Albert Collins - The Cool Sound Of... (TCF/Hall mono LP, 1965) The electric blues guitarist's rare debut long-player, and one of my nicest recent thrift store scores in excellent condition for the princely sum of $.80 cents. Among the several 'cool'-themed titles: "Frosty", "Sno-Cone", and "Don't Lose Your Cool". Albert's been a personal guitar hero of mine since I was in my teens and first dug his late-70's Alligator effort "Ice Pickin'", and I was glad to be able to catch him live at a small club back in '82 (just days after I turned legal :-) Though I've owned this music on an import reissue for many years, the original's cover-art pastel of a frosty highball on the rocks with an orange slice, maraschino cherry and a swizzle stick, plus the selection of hep-cat DJ endorsements on the back ("Albert Collins has got to become the next James Brown!" "AC's a bad motor-cycle!" "He puts the foxes away!" "This guitar-pluckin' fool from Texas is plumb out of his mind!" "Our 50,000 big watts aren't big enough for the big rockin' sound!") are a total hoot.
Billy Mure - Supersonic Guitars (MGM stereo LP, early 60's) Sessioneer leads a five-guitar army with three drummers in a set of accelerated, rocking dance instrumentals that recalls mid-period Ventures crossed with the studio wizardry of tape-echo multitrackers like Les Paul, Chet Atkins or Jorgen Ingmann, except that the liner notes claim everything was recorded live in the studio as you hear it: "...no tricks in the recording - no over-dubbing or re-tracking, no artificial sound effects - just pure actual sound of the widest spectrum caught as precisely as the recording mike ever has!" And: "Your living room becomes a miniature Cape Canaveral and your hi-fi rig a musical launching station as Billy Mure blasts off in sound!...Your passport into musical space - an album that will send you out of this world with each new play!" Cover photo of a Navy fighter jet in flight and titles like "Guitars In Space". Yeah baby!
Heifetz - Bach/Concerto For Two Violins in D Minor (w/Erick Friedman 2nd v., Sargent/New SO of London, RCA Living Stereo LP LSC-2577, 1961) Side One is Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata with Brooks Smith p., recorded in a different space with lesser sound, but Bach is more my bag anyhow. Though there's an unobtrusive touch of coolish steel in the strings atypical of many earlier shaded dogs, this recording (Side Two) erects an immersive cathedral of sound that's immediate and enthralling, and the playing ain't shabby either.
Outkast - Big Boi & Dre Present... (LaFace/Arista CD, 2001) Compilation from their first four albums '94-'00 plus three new bonus tracks, released to consolidate the success of the hit single "Ms. Jackson" and paved the way for the Rap duo's superstar breakout to come. Smart, imaginative, idiosyncratic and fun in ways I find most modern hiphop is not, and works the ol' woofers well too.
Billy Mure - Supersonic Guitars (MGM stereo LP, early 60's) Sessioneer leads a five-guitar army with three drummers in a set of accelerated, rocking dance instrumentals that recalls mid-period Ventures crossed with the studio wizardry of tape-echo multitrackers like Les Paul, Chet Atkins or Jorgen Ingmann, except that the liner notes claim everything was recorded live in the studio as you hear it: "...no tricks in the recording - no over-dubbing or re-tracking, no artificial sound effects - just pure actual sound of the widest spectrum caught as precisely as the recording mike ever has!" And: "Your living room becomes a miniature Cape Canaveral and your hi-fi rig a musical launching station as Billy Mure blasts off in sound!...Your passport into musical space - an album that will send you out of this world with each new play!" Cover photo of a Navy fighter jet in flight and titles like "Guitars In Space". Yeah baby!
Heifetz - Bach/Concerto For Two Violins in D Minor (w/Erick Friedman 2nd v., Sargent/New SO of London, RCA Living Stereo LP LSC-2577, 1961) Side One is Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata with Brooks Smith p., recorded in a different space with lesser sound, but Bach is more my bag anyhow. Though there's an unobtrusive touch of coolish steel in the strings atypical of many earlier shaded dogs, this recording (Side Two) erects an immersive cathedral of sound that's immediate and enthralling, and the playing ain't shabby either.
Outkast - Big Boi & Dre Present... (LaFace/Arista CD, 2001) Compilation from their first four albums '94-'00 plus three new bonus tracks, released to consolidate the success of the hit single "Ms. Jackson" and paved the way for the Rap duo's superstar breakout to come. Smart, imaginative, idiosyncratic and fun in ways I find most modern hiphop is not, and works the ol' woofers well too.