If you have listened to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and wondered how people could make music that beautiful while their relationships were coming apart, watch 'Daisy Jones & The Six". It is a ten-part series on Amazon Prime Video about a fictional seventies rock band, and it captures that fascinating tension between what musicians feel offstage and what happens when they sing together.

There are lots of reviews for this great new record, and the headline is pretty much the same for them all: that the Womack Sisters (BG, Zeimani and Kucha) are the granddaughters of Sam Cooke, and the children of successful artists Womack & Womack. Singing talent is baked into their DNA.

Fred Kaplan in his well reviewed and recommended book 1959 makes the case for 1959 as having been "The Year That Everything Changed". That was also the book's subtitle. Kaplan argues that 1959 was the year cultural, political and scientific shifts produced profound societal changes that would last for decades. The link above provides more useful information. Likewise, the producers and compilers of this 2 CD set of shellac recordings from 1925 make the... Read More

QLN may not be the first name that comes to mind when American audiophiles start listing the great European loudspeaker companies, but the Swedish manufacturer is hardly a newcomer. Nils Liljeroth and Lars Quicklund founded QLN in Gothenburg in 1977, and by the early 1980s its loudspeakers were already being sold in Europe, North America, and the Far East. In 1981, the original QLN One appeared at CES with the truncated-pyramid enclosure that would become one of the... Read More

Like sugar and flour in a cook's pantry a copy of The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East is a rock record collection staple. I can't imagine a serious rock collection without it. That said, the 'best live album in rock history' stuff is a turn off. There are so many great ones why start a competition? There's Little Feat's Waiting For Columbus and of course The Who Live at Leeds so why can't we just all agree that this is among... Read More

Here I unbox the new Beatles Rubber Soul box set containing a new stereo mix of the British track order, the original U.S. stereo album, the original U.K. album plus a double LP of demos, a hard bound book and other "stuff". Plus a Blu-ray. Really nice packaging! Great presentation so far but no listening yet! Just wanted to get this posted. BTW: NO ONE ELSE has the images of the tape box that you see above or in the thumbnail below. Read More

5 Inexpensive Phono Preamplifiers We Like published September 12th, 2022 was among the first articles to appear when Tracking Angle launched. One of the 5 was the $199.00 iFi ZEN Phono. At the time iFi had introduced the $99 iFi ZEN Air that I never got around to reviewing. The new Phono 2 is a $129 "no frills" MM/MC phono preamp that claims some incredible specs including an EIN (equivalent Input Noise) of -146dBV, precision RIAA +/-0.15dB tolerance, 40dB... Read More

Two outstanding piano releases of recent years from the Yellow Label are both currently available on vinyl (not always the case).  This is your chance to pick up two outstanding examples of the modern superstar pianist’s art, from an incendiary live recital by Yuja Wang (reviewed in Part 1) to the more poetic, but no less formidable, stylings of Krystian Zimerman, whose every new recording is an event.

Michel Petrucciani is a largely forgotten name in jazz. It’s a shame, as in his heyday—the mid-1980s through the end of the ‘90s, when he died of a pulmonary infection at age 36—he was a major presence, critically praised and popular beyond the usual circles. Cynics eyed him warily, viewing his swift rise as a novelty act. He He suffered from a genetic disease, osteogenesis imperfecta, which left his bones brittle and his height stunted. The few times I saw him play... Read More

To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of arguably the most important producer in music history, Sir George Martin, Warner Music is pleased to announce the 6 November reissue of three albums of Sir George’s orchestral covers, two of which - Off The Beatle Track and Help! - are covers of The Beatles, with the third album - ...And I Love Her - a mixture of various love song covers of songs from the 60s including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and more.... Read More

To celebrate John Coltrane's 100th birthday listen to My Favorite Things from both stereo and mono original pressings. I bought the stereo pressing in 1961 when I was 14. In the video I say 12 I think but whatever! It was the first jazz album I ever bought and from it I "learned" how to listen to and understand jazz improvisation thanks to the recommendation from the clerk at a store on Delancey Street in lower Manhattan. I'm still getting over a... Read More

New York, NY (September 23, 2026) – Certain musical treasures reach us in raw form, their sonic anomalies inseparable from their history. Their true worth reveals itself in attentive listening. The Tiberi Tapes are such a treasure. Hidden away for more than six decades, these remarkable private recordings of John Coltrane capture the saxophonist in clubs in New York and Philadelphia during a pivotal period of artistic transformation, offering musical riches that... Read More

In early 1952, Herman Poole “Sonny” Blount, already well known as an eccentric figure on the Black music scene in Chicago, began telling people that he had been transported to the planet Saturn and told by aliens there that, back home, the Earthlings would listen to his music, and it would change their world. Seemingly, the Saturnians, despite their supernatural powers, had no knowledge of earthly music or, more importantly, the earthly music business, for Blount,... Read More

Los Angeles, CA (September 22, 2026)—Craft Recordings and Bluesville Records are pleased to announce solo reissues from blues harmonica player/singer Sonny Terry and guitarist/singer Brownie McGhee. While Terry and McGhee were one of the most popular blues duos of the mid-20th century, Sonny’s Story (1960) and Brownie’s Blues (1962) showcase their individual talents as singers, songwriters, and musicians. As with all handpicked Bluesville titles, Sonny’s Story and... Read More

Nat King Cole’s jazz vocal masterpiece gets a definitive presentation with the release of After Midnight: The Complete Sessions, which will be reissued on November 13 in Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Series marking the album’s 70th anniversary. The expanded 2-LP set comprises the full recordings that the legendary singer and pianist made over four sessions at Capitol Studios in August-September 1956 with his trio ofJohn Collins on guitar, Charlie... Read More

I refer you to the double 45 Analogue Productions review that includes all I knew at the time about this now considered a classic record. That said, Cory Frye's annotation here goes into far greater detail and includes a timeline as well as other information that almost makes it worth buying just for that.But from those clarifying words the confusion mounts. Upon licensing the title for a double 45rpm reissue Analogue Productions was told that the original master... Read More

Two outstanding piano releases of recent years from the Yellow Label are both currently available on vinyl (not always the case).  This is your chance to pick up two superb examples of the modern superstar pianist’s art, from this incendiary live recital by Yuja Wang to the more poetic, but no less formidable, stylings of Krystian Zimerman, whose every new recording is an event (reviewed in Part 2).

Los Angeles – September 18, 2026 – The Velvet Underground’s influential 1969 classic The Velvet Underground is the latest addition to UMe’s Vinylphyle series, presenting Lou Reed’s intimate original “Closet Mix” of the album as a meticulously crafted new premium vinyl edition. Marking a striking evolution for one of rock’s most influential bands, the record traded the abrasive experimentation of its predecessors for a quieter, more melodic approach that revealed a new... Read More

You've probably seen the Coventry Direct life insurance commercial in which a miner under an elderly couple's home remarks "She's sitting on a gold mine and doesn't know it...." because she can sell her life insurance policy for cash. Chad Kassem has been knowingly sitting on this musical goldmine for 23 years—Tony Joe White on Telecaster accompanied by his drummer Mark "Boom Boom" Cohen, making an enormous, soulful, swampy,... Read More