concept” collection that decries the gap between those who have and those who don’t. In songs such as “Mama’s Hungry Eyes,” “Farmers’ Blues,” “If We Make It Through December” and “40 Acres and a Fool,” McCoury and friends Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Marty Stuart, Bruce Hornsby, Patty Loveless and a host of bluegrass all-stars underscore his point—that times are tough—and also spotlight the role that country and bluegrass music has always played in articulating the troubles of the hard-pressed.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Where did all the great songs of yesteryear go? Well, 34 of them landed here, where they’re ready to spin you around again in a sweet nostalgic swirl. Tony Bennett’s “It Had To Be You,” Frank Sinatra’s “Night and Day,” Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen,” Bobby Darin’s “Blue Velvet” and Peggy Lee’s “Big Spender” are just a handful of the classic tunes and iconic singers represented on this golden stroll down music’s memory lane.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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The Georgia party band that put “Love Shack,” “Rock Lobster” and “Roam” on the charts in the ‘80s returns with its first studio album in 16 years, a hyped-up fusion of hippity-hoppity pop grooves, futuristic fuzz, new-wave quirk and good-time jive juice. If you don’t find yourself moving—or, at the very least, smiling—to “Keep This Party Going,” “Hot Corner,” “Pump” or any of the eight other new original tracks, send me a postcard from Squaresville.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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This 17-song collection, recorded on tour in the fall of 1969 in six cities, was the live album Simon and Garfunkel never got around to releasing. By the end of the year, they were well on their way to breaking up, and the concert tapes languished away for nearly 40 years in a record-company vault. Now available for the first time (exclusively at Starbucks), Live 1969 flings open a long-shuttered window on live performances of “Homeward Bound,” “The Boxer,” “Mrs. Robison” and other classic tunes from one of pop music’s most significant duos.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Since entering the American musical scene five decades ago, Ireland-born Morrison has ridden atop the charts with hits that became classics, including “Moondance,” “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Wild Night,” and expanded his repertoire with brilliant album excursions into Celtic music, jazz, R&B, country and gospel. His latest CD, as the title might suggest, rolls along easily on soulful, slow grooves that showcase the straightforward, poetic messages of 11 new original songs such as “School of Hard Knocks,” “Song of Home” and “How Can a Poor Boy.”
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Singer-songwriter Vera had only one significant hit single, but it was a doozy: “At This Moment,” a heart-wrenching pop masterpiece, became a massive crossover smash in 1986 after it was used on the television series Family Ties. Relive the “Moment” and discover the many other charms of Vera and his crack band, which wowed sellout crowds in Los Angeles for years before “At This Moment” found its moment in the sun, on this 14-song collection culled from a juke-joint-jumpin’ live 1981 nightclub appearance and studio sessions that followed.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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