Although the Sensational Alex Harvey Band showed off plenty of sonic firepower on studio outings like Next and Tomorrow Belongs to Me, they were always at their most ferocious in the concert arena. As a result, Live is an especially rousing and engaging addition to the group's catalog. Since the set list is almost entirely composed of time-tested favorites, it also one of their most consistent albums. The album's contents are taken from a single night's performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, and this gives it a sonic coherence that other live albums rarely capture. A totally committed performance from the band seals the album's appeal with its thrilling combination of heavy metal bombast and tight arrangements that carefully deploy keyboard shadings to flesh out the guitar-heavy sound.

The group members may disagree for personal reasons, but Odessa is easily the best and most enduring of the Bee Gees' albums of the 1960s. It was also their most improbable success, owing to the conflicts behind its making. The project started out as a concept album to be called "Masterpeace" and then "The American Opera," but musical differences between Barry and Robin Gibb that would split the trio in two also forced the abandonment of the underlying concept. Instead, it became a double LP – largely at the behest of their manager and the record labels; oddly enough, given that the group didn't plan on doing something that ambitious, Odessa is one of perhaps three double albums of the entire decade (the others being Blonde on Blonde and The Beatles) that don't seem stretched, and it also served as the group's most densely orchestrated album.

Gifted pianist Steve Kuhn has enjoyed a career revival since signing with Venus Records. Pavane For A Dead Princess - a daring jazz rendition of classical compositions - has become huge in Japan and is considered one of Kuhn's definitive works. Kuhn's soft and clever piano turns selections by Ravel, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Faure into exciting jazz. The treatment is so effective that one might not realize at first that these were originally classical pieces.

One of the giants of British pop in the early '70s, Blue Mink was formed in fall 1969 by keyboard player Roger Coulam, around a nucleus of musicians based at London's Morgan Studios – bassist Herbie Flowers, guitarist Allan Parker, and drummer Barry Morgan were also involved. Having already recorded a number of backing tracks, Coulam then approached soul singer Madeline Bell and former David & Jonathan star Roger Greenaway as vocalists; Bell accepted, Greenaway declined but recommended his songwriting partner (and fellow David & Jonathan-er) Roger Cook in his stead.
With this lineup, Cook and Greenaway's "Melting Pot" was released as Blue Mink's debut single, a plea for multi-racial harmony that reached number three in the U.K. that November. An album of the same title was released in the new year, alongside the single "Good Morning Freedom"…