George Benson - Big Boss Band 1990

This project had its genesis back in 1983 with a Benson promise to Count Basie that he would record an album in his style, a promise partially fulfilled the following year with 20/20's "Beyond the Sea." Focusing on standards that steer commendably clear from tunes normally associated with Basie, Bensontakes on the dual challenge of big-band singer and lead guitarist and succeeds with authority in both roles. The robust playing of the Basie band under Frank Foster poses absolutely no problems for Benson's muscular guitar, for he punches out the notes and octaves in irresistibly swinging fashion (for prime mature Benson, check out "Basie's Bag"). As a vocalist, he sounds solid and debonair, blending well withBasie vocalist Carmen Bradford on "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" There are two deviations from the format, though. "Baby Workout" starts out as an electronic dance number, augmented by horns, that harks back to his run of routine '80s albums. The sole Robert Farnon-arranged track, a lush orchestral treatment of "Portrait of Jennie" recorded in London, was salvaged from an aborted project that was promised back in 1988. Clearly Benson had wrestled control of his music from the accountants, and though the direction is conservative, it makes better use of his talents. AMG.listen here

Lou Reed & John Cale - Songs For Drella 1990

John Cale, the co-founder of The Velvet Underground, left the group in 1968 after tensions between himself and Lou Reed became intolerable; neither had much charitable to say about one other after that, and they seemed to share only one significant area of agreement -- they both maintained a great respect and admiration for Andy Warhol, the artist whose patronage of the group helped them reach their first significant audience. So it was fitting that after Warhol's death in 1987, Reed and Cale began working together for the first time since White Light/White Heat on a cycle of songs about the artist's life and times. Starkly constructed around Cale's keyboards, Reed's guitar, and their voices, Songs for Drella is a performance piece about Andy Warhol, his rise to fame, and his troubled years in the limelight. Reed andCale take turns on vocals, sometimes singing as the character of Andy and elsewhere offering their observations on the man they knew. On a roll after New York, Reed's songs are strong and pithy, and display a great feel for the character of Andy, and while Cale brought fewer tunes to the table, they're all superb, especially "Style It Takes" and "A Dream," a spoken word piece inspired by Warhol's posthumously published diaries. If Songs for Drella seems modest from a musical standpoint, it's likely neither Reed nor Cale wanted the music to distract from their story, and here they paint a portrait ofWarhol that has far more depth and poignancy than his public image would have led one to expect. It's a moving and deeply felt tribute to a misunderstood man, and it's a pleasure to hear these two comrades-in-arms working together again, even if their renewed collaboration was destined to be short-lived. AMG.listen here

Inspiral Carpets - Life 1990

Inspiral Carpets had been honing their skills in their native Manchester, England, when the replacement of their original singer with Too Much Texas’s Tom Hingley--and an increased reliance on the Farfisa organ--soon put them at the forefront of that northern city’s burgeoning Madchester scene. Their debut album, LIFE, finds the group expanding their sound beyond the poignant hit “This Is How It Feels,” which is included here. AMG. link removed

Wanda Jackson - The party ain't over 2011

Self-styled keeper of the flame Jack White is so steeped in roots nostalgia -- he even left his native Detroit for the greener pastures of Nashville, bringing himself closer to the heart of Americana -- that his art rock roots are obscured. After all, this is a guy who purposely restricts his palettes in the White Stripes and named an early album De Stijl after an early 20th century Dutch movement; art and artifice are part of his roots. He brings that artifice to The Party Ain’t Over, a stylized high-profile comeback for Wanda Jackson that is about as far removed from the natural flow of Van Lear Rose, his similar effort for Loretta Lynn, as can be. White seemed to act as midwife to the music on Van Lear Rose, but here he seems to stamp his imprint directly upon Wanda, the legendary rockabilly singer who briefly dated Elvis Presley and cut the incendiary “Fujiyama Mama” and “Let’s Have a Party.” Clearly, the title of this 2011 effort hearkens back to the latter, and White goes out of his way to evoke the '50s of Jackson’s heyday, selecting such rock & roll classics as “Nervous Breakdown,” “Busted,” and “Rip It Up,” but also having her sing the Andrews Sisters' swinging classic “Drinking Rum and Coca Cola” while recasting the modern classics of Bob Dylan's “Thunder on the Mountain” and Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” as retro throwbacks. No matter the source material, the approach is the same: it’s a '50s pastiche, equal parts rockabilly boogie and jump blues blare, accentuated by Jack’s gonzo skronk and Jackson’s sandpaper growl. Conceptually, it’s interesting -- it’s not a re-creation, it’s a purposeful fantasy -- but the sheer ballast of White’s vision can be exhausting, the individual elements clanking chaotically and never quite gelling. Jackson gives as strong as a performance as she can, tearing into the oldies with ease and valiantly attempting the new songs, but she sounds most at ease with the quieter moments, whether it’s “Dust on the Bible” or a stripped-down acoustic “Blue Yodel #6.” These are the moments that feel like they belong to her, with the rest of The Party Ain’t Over being unmistakably of and for Jack White, who leaps at the chance to re-create the ‘50s in his own image. AMG.

Link removed.

Webb Wilder - Hybrid Vigor 1990

The Webb Wilder character was created for a short film about a backwoods private detective who fell out of the '50s and happened to also be a musician. With his group, Wilder combines the surf guitar of the Ventures with the rock roots of Duane Eddy, drawing on the feel of both country music and film noir. Though sometimes bordering on the gimmicky, the band is quite humorous yet plays serious music. It Came from Nashville featured a cover of Steve Earle's "Devil's Right Hand," appropriate because, like Earle, Wilder rocked too hard to be country but kept a twang that might put off mainstream rock fans. Wilder's next two albums didn't necessarily forge new ground but refined the band's sound somewhat, making its R&B influence more apparent. In concert, Wilder often gives stream-of-consciousness recitations that touch on motor homes, voodoo, television, and other somewhat kitschy subjects; usually they're funny enough to work. An example of his live show, Born to Be Wilder, appeared in 2008 from Blind Pig Records. More Like Me followed in 2009, again from the Blind Pig label.
Straight-ahead rock & roll with a Southern quirkiness that you've gotta experience to love. Hybrid Vigor includes the college radio hit "Human Cannonball," as well as a cover of "Ain't That a Lot of Love?" Good stuff. AMG. listen here

Michael Johnson - Lifetime Guarantee 1984

Stylistically, singer/songwriter Michael Johnson has been all over the map, ranging from folk to pop and soft rock to country. But no matter what kind of music he recorded, he maintained a mellow, pleasant tone that served as his hallmark. Johnson was born in Alamosa, CO, in 1944 and started playing the guitar as a teenager, studying both rock & roll and jazz. At 21, he traveled to Barcelona and studied classical guitar with Graciano Tarrago for a year, then returned to the U.S. and joined the later version of the folk group the Chad Mitchell Trio (when John Denver was a member). Initially signing to Atco, Johnson released his first album, There Is a Breeze, in 1973 and displayed a gentle, folk-influenced sound. He recorded three more albums for smaller labels in the mid-'70s, gradually transforming into more of a soft rock artist, and signed with EMI in 1978 in that capacity. He scored a number one hit on the adult contemporary charts that year with "Bluer Than Blue," which almost made the pop Top Ten, and also made the adult contemporary Top Five with 1978's "Almost Like Being in Love" and 1979's "This Night Won't Last Forever." Johnson recorded five albums in all for EMI and in 1985 moved over to RCA, where he adopted a contemporary country style that stayed compatible with his soft, mellow leanings. He was surprisingly successful, scoring a total of five Top Ten country hits from 1986-1989, including the chart-toppers "Give Me Wings" and "The Moon Is Still Over Her Shoulder." After three country albums on RCA, Johnson moved over to Atlantic in 1991, which effectively halted his commercial momentum. He recorded very sporadically in the '90s for smaller labels. AMG. listen here

The Bus Boys - Minimum Wage Rock & Roll 1981

In the 1950s, rock & roll started out as black music, but you wouldn't have guessed that to pick up Rolling Stone or Creem in the early '80s -- by that time, rock was almost exclusively the province of skinny white guys, and black artists were only to be found on the R&B charts, as if Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jimi Hendrix had never happened. So if there was more than a bit of novelty in the music of the BusBoys, that's not to say that what they were doing wasn't important or necessary -- as one of the first African-American groups to emerge to national prominence in the new wave scene, the BusBoys were willing to embrace the contradictions and confront the stereotypes that faced black musicians playing what had come to be known as "white" music. If some of the jokes are a bit forced, they're also pretty funny, especially "There Goes the Neighborhood" ("The whites are moving in!/They'll bring their next of kin!") and "KKK" ("Gonna join the Ku Klux Klan/And play in a rock & roll band"), while the music was certainly prescient, blending straight-ahead rock & roll and old-school R&B with George Clinton-esque absurdity and harmonies and new wave synthesizer squeals at a time when Prince was just edging into similar territory (and well before Cameo dropped the B-52's-ish Alligator Woman). Meanwhile, "Minimum Wage" and "D-Day" faced universal anxieties with honesty and bitter humor, and the band plays with fire and enthusiasm throughout. Not exactly up there with Bad Brains, Minimum Wage Rock & Roll is still smart and enthusiastic rock & roll that's unafraid to take chances; too bad the BusBoys never managed another album this strong. AMG. listen here

Poco - Blue And Gray 1981

Talk about bad timing -- had Rusty Young and Paul Cotton only brought this concept album out about nine years later, around the time of Ken Burns' The Civil War, it might well have sold a few hundred thousand copies, or at least generated a little press and gotten a shot at some sales. As it was, in 1981, no one really cared that much about a concept album built around the Civil War -- or, at least not a country-rock concept album. Perhaps, unlike White Mansions, it came out too long after the American Bicentennial -- or that the culture war embodied in Reagan's election in 1980 had wearied too many people on the matter of national conflicts and divided nations. As it happens, this isn't a bad album, and at least benefits from more energy and ambition than its immediate predecessor, Under the Gun. There's some fine playing throughout and generally good singing, and some of the writing is inspired, although there are some lapses into lightweight, unmemorable fare also. A little more consistency might have lofted this album to the level of the band's best recent work, but it's still worth hearing as one of the more ambitious records ever to come from this long-lived country-rock band -- and it certainly didn't deserve the obscurity that enveloped it. AMG. listen here

The Gun Club - Fire Of Love 1981

The Gun Club's debut is the watermark for all post-punk roots music. This features the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce's swamped-out brand of roiling rock, swaggerific hell-bound blues, and gothic country. With Pierce's wailing high lonesome slide guitar twinned with Ward Dotson's spine-shaking riffs and the solid yet off-the-rails rhythm section of bassist Rob Ritter and drummer Terry Graham, The Gun Club burst out of L.A. in the early '80s with a bone to pick and a mountain to move -- and they accomplished both on their debut album. With awesome, stripped to the frame production by the Flesh Eaters' Chris D., Fire of Love blew away all expectations -- and with good reason. Nobody has heard music like this before or since. Pierce's songs were rooted in his land of Texas. On "Sex Beat," a razor-sharp country one-two shuffle becomes a howling wind as Pierce's wasted, half-sung half-howled vocals relate a tale of voodoo, sex, dope, and death. The song choogles like a freight train coming undone in a twister. Here Black Flag, the Sex Pistols, Son House, and the coughing, hacking rambling ghost of Hank Williams all converge in a reckless mass of seething energy and nearly evil intent. As if the opener weren't enough of a jolt, The Gun Club follow this with a careening version of House's "Preachin the Blues," full of staccato phrasing and blazing slide. But it isn't until the anthemic, opiate-addled country of "She's Like Heroin to Me" and the truly frightening punk-blues of "Ghost on the Highway" that the listener comes to grip with the awesome terror that is The Gun Club. The songs become rock & roll ciphers, erasing themselves as soon as they speak, heading off into the whirlwind of a storm that is so big, so black, and so awful one cannot meditate on anything but its power. Fire of Love may be just what the doctor ordered, but to cure or kill is anybody's guess. AMG. listen here

Music Revelation Ensemble - No Wave 1980

One of the first and best free jazz/funk bands. On No Wave, its 1980 Moers Music debut, the band was comprised of James "Blood" Ulmer (guitar), David Murray (tenor saxophone), Amin Ali (electric bass), and Ronald Shannon Jackson (drums). The MRE became Ulmer's baby since he has been the only constant throughout the group's two decades of existence; Murray has made a couple of returns, and Jackson has been in and out. The lineup of the group changed from album to album, especially in the late '90s. Pharoah Sanders and John Zorn recorded with the band (Crossfire), as did Hamiet Bluiett and Arthur Blythe (Knights of Power). Drummer Cornell Rochester succeeded Jackson early on, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma replaced Ali for a time. The band has remained reasonably vital thanks to Ulmer, but one can be excused for preferring their early records, made when Ornette Coleman's Dancing in Your Head was still fresh in listeners' ears. AMG. listen here

Fela Kuti - Black President 1981

It was during the early '80s that Fela Anikulapo Kuti's profile was high enough to warrant releasing his records in the U.S. So for the first time, one did not have to scour the import bins or pay import prices to get a dose of Afro-beat. On Black President, the politics are at the forefront as Fela rails against colonialism and the military government growing rich at the expense of Nigeria's poor. The grooves are dense and supple and in many ways this is classic Fela, it just doesn't kick quite as hard as Expensive Shit or He Miss Road. AMG. listen here

King Crimson - Three of a Perfect Pair 1984

Upon its release in 1984, Three of a Perfect Pair caused some unrest among fans of King Crimson. Most of their audience felt that the band had made a conscious and obvious decision to try to break through to a more mainstream pop audience. But in hindsight, this is hardly the case; it sounds unlike anything that was out at the time. Like 1982's Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair doesn't quite meet the high standards set by 1981's Discipline, but does contain a few Crimson treats. The opening title track has an unrelenting groove that never seems to let up, while "Sleepless" starts off with Tony Levin laying down some funky bass until Adrian Belew's trademark paranoid vocals kick in and assure the listener that "it's alright to feel a little fear." Also included are the seven-minute instrumental soundscape "Industry," and the cautionary tale of a "Model Man." This would prove to be the new King Crimson's last release for nearly ten years; the group disbanded soon after as its members concentrated on solo careers and other projects, until a mid-'90s reunion brought them all back together. AMG. listen here

John Renbourn - The Enchanted Garden 1980

An unusually enchanting album, even for John Renbourn; The Enchanted Garden is a follow-up to the John Renbourn Group's 1977 A Maid in Bedlam, devoted to medieval and Renaissance dance and classical music, as well as folk material and Indian ragas. The opening "Pavane" and "Tourdion," not to mention the 18th century carol "The Truth from Above" -- all among the prettiest pieces with which Renbourn has been associated -- are the sort of material that Noah Greenberg and New York Pro Musica used to do for classical audiences in the late '50s, and there's a Rameau harpsichord piece transcribed for dulcimer here, as well. Not that they don't "folk out" in various sections of this record -- "The Plains of Waterloo," with Jacqui McShee's vocals, could almost have passed for a Pentangle track, and she turns in one of her best performances ever (rivaling Sandy Denny's best) on the eerie and haunting "The Maid on the Shore" and "A Bold Young Farmer" (in her own arrangement). The dazzling eight-minute finale, "Sidi Brahim," is arguably one of the finest meldings of Eastern and Western musical influences you'll ever hear, with a subtlety and developmental sophistication that would humble George Harrison and Co. John Molineux, who plays the mandolin and dulcimer as well as fiddle, succeeds fiddle player Sue Draheim in the band, which also includes Glen Tommy on snare drum, Tony Roberts on flutes and recorders, and Keshav Sathe on tabla and finger cymbals. AMG. listen here

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - Rock Art And the X-Ray Style 1999

It has taken Joe Strummer ten years to follow up on his first solo album, Earthquake Weather, with Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, and while the vocals and occasional moments in the music are identifiable as the work of a man who was once a singer, guitarist, and songwriter in the Clash, no one should purchase this album expecting to hear a direct extension of his old band. Strummer, who helped lead the Clash beyond punk rock to a variety of rhythmic styles, has only expanded his range since, and Rock Art and the X-Ray Style is an album of songs built on often exotic, funky beats, few of which rock very hard. Over those rhythm tracks, Strummer sings highly poetic, apparently freely associative lyrics whose meanings usually seem to be either private to him or just not literal. Unfortunately, the vocals are high in the mix and the musical tracks are subservient to the lyrics (which are printed in the booklet) so that one is left to ponder what Strummer is talking about. Coming back after a decade, even on an independent label, it might have been hoped that Strummer would return to action with a more accessible effort than Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, which is unlikely to re-establish him as a major force in popular music. AMG. listen here

Baba Zula - Gecekondu 2011

Founded in 1996, the band features founding members Levent Akman and Murat Ertel as well as Coşar Kamçı, who replaced original member Emre Onel in 2005. BaBa Zula added live drawing artist Ceren Oykut into the mix in 2004. She left the band in 2010. Her presence onstage had added an important visual aspect to BaBa Zula's live performances. Akman, Ertel, and Onel originally formed Baba Zula as a side project of now disbanded Anatolian rock group Zen.

In 2005 Baba Zula was exposed to a wider international audience when they were featured in a documentary, Crossing the Bridge by Fatih Akin, which took an in-depth look at Istanbul's contemporary and avant-garde music scene.
Musical style

Described as "Turkey’s most beloved alternative music purveyors"[3] Baba Zula create a unique psychedelic sound, combining Traditional Turkish instruments, electronica, reggae and dub. The core of their sound is the saz, a Turkish bouzouki like stringed instrument with a bright, high-pitched sound. AMG. listen here