With 1970's Workingman's Dead, the Grateful Dead went through an overnight metamorphosis, turning abruptly from tripped-out free-form rock toward sublime acoustic folk and Americana. Taking notes on vocal harmonies from friends Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Dead used the softer statements of their fourth studio album as a subtle but moving reflection on the turmoil, heaviness, and hope America's youth was facing as the idealistic '60s ended. American Beauty was recorded just a few months after its predecessor, both expanding and improving on the bluegrass, folk, and psychedelic country explorations of Workingman's Dead with some of the band's most brilliant compositions. The songs here have a noticeably more relaxed and joyous feel. Having dived headfirst into this new sound with the previous album, the bandmembers found the summit of their collaborative powers here, with lyricist Robert Hunter penning some of his most poetic work, Jerry Garcia focusing more on gliding pedal steel than his regular electric lead guitar work, and standout lead vocal performances coming from Bob Weir (on the anthem to hippie love "Sugar Magnolia"), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (on the husky blues of "Operator"), and Phil Lesh (on the near-perfect opening tune, "Box of Rain"). This album also marked the beginning of what would become a long musical friendship between Garcia and Dave Grisman, whose mandolin playing adds depth and flavor to tracks like the outlaw country-folk of "Friend of the Devil" and the gorgeously devotional "Ripple." American Beauty eventually spawned the band's highest charting single -- "Truckin'," the greasy blues-rock tribute to nomadic counterculture -- but it also contained some of their most spiritual and open-hearted sentiments ever, their newfound love of intricate vocal arrangements finding pristine expression on the lamenting "Brokedown Palace" and the heavenly nostalgia and gratitude of "Attics of My Life." While the Dead eventually amassed a following so devoted that following the band from city to city became the center of many people’s lives, the majority of the band's magic came in the boundless heights it reached in its live sets but rarely managed to capture in the studio setting. American Beauty is a categorical exception to this, offering a look at the Dead transcending even their own exploratory heights and making some of their most powerful music by examining their most gentle and restrained impulses. It’s easily the masterwork of their studio output, and a strong contender for the best music the band ever made, even including the countless hours of live shows captured on tape in the decades that followed.© Fred Thomas /TiVo

From 1962 to 1965, the Beatles made 52 appearances on the BBC, recording live-in-the-studio performances of both their official releases and several dozen songs that they never issued on disc. This magnificent two-disc compilation features 56 of these tracks, including 29 covers of early rock, R&B, soul, and pop tunes that never appeared on their official releases, as well as the Lennon-McCartney original "I'll Be on My Way," which they gave in 1963 to Billy J. Kramer rather than record it themselves. These performances are nothing less than electrifying, especially the previously unavailable covers, which feature quite a few versions of classics by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. There are also off-the-beaten-path tunes by the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly on down to obscurities by the Jodimars, Chan Romero (a marvelous "Hippy Hippy Shake"), Eddie Fontaine, and Ann-Margret. The greatest gem is probably their fabulous version of Arthur Alexander's "Soldier of Love," which (like several of the tracks) would have easily qualified as a highlight of their early releases if they had issued it officially. Restored from existing tapes of various quality, the sound is mostly very good and never less than listenable. Unfortunately, they weren't able to include every single rarity that the Beatles recorded for the BBC; the absence of Carl Perkins' "Lend Me Your Comb," which has circulated on bootlegs in a high-fidelity version, is especially mystifying. Minor quibbles aside, these performances, available on bootlegs for years, compose the major missing chapter in the Beatles' legacy, and it's great to have them easily obtainable in a first-rate package.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

Peter Tosh's most "accessible" solo album, Mama Africa would also be his best seller outside Jamaica, the only one of his albums to break into the U.K. Top 50 and even push into the bottom reaches of the U.S. chart. Toning down the rhetoric, Tosh concentrated on the music, self-producing an album that sounds fantastic from start to finish. Of course, he had help from a boatload of friends, with two separate aggregates of musicians providing backing; Carlton "Santa" Davis and Lebert "Gibby" Morrison fuel one grouping across most of the album, with Sly & Robbie firing the other. There's a fabulous horn section, a clutch of superb backing singers (including the Tamlins, who accompany Tosh on three songs), and some superb guitar work from Donald Kinsey. The album itself revisits the past while also looking to the future. The updated songs are particularly creative, with the Wailers' "Stop That Train" totally revitalized through an incredible mix of styles, brilliantly blending R&B, nods to Motown, a faux slide guitar, and a steady reggae beat. Even more astonishing is Tosh's stunning take on "Johnny B. Goode," a U.K. Top 50 hit that boasts an intricate rhythm, brass accents, sumptuous keyboards, and Kinsey's soaring guitar on a song that builds and builds into an absolute crescendo of sound. There's also a fine revisit of "Maga Dog," one of Tosh's nastier songs. But that has little on "Peace Treaty," whose laid-back beat and chirpy melody can't hide Tosh's gloating. Yes, listeners remember his admonition that peace will only be found in the grave, and the cease-fire declared by the gangs would never last. But as gunfire echoes across the track, should the treaty's collapse really be the cause for celebration? To judge by Tosh's triumphant I told you so, apparently it is. On a more positive note is the urban meets Kingston sound of "Not Gonna Give It Up," boasting the Tamlins at their best, and more great guitar licks. The title track is even more infectious, a rocker with a Caribbean flair and a light Afro-beat, as Tosh muses eloquently about his beloved continent. Every track on the album is just as memorable in its own way, as the artist combines styles, genres, moods, and atmospheres across songs old and new. Not Tosh at his most revolutionary, but an album filled with music that remains unforgettable.© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo

After the failed experiment of Turbo, Judas Priest toned down the synths and returned to the basics, delivering a straight-ahead, much more typical Priest album with Ram It Down. The band's fan base was still devoted enough to consistently push each new album past the platinum sales mark, and perhaps that's part of the reason Ram It Down generally sounds like it's on autopilot. While there are some well-constructed songs, they tend toward the generic, and the songwriting is pretty lackluster overall, with the up-tempo title track easily standing out as the best tune here. And even though Ram It Down backed away from the territory explored on Turbo, much of the album still has a too-polished, mechanical-sounding production, especially the drums. Lyrically, Ram It Down is firmly entrenched in adolescent theatrics that lack the personality or toughness of Priest's best anthems, which -- coupled with the lack of much truly memorable music -- makes the record sound cynical and insincere, the lowest point in the Rob Halford era. Further debits are given for the cover of "Johnny B. Goode."© Steve Huey /TiVo

When first approaching The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, it's best not to think of it as a Sex Pistols album; rather, keep in mind that it's the soundtrack to a movie that was mostly about Malcolm McLaren and only tangentially concerned the great band he managed. Only eight of the twenty-four songs on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle feature the same band as on Never Mind the Bollocks, and most of those capture them stomping through covers in the studio, sometimes to impressive effect (Johnny Rotten sounds positively feral on the Who's "Substitute" and the whole band tears into "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone" with malicious glee) and sometimes not (Rotten reveals he doesn't know the words to either Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" or Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner," and the band's familiarity isn't much greater). A live take of the Pistols roaring through "Belsen Was a Gas" is exciting, but sounds as if Rotten and the rest of the band were traveling in very different directions, and it's not hard to imagine why he quit the group after the show. Steve Jones and Paul Cook offer up a few tunes of their own, which lack the danger of the cuts with Rotten but confirm they were the backbone of a solid, scrappy rock band, and if Tenpole Tudor isn't much of a singer, on his numbers he delivers an impressive degree of sheer eccentricity. But a large percentage of the album is devoted to jokey material tied into the movie -- orchestral versions of "EMI" and "God Save the Queen," a French busker performing "Anarchy in the UK" en Français, train robber Ronnie Biggs attempting to sing, and Malcolm McLaren ascending to show biz heaven with a cover of Max Bygraves' "You Need Hands." And while Sid Vicious sounds like a good if unexceptional rock & roll shouter on a pair of Eddie Cochran covers, his inarguably remarkable version of "My Way" shows the man was incapable of comprehending the irony of his situation, and sadly sounds like the work of a kid destined to die young. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols was the sound of a hydrogen bomb being dropped on your head, and The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle collects some of the debris left after the explosion; parts are brilliant, but it's ultimately a padded and slightly depressing look at a great band in collapse.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Captured Live is a good, but unremarkable, latter-day live concert from Peter Tosh that finds the reggae superstar running through many of his most familiar songs. For hardcore fans, it's worth a listen, but most others will be satisfied with the better live records and collections already on the market.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

If you had to sweat all of Chuck Berry's early albums on Chess (and some, but not all, of his subsequent greatest-hits packages), this would be the one to own. The song lineup is exemplary, cobbling together classics like "Maybellene," "Carol," "Sweet Little Rock & Roller," "Little Queenie," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Around and Around," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Almost Grown." With the addition of the Latin-flavored "Hey Pedro," the steel guitar workout "Blues for Hawaiians," "Anthony Boy," and "Jo Jo Gunne," this serves as almost a mini-greatest-hits package in and of itself. While this may be merely a collection of singles and album ballast (as were most rock & roll LPs of the 1950s and early '60s), it ends up being the most perfectly realized of Chuck Berry's career.© Cub Koda /TiVo

Wasting no time in the aftermath of Peter Tosh's murder in September 1987, his label, Capitol, quickly readied and released a retrospective compilation, which arrived in the new year. Obviously, the tracks were drawn from the six Tosh albums Capitol had rights to -- 1978's Bush Doctor, the following year's Mystic Man, 1981's Wanted Dread & Alive, 1983's Mama Africa, the following year's Captured Live, and 1987's No Nuclear War, Tosh's final set. It's hard to do justice to any of these sets, never mind the artist himself, in 11 tracks, but The Toughest, which oddly doesn't include "I'm the Toughest," does the best it can under the circumstances. Each of the albums gets a look, with party songs like "Reggaemylitis" and "Coming in Hot" rubbing shoulders with the more introspective "Bush Doctor" and "Mystic Man," while musically pop and roots vie for attention. What's lacking, however, are any of Tosh's more militant songs, the ones that defined his reputation back home in Jamaica. No surprise there. While he was alive, Capitol was forced to accept this side of Tosh; once he was gone, they could safely ignore it. And so taking a stance they continue to hold, the label deep-sixed Tosh the revolutionary in favor of a creating a less threatening legend, a makeover Capitol has reinforced with every subsequent compilation. Apparently, this is precisely what American fans wanted -- or perhaps they just never had the opportunity to discover the true depths of the man turned reggae icon.© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo

John Lennon once said that if you were going to give another name to rock & roll you might as well call it Chuck Berry -- a phrase that has been repeated to exhaustion precisely because it is no exaggeration. More than any other single musician, Berry defined the sound, style, and attitude of what rock & roll is, pushing guitars and cars to the forefront, constructing a world of soda shops and jukeboxes that resided just down the road a piece, finding an endless world within three chords. Fats Domino may have started the big wheel rolling, the Everly Brothers invented the power chord, Buddy Holly married pop with tough rockabilly, Little Richard had the manic energy, and Elvis Presley broke down the barriers, but Chuck Berry was the one that created the culture. How he did it is at long last chronicled in detail on Hip-O Select's Johnny B. Goode: His Complete '50s Chess Recordings, a four-CD set containing all his singles from the '50s (which include most of his biggest hits), album tracks, and rarities, including demos and unreleased recordings. Berry, of course, had another decade of vital recordings on Chess ahead of him (and an often-overlooked series of worthy recordings for the label in the '70s), but within these '50s sessions is where the heart of his legacy lies, as this is when he created rock & roll out of jump blues, country boogie, juke joint R&B, Harry Belafonte calypso, and Nat King Cole crooning. Listening to Johnny B. Goode: His Complete '50s Chess Recordings is an entirely different experience than The Great 28 or any other hit-heavy compilation where all the brilliant singles sound so much of a piece that they give the impression that they were all cut at roughly the same time. Those who learned Berry's music through these compilations -- and there are generations of listeners who did -- may be surprised that certain hits like "No Particular Place to Go" or "You Never Can Tell" arrived well into the '60s and so are absent here, perhaps jarringly so. What "Johnny B. Goode" does a superb job of is putting Berry's music in context, illustrating what happened when by methodically going through every existing recording in the Chess vaults, including alternate takes, instrumental jams, a few live tracks, a single by the Ecuadors featuring Chuck on guitar, and a handful of unreleased cuts. Unlike Hip-O Select's similar Bo Diddley I'm a Man: The Chess Masters 1955-1958 there are no major unreleased songs (I'm a Man had Bo's original "Love Is Strange"); instead, this has a plethora of alternates, all sequenced in succession, which would give this the feel of an excavation if the music itself wasn't so energetic and enjoyable.Many of the alternate takes here have seen the light of day elsewhere, usually on the Rock 'N' Roll Rarities or Missing Berries series (a heavy dose of these were also first unearthed on the 1974 LP Chuck Berry's Golden Decade, Vol. 3), but the value of "Johnny B. Goode" is in having all of this music in one place -- not just for the sake of completists who need to have everything an artist cut, but to hear how the artist developed. That is true here, as Berry gets more confident as the years pass, but the remarkable thing about "Johnny B. Goode" is that it shows how Chuck emerged almost fully formed with "Maybellene" and then continued to mine that same vein of blues, hillbilly, jazz, and R&B for years. His wit sharpened quickly, while his music jelled so the boundaries between his influences evaporated, but the only major introduction to come later in the set is his signature opening guitar riff, debuting on "Johnny B. Goode." Indeed, it's a bit of a shock to realize that it took him so long to nail this defining musical turnaround, but that may be the biggest revelation on this set. Instead of being filled surprises, Johnny B. Goode engenders a deeper appreciation of Berry's art.Hearing the successive alternate takes pile up after each other, it's easy to appreciate Chuck's verbal dexterity, how he spins from one scenario to another on "Reelin' and Rockin'," suggesting just how quickly the words came to him. This, in turn, makes it easier to appreciate the potency of his poetry, but comparing this rapid-fire humor to the finely crafted details of "Memphis Tennessee," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," and "No Money Down," or the vivid teenage renderings of "School Day" and "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Almost Grown" demonstrate just how carefully crafted his lyrics were. Similarly, Johnny B. Goode: His Complete '50s Chess Recordings also offers an understanding of how rich and varied his musical gifts were. Listening to all the recordings in a row emphasizes how deep the blues ran within his music, and nowhere is that truer than on lengthy unreleased instrumentals, simply titled "Long Fast Jam" and "Long Slow Jam," where Chuck, longtime pianist Johnnie Johnson, bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Jasper Thomas lay back and play for over 11 minutes for each cut. As Berry's brevity always seemed key to his brilliance -- his singles always were succinct, never lasting longer than they should -- it might seem that such prolonged jams would be flabby, but they're mesmerizing, particularly in how they showcase Johnson's fluid, rolling piano. The blues is at the core of Berry's rock & roll and he never abandoned it, even if he enthusiastically turned it inside out. As Johnny B. Goode shows, Berry hit upon his formula early -- the first disc alone contains "Thirty Days," "You Can't Catch Me," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Too Much Monkey Business," and "School Day," while the second has "Rock & Roll Music," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Reelin' and Rockin'," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Around and Around," classics and standards one and all -- and he was savvy enough to know not to fix something that wasn't broken and so he didn't. He continued to refurbish and ever so slightly expand his formula into the '60s, creating some of his greatest music in the years to come -- -- and with any luck, Hip-O Select will document that in future releases -- but Berry's '50s recordings for Chess prove one of the greatest bursts of creativity in American music. This is not only the foundation of Chuck's music, but rock & roll and pop culture of the 20th century, and it's thrilling to finally have it all as a complete box set.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Johnny's second Columbia album shows an artist in transition. He's still obviously a Texas bluesman, recording in the same trio format that he left Dallas with. But his music is moving toward the more rock & roll sounds he would go on to create. The opener, "Memory Pain," moves him into psychedelic blues-rock territory, while old-time rockers like "Johnny B. Goode," "Miss Ann," and "Slippin' and Slidin'" provide him with familiar landscapes on which to spray his patented licks. His reworking of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" is the high spot of the record, a career-defining track that would remain a major component in his set list to the end of his life.© Cub Koda /TiVo

In its time, this was an enormously popular live album, especially among high-school kids just starting to discover blues-rock in the early '70s. Derived from live performances at the Fillmore East and at Pirate's World in Dania, FL, it is probably, in fairness, the best representation of Johnny Winter's sound from his prime years that one is likely to find -- the pity is that it's only about 40 minutes long, and is weighted very heavily toward Winter's covers of well-known rock & roll numbers. Considering that it was recorded along a tour promoting the Johnny Winter And album, one would expect that the band would have done a considerable number of tracks from that record, none of which are represented here. The highlights are of considerable value, however, including a searing rendition of the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" sandwiched between some much older repertory ("Great Balls of Fire," "Long Tall Sally," "Johnny B. Goode," etc.). Except for the opener, "Good Morning Little School Girl," on which Winter and the band try to show how many notes they can hit as quickly as they can, the players generally try for something a little more subtle and interesting, and one wishes that more of what they did had used the slow blues groove they settle into on "It's My Own Fault." Their version of "Great Balls of Fire" has some of that, mostly by default (no one did the song faster than Jerry Lee Lewis anyway), and also enough energy so one doesn't even "miss" the piano one usually expects somewhere in the song; "Long Tall Sally," by contrast, kicks in on overdrive and takes off from there. But for all of the musical virtues (and obvious joy) that Winter and company bring to those standards, the most interesting cuts here are "It's My Own Fault" and Winter's own "Mean Town Blues," and one wishes that there were more such tracks here. In that regard, it might be worthwhile for someone at Sony/Legacy to do a serious vault search and see if there are surviving tapes of any other numbers recorded from the two shows (and was it just two?) that were recorded for this album.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

This thoroughly dated affair is the result of a chance re-acquaintance between Elton John (vocals) and Pete Bellotte (producer). The artist was not fully satisfied with the initial results of the three-song "Mama Can't Buy You Love" EP, which became as much a product of Philly soul maverick Thom Bell as it did John. When Bellotte approached John to record a full-length disco album, he took him up on the offer. This was providing that John's contributions would be limited to providing vocals only. The results can be heard on Victim of Love (1979), a dismissible platter of Teutonic 4/4 rhythms and extended (mostly) instrumental indulgence. None of the seven cuts offer very much in terms of what Elton John enthusiasts would not only have expected, but more importantly, enjoyed. Although the title track was extracted as a single in the U.S. and the disgraceful cover of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was issued as a 45 rpm in Europe, neither made much impact. In fact, with the exception of the Friends (1971) motion picture soundtrack -- consisting of mostly instrumental incidental scoring -- Victim of Love was John's lowest charting album to date. Although on a temporary touring hiatus, once John returned to the road, he wisely chose not to incorporate any of the material from the project on-stage. In fact, contrasting the blatant sonic excess of this release, John was concurrently performing as a solo act, backed only by longtime percussionist Ray Cooper. This "unplugged" setting restored some of the good will between John and his audience that Victim of Love had disenfranchised. Thankfully, the artist (and the rest of the music world) abandoned disco as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. His next effort, 21 at 33 (1980), allowed him to begin a long re-ascension on the music charts as well a restoration of his pop/rock leanings.© Lindsay Planer /TiVo