It's appropriate that the great Freddy King is pictured on the disk cover; he's got two of his best on the album: "Hide Away" and "Have You Ever Loved a Woman", the latter surely one of the most searing and emotionally impassioned performances in the entire blues pantheon. This disk is absolutely crammed with bonafide blues classics from the likes of Howling Wolf, Elmore James, Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Earl Hooker, and B.B. King.

The combination of Neville Marriner and his always sterling evocation of excellence from the Academy of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields offers the perfect accompaniment and support for Malcolm's playing. The late George Malcolm was a brilliantly gifted organist even though his real specialty had always been harpsichord. He always seems to find the lightest most delightful playing to fit the idea of the piece.

Popa Chubby, born Ted Horowitz, has been hard rocking the blues in his fierce and soulful way for more than 25 years. Over the course of a career that dates back to 1994, he has been a force of to be reckoned with on the guitar, and his tempestuous, soulful playing has never been more powerful. An imposing figure with a shaven head, tattooed arms, a goatee and a performance style he describes as “the Stooges meets Buddy Guy, Motörhead meets Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix meets Robert Johnson," Popa Chubby is an endearing character who is one of the genre’s most popular figures.

Oceanic is a collection of tone poems with Ocean themes. On this 1996 release, Vangelis creates a soothing 50 minute journey through deep oceanic spaces, sounding a bit like a Hearts of Space show. The new age music showcases his wonderful ear for melodies and lush synthetic orchestration, but does not have the edge or sense of experimentation that marks his best work. If you listen closely, you’ll also hear a variety of synthesized ambient effects that evoke the ocean woven into the music. Some of his effects sound like whales, ships horns, porpoises, seagulls and even chimes at a beach house. His use of ambient effects is as masterful as his orchestration. Oceanic is not Vangelis’ most challenging album, but will instead reward listeners with a relaxing sonic portrait of an abstract ocean voyage.

As far as tribute albums go, this homage to seminal Canadian rockers Rush is hard to beat. For one thing, Magna Carta has made an inspired decision to have each song recorded by an all-star lineup rather than letting one band handle all the chores (with one exception - Fates Warning get sole credit for "Closer to the Heart"). Often projects of this magnitude are doomed to failure from the start as a result of inadequate rehearsing, a shoestring budget, and sometimes a lack of talent capable of handling the songs with the respect they deserve. Working Man is a rare instance of everything going right. Terry Brown has done an incredible mixing job considering nearly all of the songs were recorded in different studios. The musicianship rivals the original versions - occasionally besting them, particularly where the vocals are concerned…

Broken China is a progressive rock solo album by Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright. It was his second and final solo album. The album is a four-part concept album based on Wright's then-wife Mildred's battle with depression, and is very much like a classic Pink Floyd concept album in its structure and overall feel. Two songs, "Reaching for the Rail" and "Breakthrough" feature Sinéad O'Connor on lead vocals, with Wright singing elsewhere. The album was recorded in Wright's personal studio in France. Broken China was only Wright's second solo record after 1978's Wet Dream and the last to be released before his death in September 2008. Wright asked fellow Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour to perform on the album, and Gilmour agreed to play on "Breakthrough." However, the approach for the song was changed later on, and Gilmour's performance was not used on the finished release.

Elvis Costello embarked on a small, intimate tour with his longtime pianist Steve Nieve in the spring of 1996 to promote All This Useless Beauty. All of the shows from the five-date tour were recorded, and highlights from each show were issued on a series of promotional EPs that were later released commercially as the box set Costello & Nieve. Stripped down to their basics, the songs from All This Useless Beauty sit elegantly next to Costello classics, as well as several lesser-known gems from his rich back catalog. The performances are all understatedly passionate, and rank among the best that Costello has given, making Costello & Nieve five discs that any hardcore fan will treasure.

Wexford has long been the home of lost operatic causes that speedily become winners. Giovanni Pacini’s Saffo is a good example. Widely acclaimed in its time (establishing itself as a favourite in North as well as South America), the opera gradually disappeared from view, as did the composer himself. Yet he wrote over 80 operas, and Saffo is generally considered his masterpiece: the first fully ripened fruit of a period, nearly five years long, of retirement from composition, during which he studied, thought and prepared. It appeared in 1840, the year of Donizetti’s La fille du regiment and La favorite, both of them written for the opera in Paris.

This incredibly light, fun, and surprisingly hip three-CD collection featured by Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Django Reinhardt, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan and many more.

Having acquired a small cult following with its first album, Budgie offered a second dose of abrasive, forceful heavy metal that, like its predecessor, drew on influences ranging from Cream to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Budgie was a band that loved contrasts – the folk-ish qualities of "Make Me Happy" and the Beatlesque "Rolling Home Again" make hard-driving classics like "Hot as a Docker's Armpit," "Drugstore Woman," and "Rocking Man" seem all the more intense. For all its strengths, Squawk didn't turn Budgie into the well-known outfit it should have been. Budgie's followers were a devoted bunch, but unfortunately, there weren't nearly enough of them.

Poison's Greatest Hits 1986-1996 is as definitive as a Poison compilation could hope to be. Featuring a full 18 tracks, including all of their Top 50 hits ("Talk Dirty to Me," "I Want Action," "Nothin' but a Good Time," "Fallen Angel," "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," "Your Mama Don't Dance," "Unskinny Bop," "Something to Belive In," "Stand," among others) plus two unreleased cuts ("Sexual Thing," "Lay Your Body Down"), the album boasts every worthwhile song the group ever recorded, augmented by Bret Michaels' track-by-track commentary. Though the album isn't sequenced in chronological order, it plays like an excellent mixtape, which actually makes the album more listenable. Even on a compilation, Poison wears a little thin – there are still dull moments among these 18 songs, mainly in the form of lesser-known album tracks and singles – but still, Greatest Hits 1986-1996 is the most enteraining album the band ever released.