Shopping List: The New and the Recommended
The recording industry takes an undoubtedly well-deserved post-Grammy breather, which means it's a robust week for best-ofs - and a few other gems, too.
Lewis Taylor, The Lost Album (Hacktone)
Nearly symphonic and thoroughly funky blue-eyed soul with roots in everyone from Prince and Marvin Gaye to Brian Wilson and Todd Rundgren. Taylor's a one-man studio band on this album packed with heavenly harmonies and guitar pyrotechnics.
Lucinda Williams, West (Lost Highway)
Bruised yet defiant Texas country-blues twister perfumes dusty gas-fumes essence. Sample here.
Vieux Farka Touré (World Village)
The son of Mali guitar master Ali Farka Touré picks up where his late father left off, and the album's two duets mark Ali's final studio recordings. The Tourés' music is strongly reminiscent of Delta blues yet more rhythmically entrancing, elegant, and ancient.
Ella Fitzgerald, The Very Best of the Cole Porter Song Book; The Very Best of the Rodgers and Hart Song Book (Verve)
From "Just One of Those Things" to "Bewitched."
Van Morrison, Van Morrison at the Movies: Soundtrack Hits (Manhattan)
Everyone needs to make a living. Download "Comfortably Numb," recorded live at the Berlin Wall in 1990 with Roger Waters.
Travis Tritt, The Very Best of Travis Tritt (Warner Bros./Rhino)
"It's a Great Day to Be Alive," "Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man," and "Where Corn Don't Grow" = a mini horse opera about growing old gracefully.