New Releases from October

Tuesday will be the day of releasing Bob Dyaln’s 47th album, Christmas in the Heart. A bunch of Christmas songs including 'Here Comes Santa Claus', 'Winter Wonderland', 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' and 12 others. I’m wondering, this time how he is gonna show us the darker side of Santa Claus!

All of Bob Dylan's U.S. current and future royalties from sales of “Christmas In The Heart” will be donated in perpetuity to Feeding America, guaranteeing that more than four million meals will be provided to over 1.4 million people in need in this country during this year's holiday season.


For the first time the complete Joe Cocker performance at Woodstock 1969 has been released on CD. Though some of the tracks are available in other compilations, but most of them are unissued.

Nobody will ever forget Cocker’s superb interpretation of Lennon/McCartney’s “With a little help from my friends”, on the third day of the historic "Three Days of Peace & Love," with his excellent The Grease Band. The singer performed songs mostly from his first two albums (With A Little Help from My Friends and, due 3 months hence, Joe Cocker!).


One of the best releases of the year is a great collection of Stephen Stills & Mannasas’ outtakes and unissued tracks from 1971-73 when they were working on one the rock history’s most valuable treasures, an eponymous double LP, "Manassas" and their second album, “On the road”. The new album is called Pieces, but it’s seems more concise than any other original studio albums that I‘ve heard during past months.

“Pieces” features alternate versions of two songs from “Down the Road”: 'Do You Remember the Americans' and 'Lies' (featuring guitarist Joe Walsh). The collection also includes the legendary group's unreleased performances of 'Sugar Babe' and 'Word Game,' a pair of songs Stills recorded in 1971 for his second solo album. The remaining tracks include 'Like a Fox,' a song recorded with blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt on background vocals and the Latin-tinged 'Tan Sola Y Triste' (Spanish for 'So Alone and Sad').


After almost 30 years after the last LP by the original line-up of New Riders of the Purple, they have recorded a good collection of songs, most of them composed by legendary Robert Hunter (lyricists of Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan’s “Together through life”). It is called Where I Come From.
The album came out after John Dawson -- lead vocal of the classic line-up -- passed away on July 21, 2009 at the age of 64 in Mexico, where he had retired several years ago.

There are two unforgettable songs in the album that I can’t stop listening to. One, the opening track, “Where I come from” and the other, “Down the Middle” (both of them co-written with the band’s guitarist and vocalist, David Nelson). It’s just perfect for these days.