Canter Bridge

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
Public radio, that soft target of pundits and ideologues, will be written up by cultural historians as one of the small candles of sanity that under the rhetorical swagger lent its soft glow to the quiet and the commuter. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

Those of us who came of musical age with Gloria have always known she can sing to shape our souls, even without the full-throated power of other pop divas. Only recently have we become aware how well she can write. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

For a while back in the 1980s, the Bangles—fronted by the inimitable Susanna Hoffs—practically defined the upbeat Girl Band phenomenon. Lightly packaged female angst about men, relationships, and getting to work late again combine with one of the all-time most memorable tunes (‘Walk Like an Egyptian’) to make Different Light an eminently own-able album, one that repays regular listening. The latter song also generated one of the best early music videos. (more…)

Read Full Post »

It is perhaps impossible to hear Vaughan Williams’ short works performed more beautifully and unforgettably than in this 1972 ADRM/Argo recording. Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields acquit themselves above reproach. Vaughan Williams—you love him or hate him—must be loved for his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, that haunting and almost religiously uplifting setting of Medieval plainsong that is capable of shifting a driver to the side of the road in open-jawed amazement at the sheer evocative beauty of it. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

A pair of South African friends with impeccable musical taste implored me to buy this CD, alleging that my life would be impoverished without it.

I’m not convinced. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

The Philips Classics series has many appealing features, not least of which is good value. This series typically offers two CDs for the price of about one-and-a-half. They feature top-rank and often legendary performers. Finally, they are digitally remastered recordings from the sixties and seventies, many of which rank as standard-bearing readings of the classical canon. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

I remember the day my friend’s young teenage daughter Lee Anne belted out a slightly off-key Karaoke version of her near namesake Lee Ann Womack’s ‘I Hope You Dance’ and introduced me to this strong female Nashville voice. A quick trip to the music store later, I owned the Dance cd, my first prolonged exposure to the somewhat more mainstream sound than is common both to previous and subsequent Womack offerings.

It’s beautiful music, the critics be damned. (more…)

Read Full Post »