Hyperbolium

Bonus-laden reissue of Steve Forbert's first two albums Steve Forbert fell from recording star escape velocity with surprising quickness. His 1978 debut, Alive on Arrival, was a precociously well-formed introduction, recorded only two years after leaving his native Mississippi, and the 1979 follow-up, Jackrabbit Slim, was refined with

Reissued two-disc anthology of San Francisco legends Legacy’s two-disc Essential collection is actually a re-branded reissue of the 1998 Hits release, reiterating the same 35-track lineup and including Ben Fong-Torres original liner notes. If you pop these discs in your computer’s CD drive, you’re even likely to

Extraordinary, yet virtually unknown singer-songwriter Americana from 1973 A label as big as Columbia in the early ‘70s was bound to miss a few opportunities, even ones they’d signed, recorded and released. Such was the case for this 1973 rarity, the product of an Indiana singer-songwriter, the famous producer

Little Richard - Here’s Little Richard (Specialty, 1957/2012) Fifty-five years after its initial release, Little Richard’s debut LP resounds with the primordial fire of rhythm ‘n’ blues’ jump to rock ‘n’ roll. Richard took everything up a notch – the tempos, the innuendo and above all, the volume

The Hobart Brothers & Lil’ Sis Hobart - At Least We Have Each Other (Freedom, 2012) The Hobart Brothers & Lil’ Sis Hobart bring together three respected soloists from the Americana scene: Jon Dee Graham, Freedy Johnson and Susan Cowsill. The latter had a large helping of mainstream fame in

The Grateful Dead - Dick’s Picks 35 (Real Gone, 2011) The Grateful Dead were far ahead of their time in many respects, but none perhaps more so than the breadth, depth and quality of the tapes they archived (and as will be described below, occasionally lost) from their legendary