5 comments about In Harmony: A Sesame Street Record.

1. This was a favorite with my two sons many years ago & now I have the delight of sharing it with a new grandson.



2. This is a strange album in that "when it is good, it is very very good, and when it is bad, it is horrid".
   
   I absolutely love tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, and 12. Sweet, kind, wonderful. My kids and I used to belt out, "WOOOOOOOOAH! Can he come home Jenny, can he come, Jenny can he come!" from Jelly Man Kelly. It was a blast. And the Doobies are heavenly on track 1.
   
   That said, I absolutely hate tracks 4, 7, and 10. (Especially 7 -- could any sound be MORE ANNOYING?!!)
   
   All in all, the good outweighs the bad, especially if you MP3 it and remove the stinkers. ;) Otherwise, you'll be distracting the kids all the time so you can click the "skip" button.
   
   Our copy was broken a few years ago, and I may just buy it again for myself...



3. My daughter & I sing along to this in the car. Her favs are "Share" & "Jelly Man Kelly"



4. My kids, now in their late twenties/early thirties, spent their childhoods listening to In Harmony. Unfortunately, the album got buckled many years ago but they are all thrilled that I found a copy on amazon.com. A very cheesy family lunch saw us all singing along to every tune, with hardly a word forgotten. Only problem is, the wretched songs get stuck in your brain and I find myself in an endless loop of "A horse takes a lot to take care of"! Very sad when you're 50+. Very prompt delivery as well - even to our far-flung corner of the world in New Zealand.



5. Great children's music that is not just for children. Makes a great baby shower present.

5 comments about White Mansions/The Legend of Jesse James.

1. The other reviewers here have described both these masterpieces quite perfectly. So I'll just add that they both are written & conceived by Paul Kennerly, Emmylou Harris' ex, the guy who wrote all the "good" songs by the Judds, an Englishman who helped late seventies/early eighties Country Music to be something more than a vehicle for whiny, adenoidal lil' boyz wearing cowboy hats or vapor-brained former "beauty queens." And on a more personal note, after moving from somewhere in Georgia to an even-more-undefinable "somewhere" in Ohio, the combination of Eric Clapton's bottleneck-slide guitar, Steve Cash's vocal on the song "White Trash" and a 12 oz Red Bull kind of..."solidify reality" when things tend to get..."weird" up here in Buckeye Country.



2. I had the vinyl version of "White Mansions" back in the 1980's, and I liked it because I am a Civil War buff, and a country/folk fan. However, somehow I never knew a companion album about the James Boys was created two years later. I stumbled on this offering by accident a few weeks ago while browsing Amazon, and immediately ordered it. "White Mansions" seems even better than I remembered it. "Jesse James" was a touch disappointing, musically, upon first hearing, which was in my car with the windows down due to my Golden Retriever occupying the back seat. That one makes a better debut if you listen with earphones, or at least with full attention, in a quiet room. Now I like both equally. Paul Kennerly created, with high historical accuracy, musical tributes to first the misguided Southern secessionists and soldiers, and then the also misguided James Gang. He pulls off being objective to both lost causes without being overly sympathetic to either the wrongs of slavery or of bank and train robbing. His recruits, first for "White Mansions" with Waylon Jennings, his wife Jessi Colter, Eric Clapton and other gifted singers and pickers, and then for "Jesse James" with Johnny and Rosanne Cash, her then-husband Rodney Crowell, Charlie Daniels, Levon Helm and Emmylou Harris, can't be faulted. As a Yankee, I don't care all that much for the white Southerners whose racism fueled the terrible war. As a law-abiding person, I admit a nearly life-long fascination with the James brothers which stops short of admiration. But as a fan of story songs about the American experience, I confess to thinking this two-CD package a remarkable achievement which deserves wider recognition.



3. I bought this CD as a gift for my husband. He had the "White Mansions" album and I wanted him to have the CD. I had not heard of "The Legend of Jesse James" and neither had he, but he is enjoying both selections.



4. This album is so incredibly good I can't hardly stand it. It is the best country album I've ever owned/heard. If you like classic country, old Charlie Daniels, "Outlaw" country, concept albums in general, or just plain good music, you will like this.



5. I was looking for these two albuns for a long ago. I'm very glad finally got them. That's all and thanks.

5 comments about Ghetto Love.

1. Jaheim has an awesome voice that is easily recognizable. Jaheim will forever be on my "must-have" CD list.



2. Whoa! I cannot find the words to even begin to describe this album. This album is a masterpiece from head to toe. He mastered the mellow/relax r&b...on his first album! I mean this album is exactly what the title reads... GHETTO LOVE. It is just that ghetto as hell make love on the floor til my knees start to bleed r&b music. I mean how is anyone goin to ever compete with this album? And by anyones standards unless this album goes diamond two times it going to be underated. Period. It is so perfect that i really dont think even Ja knows he made such a work of art. This is that love making/ rolling around the city with the top back music at its best. And his voice is one to kill for. You wont hear another voice like his in a while. The song "Just In Case" is so ghetto and smooth that you can just sit back in a hot tub or in your bed and chill without a thought on your mind. The title track "Ghetto Love" ... well lets just say will have you hot in a sexond. And most people dont even know who Ja is. And that is a shame. He should be more know than Usher. The production could have been a bit better but other than that this is a perfect album. And its only his first, which mean he can only rise from this album. Scary thought isnt it. This album is to good for words, just take my advice and buy it you wont be dissapointed. This man can sing better than anyone in the game right now, this man can make music better than anyone in the game right now period. BUY IT!!!
   
   
   Grade:
   A



3. I have been in love with Jaheims soulful vioce every since I heard "Could it be" on his first album. Most people like hearing the more commercial voices in the music industry but Jaheims voice I can truly say is one of the best ever. The Soul in his voice is unmatched by anyone. I bought all of his albums and I must say that I am in love with all of them. I can't wait to hear what he will come out with next.



4. Jaheim's first single off of this album was Could it be. I remember distinctly being about fourteen when i first saw the video. I was at the salon and wasn't too impressed by him at all. After that i didn't think about him again until Just in case came out some months later. The concept of the video and the song was excellent and I loved it. I've never been into hard r&b, but this album i did like. the songs are about real situations that people go through, it's not all glamourous like song artists. I like that quality of jaheim's music. The only flaw i found in this album were the lyrics. A lot of the lyrics seem extremely amateur, like the person who wrote the song wasn't really creative or trying hard. It is a decent debut. Jaheim sophomore and junior albums are MUCH better.



5. I love Jaheim. He's got that Teddy P and ghetto thing going on. So sexy. I loved this CD when it came out before but never bought it.

5 comments about Escondida.

1. A roommate of mine would play this CD on Saturday mornings while she was cooking breakfast and after hearing it a couple times from my room I would come out and sit just to listen. Somehow the music fit the mood of late morning mixed with the aroma of eggs and such. Now I have it for myself and Jolie Holland's sad, satirical, yet energetic music is a memory into that time. Thanks Marit.



2. I can't stop listening to that voice of hers - it is like a cross between Victoria Williams, Billie Holiday, and Ben Webster. It is more like a saxophone than a voice, a saxophone coming from some Sunday afternoon show at a smoky little club down the street, that makes you say, "Hey, who is that?" You can't miss the soulfulness of her sound.
   
   I think she has the potential to be one of the great American musicians if she keeps producing stuff like this. Mellow, bluesy folk-rock with her own unique twists. Odd but intriguing lyrics, songs that draw you in and make you think, then pop up in your head days later. I just saw her live, and she started out slow and easy, not very exciting, but as the show went on, the crowd got more and more into it, and by the end of it, she had totally won us over.
   
   On the downside, her playing does not seem to interact incredibly well with her band's, and she is not a virtuoso guitarist or pianist, but so what? Her music is unique and wonderful.



3. I love this album but I can see from some reviews that some people hate her. I'm not sure what is pretentious about her delivery. I think Jolie is amazing. I've never heard anyone like her. She sings like a trumpet player from some dark holler. She blurs time in a way that would make the old pre-war blues masters proud. I love her timing. Does she have a unique vocal style? Yes she does but then again so did Tommy Johnson and Skip James but I don't hear anyone calling those guys frauds. Thank goodness.
   
   I'm reviewing this because I unfortunately don't have her new album yet, Springtime Can Kill You, so I've been listening to this one almost daily just to alleviate my anxiety over Springtime.
   
   Jolie seems to me to be a gift from another era, though she's in no way derivative of anyone else I've ever heard. I feel like she is an artist who, if she had been discovered on a bunch of crackling old Paramount sides in someone's attic, she'd have been considered the find of the decade. Having said that, she is also very much an artist of our own times.
   
   For me, there is something very real about her songs, style and music. It all seems so small and personal. I never think of her in terms of this big artist who plays concerts in various countries. I think of her more in terms of... if this were a woman I knew or was friends with and she was sitting on a couch 8 feet away from me and she began to do her thing, I'd be blown away. She's a singular voice and vision that seems to somehow meld old-timey music with Tidal-era Fiona Apple. Even that description fails miserably. I never truly feel as if she has melded anything. I just feel like she picks up an instrument, opens her mouth, and this is what happens. It's truly her own.
   
   "I used to be an angel, now I'm just like everybody else" makes me wonder if she is an Ani Difranco fan. Certainly that sentiment is similar to that in Ani's Superhero, and expressed in much the same manner in this line.
   
   Goodbye California is the only song I dislike, and I hate that one. I love everything else but I can't stand that song.
   
   I'd love for Erykah Badu to hear Jolie. I fear over time Erykah may become a victim of the fickle nature which is at the core of many of the modern R&B fans who are always looking for the next hit tune, only to forget a few years later. Erykah's music is bigger than the whole of the genre to which she's been pigeonholed. Both Jolie and Erykah receive lots of comparisons to Billie Holiday and I feel it's generally unwarranted in both cases. I think it's a journalistic convenience which really doesn't have much basis in the music of any of these 3 great artists. I think hearing Jolie may inspire Erykah to tap into her inner Victoria Spivey which would then expose her to a whole new audience, and one that has a longer attention span.



4. I'm a big fan of Lucinda Williams and Cowboy Junkies, so my friends thought I would dig Jodie. Wrong. I found her lyrics boring and her delivery annoyingly pretentious. Not to my taste at all.



5. I'm not sure what the young lady is trying to accomplish here...potentially compelling folk-blues material collapses under the weight of annoying , exaggerated Appalachian vocal affectations ("Give me that ol'-fashion mor-phyne...it's good enough for mae"). Guess I should have taken heed from her similarly afflicted turns on the Be Good Tanyas' Blue Horse ("Riiine and snow..."). As a counterpoint I contrast her with Gillian Welch, who manages to stay on the good side of the line separating authenticity from irony. It's a shame, thinking about what might have been if she would drop the pretensions and just...sing.

5 comments about Pure 70's.

1. WE REALLY LIKE THE VARIETY OF THE SONGS AND ARTISTS ON THIS CD. WE BOUGHT IT TOGETHER WITH "THE BEST OF THE 70'S SUPERGROUPS". THERE WERE ONLY A FEW SONGS DUPLICATED ON THESE TWO CD'S, BUT OVERALL WE ARE VERY HAPPY WITH THE SONGS ON BOTH OF THESE CD'S.



2. The Cd was just what I was looking for. It came brand new and right on time.



3. The music is great. Unfortunately the last two songs will not play in my car CD player. I've had this problem before with low quality CD's. It plays fine on my home stereo.



4. I love this CD. It has all of the best music from the 70's. I am so glad I added it to my collection.



5. If there's one thing harder to do than narrow down the 80's to one disc, it's doing that to the 70's. The truth is this collection could have had 400 different songs on it. Why these made the cut, who knows. I'll agree that most of these would be considered classic, but I think the average person is gonna already own a third of this disc, not care about a third, and be sick of the other third. I guess if you kept your CD collection under 20 discs, then this might do the trick. Good for a party, sure. Overall though, I'd probably just get an album from Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, or The Eagles. Where are they?

5 comments about Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent d'Arby.

1. I heard this record the first time when I was around seven or eight years old. I remember hearing it and thinking of how much Mr. Maitreya (more popularly known as Mr. D'Arby) reminded me of other R&B singers I knew of, like Stevie Wonder. Of course, this was before I knew he was a drummer and keyboard player. Of all things, it was indirectly my interest in The Cosby Show that led me to purchase the album for myself. I re-discovered it after hearing "Seven More Days" during Episode 12 of A Different World, "Advise and Descent."
   
   I purchased Introducing the Hardline innitially to have a copy of "Seven More Days." Upon sitting down and listening to all eleven songs, I've discovered that the record definitely includes a definitive "hard line." Sananda Maitreya put across this material with an undeniable passion that is so rarely seen among current artists in almost any genre. One of the best things about the record is that Sananda's writing is the sort that isn't instantly confined to the R&B and pop genres. Those songs could be remade as rock songs, especially in the hands of a producer like Ron Nevison or Robert John "Mutt" Lange.



2. i love intorducing the hardline according to terence trent d'arby. allof the songs are classics. if you let me stay(#68),wishing well(#1),sign your name(#4),and dance little sister (#30) are the songs that made it onto the charts.other songs i like are who's loving you,if you get to heaven,as yet untitled,let's go forward,and rain.what an amazing album,i just wish he could have had more hits.i like whe he shouts out get up out of yopur rocking chair grandma! at the beginning of dance little sister,and the says,or rather,would you care to dane grandmother? i hope he and his grandmother are dancing right now. ed wilson



3. Superb collection of music from a terrific singer. I plan on collecting them all.



4. This album is one of those that you let play all the way through. No filler here just pure quality from a guy with great talent. 1987 was a great year for r&b music. Along with this album Prince also had his Sign O the Times album out and Michael Jackson had his Bad album out. Of course people compared Terence to both of those guys but he had a style all his own. This album is one of the greats.



5. One of the last great soul albums (with Jackson's Bad) and peak of his career. Good arrangements and beautiful vocal. For me highlights are - If you let me stay, Wishing well, Sign your name and Smokey Robinson's Who's lovin you. For everyone who like 80's soul.

5 comments about The Dude.

1. if i'm correct, 'the dude' followed quincy jones' 1977 'sounds'. and the results are equally incredible!
   
   the presence of guest singers includes the great patti austin, james ingram and michael jackson. the instrumentalists are equally formidable like the brothers johnson, stevie wonder and david 'hawk' wolinski.
   
   the greatest plus is that are more songs than 'sounds' 7 tracks. and a couple of them became identifying songs of the early 1980s like 'one hundred ways', 'ai no corrida' and 'just once'. there is very little to dislike about this album. it is foremost in showing off the producer as star. and that is not always a bad thing, is it, mister timbaland?



2. This album took a mid-western kid who only rocked with AC/DC and KISS and smooooothed me out a little and made me move from side to side instead of just bobbing my head up and down. I loved this album as a kid in the 80's, and now I'm going to upgrade from vinyl and get the CD.



3. I'd almost forgot how good this album was. Lost in my album boxes for years. A great dance-funk sound. Louis Johnson (Brothers Johnson fame) and Steve Lukather (Toto) really jam and just add to the all-star cast Quincy Jones gathered. You really need to add this CD to your collection.



4. This is another album I have been after for some time. I originally heard it when my daughter acquired it, and was blown away! Q's music really strikes a chord with me, ably abetted by the stellar vocals of James Ingraham & Patti Austin.



5. Loved it in the 80's, loved it in the 90's, STILL LOVIN' IT TODAY!!!! One of my all time favourites!!!!! This album soars...... always lifts my spirits and gives me fresh vision.

5 comments about Slow Down.

1. Keb' Mo' came on the scene as a breath of fresh air for the blues. But, as his albums and output progress, it appears that he has elected to adopt a smooth, polished style that will turn-off many blues purists, who prefer the grit and pain of traditional blues. So, if you and yours are fans of Kenny G, Grover Washington Junior, Boney James, etc., then this stuff is for you. Oversimplified, safe, and at times quite boring. There are a handful of semi-precious gems on this album, including "I Was Wrong," "Henry," and "Rainmaker;" and the HDCD encoding allows for exception sound quality. Overall this is a nice, safe, happy, blues disc that lacks a certain something. But, if you need a present for Xmas, your mother would love to put this in rotation for her next Bookclub meeting.



2. I saw Keb Mo for the first time on a rerun of Austin City Limits. He was playing the song from this CD - "As Soon As I Get Paid". On the strength of that song alone, I went out and bought the CD the next day. It did not disappoint. I've been playing it over and over for months now. Keb Mo's is a consumate guitar player, song writer and story teller. Do yourself a favor, go out and buy this CD, grab a cold beer and enjoy some great blues.



3. This CD is fantastic. Every song is wonderful. I bought one as a gift for a friend and I have other friends requesting copies. I never get tired of listening to it.



4. WOW! This CD totally blew me away; I've loved the blues since I was twelve, listening to nighttime DJ Jimmy Rabbit on KLIF in Dallas playin' Jimmy Reed's "Bright Lights, Big City" more than 40 yrs ago, but when I heard this, it was like I was hearing the blues for the first time. Motown, Memphis, Mississippi delta, it's all here, and it's all GOOD. This is the kind of CD you can put on repeat and never get tired of it!



5. Keb Mo is a wonderfull talent. But this album is not his best works. Unfortunately it is a very modern sounding CD. Seems like Keb lost his traditonal roots on this CD. Slowly doing away with the Delta slide, and importing more of he "electrified" side of the blues.
   It would be nice if these talented artits wouldn't let money get in the way of their true talent. I know there are alot of fans out there who love the traditonal Delta sound.

5 comments about Definitive Collection.

1. This is the best CD I've purchased in a very long time. Mr. Cray provides us with low blues, high blues, soft blues and hard blues. His voice is perfect for this music and his playing, well, there are no words to describe that. I have had this disc in my car's player since I bought it and have listened to nothing else. I sing with Bob but I'm glad he can't hear me.



2. Great blues-y soul touching songs. No duds on the CD at all. Well worth the money.



3. I have always heard and knew about Robert Cray , but until i saw him on tv in concert . I just never knew how awesome he really is . This cd will win you over , all of his best recordings are on this disc . My favorite is Poor Johnny . If you love Blues , maybe with a hint of jazz , you will really enjoy listen to this cd . It is 5 star all the way !



4. I knew of this nice Blues guitar player and singer, thanks to a friend who didn't like his album "Strong Persuader".
   This compilation has almost all the best of Robert Cray, including "Smoking Gun" and "Right Next Door (Because Of Me)"... What a good song this one is! Both hits however, are included in "Strong Persuader", but it is worth to get it if you want to have a quick review of all his musical career.
   The sound quality of this Hip-O edition is quite good. Bravo!



5. If you love Robert Cray, you can't go wrong here. Much like "Heavy Picks", but with a couple extra songs. I really like "Moan". That's such a great song. Still with so many great Cray songs out there, they just can't put everything on a single disc.

3 comments about The Best of Susan Tedeschi: Episode Two.

1. When I couldn't find the Susan Tedeschi latest release on BMG I found it quickly at Amazon...and received it within two days! What a talented young lady this is! I've been a fan since I first heard her at 19 years old singing like she'd lived a lifetime of blues.



2. This is obvioulsy a 5 star rating because it is a hits package. I would have been even better to make the two CDs a single release. Susan Tedeschi can really play the guitar and sing the blues. Don't let the pictures of her fool you. She is a good looking woman who almost sounds timid when she speaks but she can belt out the blues like no other woman out there...and better than a lot of the men.



3. Episode Two is great music but the record company isn't doing their job. Episode One had nice packaging with notes that described which CD's the songs are take from. Episode Two has no such notes, uses the same pictures, is in a jewelcase rather than a matching case and does not dig deeper into the source material than the first.Not a real pair.