Cow Fingers and Mosquito Pie is a magically weird 19-song collection of the bizarre shouter's mid-'50s OKeh/Epic output, when he was at the height of his strange and terrifying vocal powers. In addition to the prerequisite "I Put a Spell on You," and the surreal rockers "Yellow Coat," "Hong Kong," "Alligator Wine," and "Little Demon"; there's the amusing "There's Something Wrong With You"; a previously unissued "You Ain't Foolin' Me"; and a deranged takeoff on the cowboy ditty "Take Me Back to My Boots and Saddle." And what Screamin' Jay Hawkins does to the formerly stately "I Love Paris," and "Orange Colored Sky" is truly indescribable!.

When "Polk Salad Annie" blared from transistor radio speakers in the summer of 1969, the first thought was of Creedence Clearwater Revival, for Tony Joe White's swamp rock bore more than a passing resemblance to the sound John Fogerty whipped up on Bayou Country and Green River. But White was the real thing – he really was from the bayou country of Louisiana, while Fogerty's bayou country was conjured up in Berkeley, CA. Plus, White had a mellow baritone voice that sounded like it had been dredged up from the bottom of the Delta. Besides "Annie," side one of this album includes several other White originals. The best of these are "Willie and Laura Mae Jones," a song about race relations with an arrangement similar to "Ballad of Billie Joe," and "Soul Francisco," a short piece of funky fluff that had been a big hit in Europe in 1968. "Aspen, Colorado" presages the later "Rainy Night in Georgia," a White composition popularized by Brook Benton. The second side consists of covers of contemporary hits, with the funky "Who's Making Love" and "Scratch My Back" faring better than the slow stuff.

Elvis Presley belongs on the short list of artists who changed the course of popular music in the 20th century. He may not have invented rock & roll, but he was indisputably its first rock star, a singer whose charisma was tightly intertwined with his natural talent for a combination that seemed combustible, sexy, and dangerous when Presley seized the imagination of America with four successive number one singles in 1956. He spent the next two decades near the top of the charts, weathering changes in fashion, self-inflicted missteps, and comebacks as his music expanded and evolved.

Brand new recording from guitar master is his long-awaited follow-up to 1997's "Shadowman" - now over 70 years old, Link still dishes up what he does best, displaying the depths of his musical roots with some acoustic songs, plus his trademark blistering guitar lines.

This 6CD collection includes every studio title recorded by the group from their very first efforts in early 1959, right up to the very end of 1966. It features 31 tracks in mono not previously available on CD & 3 tracks which are released in stereo for the very first time.

This superb live recording, taken from an FM radio broadcast of The Band playing at the Mandel Hall - a seated concert venue holding 750 situated within the University of Chicago - during their first re-union tour following the group s split in 1976, subsequent to their Last Waltz concert - was nothing short of a roaring success. Despite the absence of Robbie Robertson who, following some perhaps unfortunate remarks made by Rick Danko after the initial split, had declined to take part , which some critics saw as blasphemous. Robbie had also, by this juncture, all but turned his back on the worlds of pop and rock music and was concentrating largely on movies, in which he would sometimes feature in an acting role, sometimes provide some or all of the soundtrack for, and sometimes do both. The other four however were hungry to get back on the road and did just that in July 1983; this CD is an excellent illustration of what went down during these initial re-union gigs.

Rhino is pleased to present the first-ever boxed set to celebrate the girl groups of the 1960s. From soul and garage to Brill Building pop and countrypolitan, every possible girl group style is represented on these four discs, which gather 120 remastered tracks from 107 artists including The Supremes, The Ronettes, Dusty Springfield, Carole King, Petula Clark, plus a slew of artists less known but every bit as vital. Landmark packaging replicates a mod-style hat box and includes a diary-style booklet with essays, rare photos, track notes, and artist quotes. 2005.

The Faces were unanthologized on CD prior to 1999, but ever since Rhino's corking single-disc Good Boys…When They're Asleep…, the group has seen a number of different compilations of different sizes, of which Rhino U.K.'s 2012 set Stay with Me: Anthology is the fifth. At two discs, this has 2007's The Definitive Rock Collection as its closest cousin: they're both double discs that cover a tremendous amount of ground, but Stay with Me has a slight edge, weighing in at 36 tracks compared to Definitive's 30. Of those 30 tracks, 27 cuts are present and accounted for on Stay with Me – the missing numbers are "Open to Ideas," "Jodie," and "(I Know) I'm Losing You," the latter two cuts from solo Rod Stewart albums where he was backed by the Faces – and those other nine songs include some of the Faces' very best, including the roaring rocker "That's All You Need," Ronnie Lane's sweet, plaintive "Richmond," and the gloriously shambolic "On the Beach." Serious fans should pony up for 2004's Five Guys Walk into a Bar…, which is one of the great rock & roll box sets, but this double-disc set is like that box in miniature, containing the essence of the Faces in all their messy glory.

In October 1967, Cliff Richard and the Norrie Paramor Orchestra embarked upon a fabulously successful Japanese tour, climaxing with a solidly sold-out appearance at the Shibuya Public Hall in Tokyo, recorded for both domestic and international release the following year. It's a magnificent performance, spinning through highlights of Richard's entire career, all the way back to "Move It" and "Dynamite," but eschewing the easy route of simply piling hits upon hits, by concentrating as much on rocking covers as on the expected hits – "What'd I Say," "Shout," and "Twist and Shout" make it onto the album; left on the cutting room floor are equally powerful takes on "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy."

The Fabulous Thunderbirds play an energized fusion of blues, rock & roll, and R&B that sounds like it came straight out of a Texas roadhouse. During their heyday in the early '80s, the band was one of the most popular attractions on the blues bar circuit, cutting no-frills albums like 1979's The Fabulous Thunderbirds and 1980's What's the Word. This eventually led to a breakthrough to the pop audience with their 1986 album Tuff Enuff. The mass success didn't last too long, and founding member Jimmie Vaughan left in 1990, but under the leadership of harmonica ace and vocalist Kim Wilson, the Fabulous Thunderbirds remained one of the most popular blues acts in America during the '90s and onward.

Here's an educated guess that road tapes are the second most popular type of homemade mix cassette. (One suspects that old off-road standard–the bedroom mix–would clock in at No. 1.) Hot Rods & Custom Classics is Rhino Records' big daddy of road mixes: four discs housed in an elaborate box that includes a scrupulously assembled 66-page booklet, a catalog of hot-rod accessories, a strip of decals, and even a set of fuzzy dice for your own resto rod. Musically, this collection is all over the road, ranging from selections that seem like they were written with one foot on the accelerator (Johnny Bond's "Hot Rod Lincoln," Chuck Berry's "Maybelline," War's "Low Rider") to more tangential tracks that might force you to pull into a rest stop (Hank Williams's mournful "Lost Highway," Rod Stewart's "Gasoline Alley"). Spanning multiple genres and five decades, Custom Classics is enlivened by film and ad snippets, including a public-safety message from high-speed-crash victim James Dean on, naturally, safe highway driving. –Steven Stolder

VOLUME TWO: 5CD set. Collects his five "Gold Records" compilation albums, in card LP replica sleeves! Features Elvis' Golden Records - Volume One (1958); Volume Two (1959); Volume Three (1963); Volume Four (1968) and Volume Five (1984).

Double album featuring live performances by The Beatles, recorded in late December 1962 at the Star-Club during their final Hamburg residency. The performances were recorded on a home tape machine using a single microphone - resulting in a low fidelity recording. Ted "Kingsize" Taylor began to investigate possible marketing of the tapes in 1973. The tapes were eventually bought by Paul Murphy and subjected to extensive audio processing to improve the sound, leading to the 1977 album.
The album provides historic insight into the group's club act in the period after Ringo Starr joined but before the emergence of Beatlemania. The Beatles were unsuccessful in legally blocking the initial release of the album; the recordings were reissued in many forms until 1998, when The Beatles were awarded full rights to the performances.

NOW is proud to present the next instalment in our ongoing ‘Yearbook’ series – and take a trip back 50 years in Pop history – with 82 tracks on 4 CDs, to celebrate a stellar year of Pop singles… NOW – Yearbook 1974. This format is Special Edition 4CD set housed in ‘hard-back-book’ packaging, including a 28-page booklet featuring a summary of the year, a track-by-track guide, a quiz. Opening with ‘Killer Queen’ the first Top 5 single for Queen, and followed by the classic ‘Jet’ by Paul McCartney & Wings, and the still breathtakingly original, and hugely influential ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ from Sparks - this epic beginning to the 1974 Yearbook continues with a run of ‘glamtastic’ Pop from Sweet and Slade, and including #1s from Suzi Quatro, Alvin Stardust and the years’ biggest seller ‘Tiger Feet’ from Mud. The #1’s keep coming with Pop gold from David Essex, The Rubettes and Paper Lace, plus a huge hit from Pilot and the first Top 3 singles for the Bay City Rollers with ‘Shang-A-Lang’, and Leo Sayer with ‘The Show Must Go On’. 1974’s biggest selling singles act was The Wombles, and their debut ‘The Wombling Song’ is up next along with the global smash ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ from Carl Douglas.

The best of all of Al Kooper's studio albums, Rekooperation is a mostly instrumental album, on which the artist (playing organ and piano, and occasional guitar) and a band including Jimmy Vivino, Harvey Brooks, and Fred Walcott, among others, roar and pound their way through a baker's dozen of R&B, rock & roll, and soul classics. Everything from chestnuts like "Soul Twist," "Honky Tonk," "Johnny B. Goode," "Clean Up Woman," and " "Don't Be Cruel" to originals such as "Downtime" and "Alvino Johnson's Shuffle," without a notable gap in quality between them, are included – and the one vocal number, "I Wanna Little Girl," contains one of the finest singing performances that Kooper has ever turned in on record (but is also played so well, that it would work as an instrumental too). In many ways, this recording is a distant cousin to Blood, Sweat & Tears' Child Is Father to the Man, and was his first attempt at leading a band since that 1968 venture, which was sort of fitting since it led to Soul of a Man, Kooper's live-in-concert career retrospective album, the next time out.