By 1976, Billy Joel was a star; in 1976, he surpassed that status. “New York State Of Mind” may have never been released as a single, but this number gave a mighty heft to the “Turnstiles” album it arrived on, and there was no filler on the record which is being celebrated now with a box set, where all the songs of the classic platter are placed in a neat context. Out on December 11th, the four-CD-and-Blu-ray collection feels perfect.
It doesn’t happen too often – but it does happen. All of YES members issued solo platters back in 1975-1976, and then everyone in KISS put out their eponymous individual debuts in 1978, but none of those seemed as experimental as four albums released on September 25th by the surviving players of FAUST. Fairly active for the last two decades, which followed a score of years spent in limbo, they decided to go one step further, and now Hans-Joachim Irmler, Jean-Hervé Péron, Zappi W. Diermaier and Gunther Wüsthoff made forays into their respective archives to unearth a plethora of ideas that the Krautrock veterans reworked and brought to fruition now.
Inexplicably, and unfairly, less celebrated than his colleague Bert Jansch, John Renbourn‘s career was every bit as interesting, and when the famously acoustic guitarist plugged in and increased the rock component in his oeuvre, primarily in the ’70s, things became even more arresting. This is what a three-disc collection titled “Kokomo Blues: Gone Electric 1970-1979” and scheduled for release on December 4th concentrates on.
For a band who put out only four albums back in the ’70s, the legend of UNICORN is still going strong, the quartet’s platters, like the David Gilmour-produced "Too Many Crooks" from 1976 reissued time and again, and archival tapes such as those collected on "Shed No Tear" two years ago, drawing a lot of attention too. Glaringly missing from all these releases were live recordings – and now these are to take pride of place on the ensemble’s “alternative anthology” that will see the light of day on September 25th.
Given the scarcity of Lee Ritenour’s official concert releases, each time the jazz guitar giant issues a stage report, fans have a reason for festivities. So while it would have been great to see an archival recording making its way to the stores – Lee’s first proper such platter, “Alive in L.A.”, didn’t see the light of day until 1997, and 1984’s “RIT/Special” can be found only on old laserdisc and DVD – Ritenour’s “Live At Ronnie Scott’s” is more than welcome.
