So you guys really think that reggae was better than Rastaman Vibration?

These are pretty huge albums:



I'll post a bunch more when i get back from lunch.

Double-album live sets came into vogue in 1976 after Peter Frampton's sales went through the roof for A&M, Bob Seger found fame with Live Bullet on Capitol, and the J. Geils Band released its second in-concert document in four years, Blow Your Face Out. There is great power in these grooves recorded over two nights, November 15 and November 19, at the now deconstructed Boston Garden and in Detroit at Cobo Hall. Here's the beautiful dilemma with the Geils band: Live: Full House, recorded in Detroit in April of 1972, contains five songs that became J. Geils standards, and none of them overlap on the 1982 EMI single live disc, Showtime, chock-full of their latter-day classics. Can you believe there is absolutely no overlap from the first or third live album on this double disc, which came in between (except for "Looking for a Love," uncredited, which they slip into the intro of "Houseparty" on side two)? The Rhino CD contains Jeff Tamarkin's liner notes, while the original Atlantic album has an exquisite gatefold chock-full of photos, and inner sleeves with priceless band memo stuff à la Grand Funk's Live Album. Sides one and two are great, and three and four are even better. "Detroit Breakdown" rocks and grooves, with tons of audience applause...Wolfy and the polished authority of his monologues are in command as the band oozes into "Chimes" from 1973's Ladies Invited. About three and a half minutes longer than the five-minute original, it is one of many highlights on this revealing pair of discs. A precursor to 1977's title track, "Monkey Island," "Chimes" gives this enigmatic band a chance to jam out slowly and lovingly over its groove. There is so much to this album: the Janis Joplin standard "Raise Your Hand" written by Eddie Floyd, Albert Collins' "Sno-Cone" from their first album, and "Truck Drivin' Man" beating Bachman-Turner Overdrive to the punch. B.B. King producer Bill Szymczyk does a masterful job bringing it all together, and the band photos on back look...roguish. "Must of Got Lost," "Where Did Our Love Go," and "Give It to Me" are here in all their glory, a different glory than the studio versions, on an album that should have done for Geils what Live Bullet and Frampton Comes Alive did for their respective artists. If only a legitimate release of their 1999 tour would be issued to stand next to this monster -- during that tour they combined the best elements of all three of their previous live discs. The J. Geils Band is more important and influential than the boys have been given credit for. It will be the live documents that ensure they eventually get their due, and Blow Your Face Out is a very worthy component that can still frazzle speakers.

Norman Blake - Whiskey Before Breakfast
Great bluegrass and maybe his best album and that's saying a lot.

Jesus H. Christ!

In the bluegrass (whatever you want to call it) world, records do not come much better than this.

I will admit to not having heard this record. But, I am going to put it in this thread based pretty much solely upon two things:
The 4.5-star AMG review.
The inclusion of a live version of "Must of Got Lost", which is a song that I absolutely freaking love.

Here is that review:

do you know if there was a friendship there? there seems to be a lot of each others music on both sides.

The rare second volume of Tim Maia's Racional album series from the 70s – even funkier and more harder-edged than the first! The record really follows the heavy soul influence that Tim had been hitting on his early 70s albums for Polydor – a strong dose of American funk and R&B, especially from the east coast indie scene – filtered down beautifully by Maia, one of the few cats in Brazil at the time who really knew how to get the sound right – and how to mix it with the best of his local influences! There's some wonderful grooves here – definitely of the funky Brazilian type you'd know from the Samba Soul generation, but also much more solidly soul, too – given Tim's fantastic vocals, and strong ear for putting over a tune!

A fantastic album of bad-rapping spoken material from Iceberg Slim – one of the hippest 70s sets of its type, and a great audio tribute to the man who wrote the books Pimp, Trick Baby, and Mama Black Widow! Slim reads his own work in a very laidback style, but one with a slinky, pimpish feel too – kind of a relaxed version of the Lightning Rod mode, with similar themes delivered in rhyming prose. Backings are by the Rod Holloway Quartet – who hit some great bluesy modes on the set – vamping behind Slim's cool vocals, which themselves are recorded with a nicely pointed quality. Titles include "Mama Debt", "Durealla", "The Fall", and "Broadway Sam". Right up there with Watts Prophets, Last Poets, and Lightning Rod for sheer 70s hipness!

A spiritual jazz classic – one of the rarest albums of its type from the 70s! This legendary session was recorded by Roy Ayers' keyboardist Harry Whitaker – working here as the leader of the Black Renaissance group, a one-shot ensemble that featured Woody Shaw on trumpet, Azar Lawrence on saxes, Buster Williams on bass, and Mtume on percussion. The session was cut in New York in 1976, but only issued on a rare album that came out briefly in Japan. Yet somehow, the quality of the work and the depth of soulfulness have created a strong aura about the session – making it an oft-cited influence by a generation of DJs and soul jazz listeners. The album only features 2 long tracks – both of them strong ensemble numbers that build modally searching grooves in a Strata East-like style, peppered with voices, both sung and spoken, in a hip, socially conscious mode. Both tracks – "Black Renaissance" and "Magic Ritual" are excellent, on a par with the best 70s spiritual soul jazz!

An excellent lost classic from Detroit soul jazz powerhouse Phil Ranelin! Trombonist Ranelin was one of the key figures in the city's Tribe Records scene – and this album is one of the greatest that the label ever issued. The set features Ranelin on trombone, Marcus Belgrave on trumpet, Kenny Cox on electric piano, and Harold McKinney on piano – plus other luminaries from the incredibly strong Detroit scene of the time.

Musically, this is not only a solid portrait of Detroit's jazz scene in the mid-'70s, but is also a definitive portrait of its cultural mentality at the time. While everyone in the nation had written off the city as a wasteland, a space devoid of anything worth celebrating, its residents were in the process of creating some of the most vital jazz, literature, and art in its history...Having grown up in the city and seen this band over a dozen times, I can say that the Tribe was one of the most unique and gifted jazz ensembles that the '70s ever produced. Until techno, the world didn't know how lucky it was to have a post-Motown Detroit; the evidence is now available to suggest that it should have been paying attention all along. If jazz is your thing, then get this. Period.