These rare treasures take you all across Billie's career-from '35, the year she debuted at the Apollo and first charted, to '59, the year she died. The stunning early performances include a 20-year-old Billie with Ellington in '35 and a 1937 radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in NY with the Basie Orchestra; you'll also hear rare rehearsal tapes, her Monterey '58 performance, songs on The Eddie Condon Show, The Tonight Show, The Steve Allen Show, an impromptu recording of Billie and friends singing My Yiddish Mamma, and more with Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and more! Includes 129 tracks: Swing Brother Swing; Fine and Mellow; I'll Get By; Billie's Blues; All of Me; Lover Man; Them There Eyes; You're My Thrill; I Cover the Waterfront; Porgy; Tenderly; God Bless the Child; My Man; Moanin' Low; Ghost of a Chance, and more.

Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Diana Ross & The Supremes featuring the high-fidelity SHM-CD format. Part of a ten-album Diana Ross & The Supremes SHM-CD cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "Where Did Our Love Go", "More Hits By The Supremes", "I Hear A Symphony", "The Supremes A Go Go", "Sing Holland Dozier Holland", "Reflections", "Join The Temptaions", "Love Child", "Let The Sunshine In", and "Cream Of The Crop".

Skyliner was one of Charlie Barnet's most exciting hit records, and quickly became as closely identified with his big band as was Ray Noble's Cherokee. This 1996 EPM Musique Jazz Anthology compilation is one of at least six Barnet albums with the word "Skyliner" in the title. Tracks one through twelve were recorded for the Bluebird label between June 19, 1940 and April 30, 1942. Tracks thirteen through twenty follow Barnet's progress through the turbulent wartime years with a trail of Decca sides cut between July 1942 and February 1944. "Skyliner" comes from a V-Disc recorded on July 13, 1944; "E-Bob-O-Lee-Bob," like "Oh Miss Jaxon" a vocal feature for trumpeter Peanuts Holland, was harvested from a Jubilee broadcast on December 6, 1945. Some of this band's arrangements were written by Horace Henderson, Billy May and by the leader himself. Most Charlie Barnet albums are well worth investigating. This one lives somewhere near the top of the heap.

Three CD collection from the legendary crooner. Though his commercial peak was in the '60s and '70s, Williams has continued to stay busy over the decades by touring, recording and headlining his own Moon River Theater in Branson, MO. He also remains popular in the UK and Europe, where he has frequently toured over the years. This triple disc set features 60 classics including 'Moon River', 'Can't Get Used To Losing You' and many more tracks including a dozen Christmas favorites.

The Carter Family were pioneers of Country music but their influence was far reaching and impacted future performers of other genres such as folk, pop/rock and even Southern gospel. This 2CD set celebrates their early material (1927-1941) and includes Keep On The Sunnyside', 'Wabash Cannonball', 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' title track 'Wildwood Flower' plus many more classic tracks.

For Carly Simon, Film Noir is a way to explore traditional pop classics. Using smoky saloon songs like "Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye" as a blueprint, Simon and producer Jimmy Webb create a seductive, intimate atmosphere. Simon's vocals aren't naturally suited to this material, but she acquits herself well, and the two duets – one with Webb and one with John Travolta ("Two Sleepy People") – are charming additions to an ingratiating album.

Rhino's three-disc box set The Remains of Tom Lehrer presents 75 tracks from the satirist's four decade career. The first disc concentrates on Lehrer's studio output, including pieces from his 1953 debut Songs by Tom Lehrer and his 1959 album More of Tom Lehrer, as well as a 1996 version of "I Got It from Agnes" and "That's Mathematics," a previously unreleased track from 1993. Disc two gathers his '59 performances at MIT and Harvard, captured on the albums Tom Lehrer Revisited and An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer (which offered many of the same selections as their studio predecessors). The third disc is a mix of live and studio tracks, including the material from the album That Was the Year That Was, songs written for PBS's The Electric Company in 1971-72, orchestral versions of songs conducted by Richard Hayman in 1960, and four new songs, including "Selling Out" and "(I'm Spending Hanukkah) In Santa Monica." Song-by-song notes by Lehrer, rare photos, and an essay by Dr. Demento add an extra depth to The Remains of Tom Lehrer making it the ultimate collection of his irreverent social commentary.

4 Cd Quality 80-track anthology of the great vocal group's singles incl Just For A Thrill, My Prayer, That's When Your Heartaches Begin, Stranger In Paradise and more.

The home-grown British answer to Frank Sinatra, Matt Monro's hugely successful career spanned three decades and 100 million record sales, and, twenty-five years after his death Matt Monro's music resounds as strongly as ever. Matt Monro died on 7th February 1985, and to mark the 25th anniversary EMI are releasing The Greatest containing Matt's most notable songs, from the classic "Portrait of My Love" to the hauntingly beautiful "Softly as I Leave You". Also included are "Walk Away", "Born Free", "My Kind of Girl" and "Yesterday" as well as the previously unreleased "I’ll Never Fall In Love Again".

It's virtually impossible to imagine modern music without the contributions of Les Paul. Not only was he a brilliant jazz guitarist with no fear of pop or country, he literally laid the framework for how a good electric guitar should be made when he designed his famous Les Paul model for Gibson Guitars. Add in the fact that he single-handedly invented multi-track recording with the release of "Lover" in 1948, and his influence is pervasive, if not always acknowledged, even in today's 21st century hip-hop world. This delightful collection brings together rare 16" radio transcription discs Paul did in 1944 and 1945, shortly after he was discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces. Although billed as a trio, the band here is really a quartet, with Paul on lead guitar, Cal Gooden, Jr. on rhythm guitar, Clint Nordquist on upright bass, and probably Bob Armstrong on piano (Paul used several piano players during this time period, but Armstrong is the most likely candidate for these sessions).

Every Time I Feel the Spirit is a 1959 studio album by Nat King Cole, of spirituals, arranged by Gordon Jenkins. Cole is accompanied by the First Church of Deliverance Choir of Chicago, Illinois. The album was re-issued by Capitol Records in 1966 under the new title, Nat King Cole Sings Hymns and Spirituals. Several bonus tracks, recorded between 1951 and 1961 and arranged by Nelson Riddle and others, were added to later CD re-issues.

Charley Patton lived only into his 40s, but he left a large body of recorded work, which reveals a broad repertoire, much self-written. He came to his first recording session - in June 1929, for Paramount - with an established reputation. It was said his voice could be heard 500 yards away. The songs he recorded that day include some he had been honing for 20 years around the Delta. Pony Blues is usually cited as a masterpiece. He cut two versions. Both are good, the first is finer: he growls the lyrics, his guitar lopes and bucks. Patton's rhythms are one of his trademarks - complex, intricate, powerful, his fingering always precise. Listen to his playing on Down The Dirt Road Blues - he puts brilliant guitar phrases at the end of each stanza. Songs like Banty Rooster, with its beautiful slide work, and the idiosyncratic Spoonful represent the essence of Mississippi blues and are typical of Patton fast-and-loose approach to blues structures (there's not a standard 12-bar in Patton's recorded output) and rhythmic conventions. Even those who have studied Patton's lyrics find areas to dispute. The voice is gruff, the phrasing eccentric and his Mississippi accent can be impenetrable. But it's worth paying attention - Patton's songs evoke a world that has vanished.

It would seem a strange thing compiling the work of Charlie Haden's decade-long Quartet West Group onto a single disc. The reason isn't that they recorded so much material, but more because the material was themed record by record. Yet that is exactly why a compilation like this does work, because this group played music utilizing different aspects of the same theme: to evoke the spirits, ghosts and sprites of a Los Angeles that has moved off the screen of real life into the stuff of myth. That Haden and his group, which included drummer Larance Marable (who replaced Billy Higgins after the group's first, self-titled album in 1986), saxophonist Ernie Watts, and pianist Alan Broadbent could make it all sound so present and real, gives the impression that there was truth in the images. This is not only from a West Coast point of view (though there it is imbued more with the striking visual reveries to accompany the tunes) but also in the popular culture mythos in the collective American mind.

Bridging Lead Belly connects two Leadbelly recording sessions. The first is 12 tracks recorded for the BBC in 1938. The final five selections come from a 1946 live recording. Leadbelly is a master of the acoustic country-blues. We hear this on the yodeling of "I'm Goin' Mother" that he shares the same roots with another rural tradition, that of the "singing cowboy." Beside such melancholy ballads, there are hearty tracks full of pep such as "Boll Weevil" and "(Baby) Take a Whiff on Me." The live recording is from a house party. A real gem in this section is "Frankie and Albert." Here Leadbelly elaborates to great length on the relationship. He does this – to the point where it becomes part soap opera and part social drama – of these two mythical figures of the blues.

The voices of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong are among the most personal and beautiful that the history of music has given us, transcending eras, genres and languages. In this wonderful 6-CD box we can find the legacy of this immortal duet including all their key tracks and also some rarities that connoisseurs will surely appreciate. With remastered sound and beautiful cover art, The Complete Anthology is the definitive album of Ella & Louis, which should be on every music collection.