Here’s one you don’t often see in the bins. Mary Wells auditioned for Berry Gordy when she was 16 and not long afterward had a monster, world-wide hit with “My Guy” back in 1964. It hit #5 in England and The Beatles asked her to tour with them.



Not a bad start for the smoky voiced teenager. In those days just like today, singles ruled the teen world but Berry Gordy was determined to reach a more adult audience and so almost from the beginning of his empire he produced full length LPs and in stereo to boot.

Fifty four year old Thelonious Monk was considered “washed up” by many when this European session was recorded in 1971. He’d ended his association with Columbia Records and while he made some good records for the most commerical label with which he’d be associated, he’d not written much new material during that period.

If you go for Waits’s “Louis Armstrong meets Screamin’ Jay Hawkins meets Captain Beefheart” blues/jazzbo thing, obtaining it live or recorded live is probably as pure as it gets and arguably the best way to consume an artist energized by the crowd’s adulation and an adept touring backup band capable of creating thick, churning atmospherics.

Perhaps had the dulcet-toned baritone Johnny Hartman lived beyond sixty (he passed away from lung cancer in 1983) he might have experienced a resurgence similar to Tony Bennett’s—not that Hartman was ever as popular as Bennett.



Though Hartman’s brand of sophisticated balladry was rooted in pure jazz (why else would John Coltrane ask to collaborate with him?) he drifted occasionally towards an easy Mel Tormé or even Bobby Short cabaret style delivery and in his later years as popular jazz singing hit hard times he played cocktail lounges.

The Blue Note reissue explosion continues with these attractively packaged XRCD24s from Audio Wave. We’ve got two current purveyors of Blue Notes: Music Matters and Analogue Productions, each having gained access to different catalog titles.

Music Matters issues on double 45rpm vinyl only while Analogue Productions doubles on 45rpm vinyl and SACD. Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman master both labels’ reissues at AcousTech and the results are unfailingly excellent.

The classic Phil Spector Christmas album is Sundazed’s holiday gift to us all. Mastered in glorious mono from the original mono master tape (while Phil didn’t do stereo the late Larry Levine, Gold Star Studio's premier engineer produced a very good stereo mix in the early 1970's).

The classic Phil Spector Christmas album is Sundazed’s holiday gift to us all. Mastered in glorious mono from the original mono master tape (while Phil didn’t do stereo the late Larry Levine, Gold Star Studio's premier engineer produced a very good stereo mix in the early 1970's).

Josie Cotton, best known for her “controversial” 1980 song “Johnny Are You Queer” that turned into a minor international phenomenon while outraging evangelical types and has a back story worthy of a mini-novel, returns with a high low-concept album. You can search the internet for the backstory and watch her perform the song on YouTube.

The Fleet Foxes are a new band from Seattle. Put aside any associations you might have with grungy histrionics. Imagine instead a small band of Blue Ridge mountain refugees spending a good long while in remote, lush forests where they smoothed away the rough edges and filigree notes of their musical forefathers while gathering up ideas from key times (the 60’s) and places (Laurel Canyon, rural England) to create their own, incantatory sound.

Whatever "it" is, Welsh born 23 year old Duffy has it. If you're old enough to remember and were a fan of Lulu's "To Sir With Love,"  you'll love Duffy's surprising debut, co-produced by Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, who's had an extensive solo and collaborative career since the breakup of that '90's band, the very busy Jimmy Hogarth, producer of Susan Vega's excellent Beauty and Crime reviewed elsewhere on this site as well as co-producer of James Blunt's unfairly reviled debut album, among many others and Steve Booker. 

World Music probably before there was such a term, this musical description of a dramatic, colorful Australian aboriginal dance ceremony told mostly with western classical musical conventions and instrumentation, though a ominous sounding primitive instrument called a bull roarer makes a dramatic appearance.



The music is brutal and sometimes violent, and as the liner notes predict, you will be reminded of Stravinsky and say to yourself “Austrailian “The Rite of Spring.”