Atlantic Rock and Roll Series

This box set collects six albums by six giants of 50's rock and roll and R&B.  Don't be misled by commenters arguing about the genre categorization of this music.  The line between R&B and R'n'R in those was mostly nonexistent.  The distinction mainly came down to marketing, which in turn was largely due to race.  When Atlantic released a Ray Charles album and promoted it as rock and roll, they were actively trying to reach a white audience.  The music was the music regardless.  

When these albums were first released, they didn't contain entirely new music.  They were, and are, compilations of the artists' biggest hits recorded throughout the decade to that point.  Ray Charles' album comes closest to sounding like a modern album, with varying styles and tempos sequenced into a coherent multi-track journey, rather than a random assortment of unrelated tracks.  Joe Turner's is entirely homogeneous in tempo, feel, and lyrical cadence, it's almost like a reggae compilation with repeated toasting over the same riddim.  It's quite obviously a collection of singles that was never meant to be heard in one sitting.  And yet, it's by far the most breathlessly exciting material in the box.  Turner's album is packed with classics ("Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Honey Hush", "Chains of Love") that transcend time,  they simply never fail to set your heart racing.  

Clyde McPhatter's voice is sublime but his album is the most restrained in the set.  Ruth Brown was a blueprint for rock and rock years before it was named as such.  She could be gritty and intense, or sweet and soothing depending on what the song demanded.  For black audiences, she was the queen of R&B but with more polish in her voice could be relatable to whites as well.  This album shows her talent and versatility exceptionally well.

La Vern Baker's voice could cut through a block of stone, when she meant business she really meant it -- check out "Jim Daddy"or "How Can You Leave a Man Like This".  The lyrics of the latter are rather uncomfortable to listen to these days, but you can't fault her blistery, impassioned delivery.  The songs aren't always the strongest, but that's no fault of hers.  Finally, according to the notes on the original back cover of the album, Ivory Joe Hunter didn't like being tagged as a blues singer.  That's marketing speak for "he's a blues singer that we're targeting for crossover appeal".  It's not surprising that he never did cross over into the mainstream, despite his prolific output and multi-genre talents (blues, country, R&B) he was just too esoteric for a large national audience.

I would recommend this set for the great music and the even better history lesson.       

Sinopoli's Bruckner 7 (Deutsche Grammophon 1993)

Before listening to this recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden, I was aware of the criticism surrounding Giuseppe Sinopoli's conducting style. I knew about his obsession for micromanaging his the sound of his recordings, his penchant for subjecting everything he touched under a mountain of oppressive strings.  I didn't care.  For me, these descriptions seemed simply wonderful.  Sure enough, I found this recording of Bruckner's 7th to be immensely powerful, if you take it for what it is.      

It amounts to nothing less than a shoegaze version of the symphony, nearly every great moment of note is choked to the gills by an immense wall of  sound dominated by strings.  Make no mistake, this is the sound brought forth by the conductor, not a characteristic style of the orchestra.  Jochum's recordings of the Bruckner symphonies with the same Dresden orchestra sound nothing like this.  I say that even while admitting, in all honesty, that Jochum's versions are most likely the best overall, the apex of all Bruckner recordings.  

In Sinopoli's take, you can't hear all of the instruments.  I know that transparency and clarity of the different parts of the orchestra is integral to the performance ... most of the time.  It simply doesn't matter here.  Much like with MBV's "Loveless" (to name the most obvious example from shoegaze), it makes no sense to complain about not being able to understand the lyrics, or to gripe about the imbalance between guitars and drums.  Likewise, I don't see the point of complaining about the brass section getting drowned out during the climaxes, or the relatively colourless woodwind sonority.  It's all about the rich, zen-like droning strings.  Everything they say about Sinopoli is true, his fans and his critics have both got it right. It's simply a matter of deciding whether you, the listener, like hearing the music performed in this way.