Like a musical Old Faithful, Richard Thompson dependably spews an album’s worth of inspired material at regular intervals. He’s been doing this since 1972’s Henry the Human Fly (Island ILPS 9197), which is so deserving of a high quality all-analog reissue.

MP3s spread “virally.” Large corporate interests didn’t push them. Vinyl is resurgent for the same reason. It’s a ground up movement. Construct that way and you have a strong foundation for a long-lasting building. That’s what gives hope for vinyl’s long term growth and sustainability.

About a decade ago the German audio company Burmester produced a not-for-sale CD compilation for use as a marketing tool. One track on that disc, Hugh Masekela’s “Stimela (The Coal Train),” has been spreading virally in audiophile circles, passed from one enthusiast to the next.

Never mind the much-vilified Marine and ex-Obama pastor Reverend Wright, if you want to hear the unvarnished, angry, hurtful truth of an era not so long past, listen to this stark, musical reminder of race relations in early ‘60s America.

The sit-ins of that era, which were non-violent confrontations intended to challenge and overthrow segregated Jim Crow America strongly affected Black artists who normally kept their distance from commenting on race relations in America—at least when addressing the white audiences attracted to their music.

This 1962 release is a pick-up session plain and simple, made interesting by the presence of the adventurous multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk and the always-tasteful pianist Tommy Flanagan—not that the snare-popping Haynes isn’t a superb and exciting drummer and Henry Grimes doesn’t acquit himself well on bass.

Haynes is still gigging at 83, having played with everyone from Bird to Prez to Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Chick Corea (etc.). Here at 36, he’s got energy and power to spare.

At a time when the shortsighted have all but declared the album form either dead or dying, Suzanne Vega\\'s latest one (issued on CD July, 2007 and more recently on vinyl by Classic Records) is a cool reminder that putting together a coherent program of well-produced (and carefully recorded) tunes remains a most satisfying musical art form. The album won a well-deserved Grammy, this past February (2008), for \\"Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.\\"

Lovers of chamber music in general and Heifetz in particular, will find this “Living Stereo” oddity from 1961 a sonic and musical treasure. “Oddity” because it’s an album pieced together from two studio recordings made at either side of “the pond.”



The Beethoven Sonata #9 (“Kreutzer”) is a domestic studio recording; the Bach Concerto For Two Violins was recorded in the U.K. with Heifetz joined by his protégé, the late Erick Friedman (making his recording debut) and Malcolm Sargent conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London.

This lovely set of intimately arranged and meticulously recorded covers, originally issued in 2000, is precisely the kind of semi-obscure album in need of a quality all-analog reissue.

Ricki Lee shot to stardom with her self-titled 1979 Warner Brothers debut and since then, the pop-jazz-beat-hipster-singer/songwriter has had her ups and downs but she's kept a steady grip on her art. So if you didn’t like her cat-like nasal vocal style back in 1979, you’re not likely to appreciate it now—unless you’ve had a change of heart.

Like West Meets East (Angel/EMI 36418 LP) the famous Ravi Shankar/Yehudi Menuhin collaboration from 1966, this 1992 get together between the guitarist/musicologist Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a classically trained Indian musician you may have unknowingly seen playing the Mohan Viña (an instrument he devised) in the DVD “A Concert For George,” attempts to mesh Eastern and Western musical sensibilities.

There’s an air of unreality about issuing a 7 CD set honoring the 50th Anniversary of The GRAMMY Awards. For one thing, the GRAMMYs award commercial, not artistic merit, though occasionally the two intersect. But more importantly, in an age of iTunes, where you can grab the tunes you want for a buck a piece, there’s something outdated and inefficient about packaging and marketing 16 tunes per category on a CD. What if you only like a few of them? Why be forced to buy all of them? Guess what? You’re not. NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) and Shout!