Completely Well was B.B. King's breakthrough album in 1969, which finally got him the long-deserved acclaim that was no less than his due. It contained his signature number, "The Thrill Is Gone," and eight other tunes, six of them emanating from King's pen, usually in a co-writing situation. Hardliners point to the horn charts and the overdubbed strings as the beginning of the end of King's old style that so identifiably earmarked his early sides for the Bihari Brothers and his later tracks for ABC, but this is truly the album that made the world sit up and take notice of B.B. King. The plus points include loose arrangements and a small combo behind him that never dwarfs the proceedings or gets in the way. King, for his part, sounds like he's having a ball, playing and singing at peak power. This is certainly not the place to start your B.B. King collection, but it's a nice stop along the way before you finish it.

This UK band is not Lemmy's predecessor Motörhead, as one might initially assume, but a group founded in 1968 by Malaysian composer and tabla player Sam Gopal, who had arrived in London six years earlier. Nevertheless, Ian Willis, as Ian Fraser Kilmister (Lemmy) called himself here, played a formative role. He wrote five of the eleven songs, was involved in a further four group compositions, played lead and rhythm guitar and sang almost all the songs. The other band members were Roger D'Elia (g) and Phil Duke (b). At the end of 1968, they recorded their first and only album Escalator, produced by Trevor Walters at De-Lane Lea and Morgan Studios in London. It was released in March 1969 on the small, short-lived British label Stable Records. The sound, a mixture of hard psychedelic, classic rock and blues as well as Southeast Asian tablas as the only rhythm instrument, was original and unusual at the time…

The Velvet Underground are arguably the most important American band of the second half of the '60s, but few seemed to think so at the time. The Velvets flew under the radar of public recognition through most of their career, and no one bothered to professionally record their live shows between 1966 and 1970. There have been plenty of authorized and illicit releases of Velvets live tapes (mostly audience recordings) since the early '70s, but one thing they had in common was compromised fidelity; in terms of audio, "pretty OK" is as good as they get, and for fans, listening for the music through the murk is a frustrating challenge. In November 1969, the Velvet Underground played a two-night stand at the Matrix, a club in San Francisco that had a four-track recording rig wired into its sound system; the four sets the band played were taped, and rough mixes of those shows were featured on the fine collection 1969…

Although it follows the same patterns and approach as Cycles, My Way is a stronger album, with a better, more varied selection of material and a more focused, gutsy performance from Frank Sinatra. Built around the hit single "My Way," the album again alternates between rock covers ("Yesterday," "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," "For Once in My Life," "Didn't We," "Mrs. Robinson"), a couple of adapted French songs, and a handful of standards. This time out, Don Costa has written more engaging charts than the previous Cycles. The Beatles' "Yesterday" is given an affecting, melancholy treatment that brings out the best in Sinatra, as does the new arrangement of "All My Tomorrows," which is lush and aching. If Sinatra doesn't quite pull off the R&B of "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," he does sing the light Latin stylings of "A Day in the Life of a Fool" beautifully, and he has fun with Paul Simon's "Mrs. Robinson"…

Of the numerous British blues-rock bands to spring up in the late '60s, the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation was one of the better known, though solid reception on tours did not translate into heavy record sales. Musically, the group recalled John Mayall's Bluesbreakers during the 1966-1967 era that had produced that group's A Hard Road album, though with a somewhat more downbeat tone. The similarities were hardly coincidental, as the band's founder and leader, drummer Aynsley Dunbar, had been in the Bluesbreakers lineup that recorded the A Hard Road LP. Too, bassist Alex Dmochowski would go on to play with Mayall in the 1970s, and guitarist Jon Morshead was friendly with fellow axeman Peter Green (also in the Bluesbreakers' A Hard Road lineup), whom he had replaced in Shotgun Express.

Recorded, edited and mixed over one long Red Lebanon hash-fueled weekend in October 1969, Group 1850s second album, Paradise Now, remains one of the high-water marks of European psychedelia. A wide-eyed, wide-open, synapse-electrifying set of songs, it sounds like the transmissions of a burnt-out satellite spinning through the galaxies of inner space. Group 1850 leader Peter Sjardin skillfully edited the groups free-flowing improvisations into eight cohesive yet distinctly different tracks, part Saucerful Of Secrets, part Electric Ladyland, part Guru Guru, part Can circa Monster Movie. Bypassing the established network of record labels, distributors and stores, the album was released on Discofoon, the label owned by the Dutch department store chain V & D, and carried exclusively in their shops nationwide. It has since become a highly sought-after collectors item.

Conventional wisdom holds that the Beatles intended Abbey Road as a grand farewell, a suspicion seemingly confirmed by the elegiac note Paul McCartney strikes at the conclusion of its closing suite. It’s hard not to interpret “And in the end / the love you take / is equal to the love you make” as a summation not only of Abbey Road but perhaps of the group’s entire career, a lovely final sentiment. The truth is perhaps a bit messier than this. The Beatles had tentative plans to move forward after the September 1969 release of Abbey Road, plans that quickly fell apart at the dawn of the new decade, and while the existence of that goal calls into question the intentionality of the album as a finale, it changes not a thing about what a remarkable goodbye the record is.

American listeners tend to remember Shocking Blue as the one-hit wonder behind the chart-topper "Venus," a melting pot of rock rhythms, country guitar licks, organ riffs, and Mariska Veres' heavily accented vocals. Sounding something like a cross between "96 Tears" and "Sugar, Sugar," "Venus" was not entirely representative of the group's first album, At Home. Like their fellow countrymen Golden Earring, Shocking Blue purveyed a mild strain of psychedelic rock, but leaned more toward country and folk music than bubblegum. Guitarist and principal songwriter Robby Van Leeuwen was already preoccupied with Americana at this early stage, from "Harley Davidson" and "California Here I Come" to a surprising rendition of the folk song "Boll Weevil" that sets the traditional lyrics to music reminiscent of the Easybeats' "Good Times."

Recorded in Paris during November 1968, Good Feelin' was the album that rekindled public interest in the life and music of Aaron "T-Bone" Walker throughout Europe and even in some portions of the United States of America. The album begins and closes with informal narration spoken by Walker while accompanying himself on the piano. The band behind him on the other ten tracks includes guitarist Slim Pezin, pianist Michel Sardaby and Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango blowing tenor alongside Pierre Holassian on alto, Francis Cournet on baritone, and a trumpeter whose identity remains a mystery. With T-Bone's electric guitar sizzling in its own juice and the horns signifying together over soulful organ grooves and freshly ground basslines, all of this music is rich and powerful. Each track is delicious; a funky instrumental strut entitled "Poontang" is the tastiest of all.

The second Hungarian album is much better than the amateurish debut, but the sound and style of the band is still not fully developed. Traces of psychedelic pop beat in "Petróleum lámpa" are being ever more informed by the burgeoning heavy rock guitar and organ riffs in "Túzvihar". The best compositions, the all-time favourite love ballad "Györgyhajú lány" (shamelessly copied and plagiarised by many, including the German metal legends Scorpions) and the powerfull, with excellent solo guitar, heavy stomping title track ("Ten Thousand Steps" in English), are at the same time the most progressive ones. The gatefold cover desing is very good showing the legacy of psychedelia…

Upon first release, the Velvet Underground's self-titled third album must have surprised their fans nearly as much as their first two albums shocked the few mainstream music fans who heard them. After testing the limits of how musically and thematically challenging rock could be on The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat, this 1969 release (recorded after the departure of the group's most committed avant-gardist, John Cale) sounded spare, quiet, and contemplative, as if the previous albums documented some manic, speed-fueled party and this was the subdued morning after. But Lou Reed's lyrical exploration of the demimonde is as keen here as on any album he ever made, while displaying a warmth and compassion he sometimes denied his characters. "Candy Says," "Pale Blue Eyes," and "I'm Set Free" may be more muted in approach than what the band had done in the past…

One Step On (1969). Jody Grind's debut album was early progressive rock with a somewhat jazzier orientation than most such bands, though the playing was a good sight more impressive than the singing and songwriting. There's a fairly grim tone to the original material, all (save a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black") written by Tim Hinkley and Ivan Zagni, who wrench extended heavy blues and jazzy solos out of their organ and guitar, respectively. The showcase is an 18-minute, four-part suite, "One Step On," that - like many long rock tracks of the time - goes on for way too long, incorporating horn fanfares, lurching tempos, and operatic vocals (and, yes, a drum solo). Shown to best advantage on "Little Message" and the most appealing song on the album, "Night Today," Hinkley's skilled Hammond organ work stands up well to the keyboards of well-known early prog rockers like Keith Emerson, Vincent Crane (of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown), and Brian Auger…

Anyone who thinks of Humble Pie solely in terms of their latter-day boogie rock will be greatly surprised with this, the band's second release, for it is almost entirely acoustic. There is a gently rocking cover of Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat," and a couple of electrified Steve Marriott numbers, but the overall feel is definitely more of the country than the town or city. "The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake" is a typical Marriott country ditty, similar to those he would include almost as a token on each of the subsequent studio albums, and "Every Mother's Son" is structured as a folk tale. On "The Light of Love," Marriott even plays sitar. Peter Frampton's contributions here foreshadow the acoustic-based music he would make as a solo artist a few years later. As a whole, this is a crisp, cleanly recorded, attractive-sounding album, totally atypical of the Humble Pie catalog, but well worth a listen.

Formed in 1967 by keyboard player Vangelis, the band also featured Demis Roussos on bass and vocals and Lucas Sideras on drums. "End Of The World" (1968) features the international hit 'Rain And Tears', partially inspired by Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' . However, the album revealed a more experimental side to the band s nature with such Psychedelic gems as 'The Grass Is No Green', 'You Always Stand In My Way' and 'Day Of The Fool'. This reissue has been remastered from the original tapes and includes both sides of Aphrodite's Child's first single as bonus tracks.
Their classic second album, "It's Five O' Clock" (1969) featured the international hit from which the album took its name. The LP revealed a more experimental side to the band's nature with such Psychedelic gems as 'Funky Mary' and 'Let Me Love, Let Me Live'. This reissue has been remastered from the original tapes and includes six bonus tracks…