UK four CD collection from the British Prog Rock band that rounds up all of their Chrysalis albums with bonus tracks including John Peel sessions, 7" mixes, live tracks, 'B' sides and more. Gentle Giant was born out of the ashes of Simon Dupree & the Big Sound, a successful UK rock and R&B-based outfit led by the Shulman Brothers. In 1970, the brothers founded Gentle Giant. Derek was lead vocalist and played alto sax and bass, Ray sang and played bass and violin, and Phil handled the saxophone and added vocals. Kerry Minnear, on keyboards, came straight from the Royal Academy of Music, and Gary Green became guitarist. John Weathers joined the band in 1972 and was the drummer for two albums. Gentle Giant's utilization of complex classical chord and time patterns, together with hard rock, blues, jazz and even medieval melodies, set them apart from other "progressive" groups of their time or since.

This musician is simultaneously world-famous and unknown. The label Atlantic periodically re-released the recording of a very special concert he took part in and everybody who is somehow interested in jazz, even if only on it's fringes, most probably has listened to at least one of the numbers performed by the saxophonist Eddie Harris. On 21 June 1969, he met with singer and pianist Les McCann on stage of the old casino of Montreux to unleash what can only be described as a firework of music, hardly ever experienced by the jazz community before. Situated somewhere between jazz, funk and soul, McCann and Eddie Harris actually create (this is no exaggeration!) something like a new style; and Compared to what, Les McCann´s spectacular song oscillating between black consciousness and the civil rights rhetoric, became the hymn of this movement.

Composer Pino Donaggio teamed with filmmaker Brian DePalma to forge one of the most memorable collaborations in cinema history, writing a series of suspenseful, hauntingly atmospheric scores evoking Bernard Herrmann's landmark work for Alfred Hitchcock.

Compiled by Chris Squire (in case you're wondering how "The Fish" made it this far upstream), Classic Yes was Atlantic's initial attempt to distill the band's best music. The key to this collection is in the title: this is the band's "classic" music. Anything prior to The Yes Album is cut out, no attempt is made to salvage snippets from Relayer or Tales from Topographic Oceans; Drama and Tormato are dispensed with. What remains is what made this band great: the science fiction and fantasy-laced epics, the tangible wizardry of their arrangements, moments that crystallized the magical power of music, and two unreleased live tracks from 1978 that find the band tethered to the realm of mortals."

Originally released as a double-album set in 1986, just after the Kinks had their last run at chart success, Come Dancing With the Kinks (The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986) does an excellent job of summarizing their stadium rock and AOR radio favorites on Arista. It leaves no single or radio favorite behind, while adding such terrific obscurities as "Long Distance" (originally only released as a bonus track on the State of Confusion cassette; the early '80s were a completely different world than the late '80s), the non-LP single "Father Christmas," the wonderfully sentimental album track "Better Things" (a close, upbeat cousin to Dylan's "Forever Young"), and the charming "Heart of Gold."

Light My Fire is a reissue of the debut album by American rock band the Doors, originally released as The Doors on 1967. This release has a different sequence of tracks. The Doors, one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the 1960s, were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by UCLA film students Ray Manzarek, keyboards, and Jim Morrison, vocals; with drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. The group never added a bass player, and their sound was dominated by Manzarek's electric organ work and Morrison's deep, sonorous voice, with which he sang and intoned his highly poetic lyrics.

David Foster is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He has been a producer for notable musical artists including Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Michael Bublé, Chicago, Natalie Cole, The Corrs, Céline Dion, Jackie Evancho, Kenny G, Josh Groban, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Seal, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, and Westlife. During the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, David Foster was among the most commercially successful producers and composers in all of popular music. Foster has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations.

Rock & Roll Strategy is the eighth studio album by the southern rock band 38 Special, released in 1988. It was the first album to feature the new vocalist and keyboard player Max Carl. This album contained their last Top 10 hit, "Second Chance", which peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.