Unable to perform his 2021 spring tour at the Royal Albert Hall due to COVID-19 restrictions, Eric Clapton, a staunch defender of free access to his concerts, is playing an intimate show at Cowdray House, a plush mansion in England’s Sussex countryside. Spectators? Only one. In the balcony, his wife Melia McEnery, for whom the work is titled, in the form of a declaration of love: The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions. But anyone else can watch too, since the whole thing was captured by Russ Titelman and even screened in the cinema. This is how the maestro responds to the harshness of the current situation: by offering moments of grace. With his musicians Chris Stainton (keyboards), Nathan East (bass) and Steve Gadd (drums), Clapton plays a whole range of classic blues songs from his discography: Key To Highway by Big Bill Bonzy, his cover of JJ Cale's After Midnight, Man of the World and Black Magic Woman written in the early days of Fleetwood Mac by Peter Green, whom Clapton salutes in passing, or the vintages Layla or Tears In Heaven. The old friends end on electric with Muddy Waters' brilliant Long Distance Call and Got My Mojo interspersed with Bad Boy from Clapton's first album. With the unlikely acoustics offered by the venue and a particular attention to the impeccable sound recording, Slowhand goes on a journey, in a peaceful mood, among friends. A Dantean era calls for an exceptional concert. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Far and away the prettiest record Jethro Tull released at least since Thick as a Brick and a special treat for anyone with a fondness for the group's more folk-oriented material. Ian Anderson had moved to the countryside sometime earlier, and it showed in his choice of source material. The band's aggressive rock interplay and Anderson's fascination with early British folk melodies produce a particularly appealing collection of songs -- the seriousness with which the group took this effort can be discerned by the album's unofficial "full" title on the original LP: "Jethro Tull With Kitchen Prose, Gutter Rhymes, and Divers Songs from the Wood." The group's sound was never more carefully balanced between acoustic folk and hard rock -- the result is an album that sounds a great deal like the work of Tull's Chrysalis Records labelmates Steeleye Span (though Nigel Pegrum never attacked his cymbals -- or his entire drum kit -- with Barriemore Barlow's ferocity). The harmonizing on "Songs From the Wood" fulfills the promise shown in some of the singing on Thick as a Brick, and the delicacy of much of the rest, including "Ring Out, Solstice Bells" (where the group plays full out, but with wonderful elegance), "Hunting Girl," and "Velvet Green," set a new standard for the group's sound. "Pibroch (Cap in Hand)," which is dominated by Martin Barre's electric guitar -- in a stunning array of overlapping flourishes at full volume -- is the only concession to the group's usual hard rock rave-ups, and even it has some lovely singing to counterbalance the bulk of the song.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

The cliché about singer/songwriters is that they sing confessionals direct from their heart, but John Lennon exploded the myth behind that cliché, as well as many others, on his first official solo record, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Inspired by his primal scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, Lennon created a harrowing set of unflinchingly personal songs, laying out all of his fears and angers for everyone to hear. It was a revolutionary record -- never before had a record been so explicitly introspective, and very few records made absolutely no concession to the audience's expectations, daring the listeners to meet all the artist's demands. Which isn't to say that the record is unlistenable. Lennon's songs range from tough rock & rollers to piano-based ballads and spare folk songs, and his melodies remain strong and memorable, which actually intensifies the pain and rage of the songs. Not much about Plastic Ono Band is hidden. Lennon presents everything on the surface, and the song titles -- "Mother," "I Found Out," "Working Class Hero," "Isolation," "God," "My Mummy's Dead" -- illustrate what each song is about, and chart his loss of faith in his parents, country, friends, fans, and idols. It's an unflinching document of bare-bones despair and pain, but for all its nihilism, it is ultimately life-affirming; it is unique not only in Lennon's catalog, but in all of popular music. Few albums are ever as harrowing, difficult, and rewarding as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In late 1970, when Plastic Ono Band released its first album, The Beatles were still not officially finished. And yet, here is an impressive debut solo album, with John Lennon opening his heart, his soul and his mind – in short, this was Lennon laid bare; the complete Lennon, dreamy and lucid, calm and edgy. Urged by Yoko Ono to undergo therapy, he turns this extremely raw record into the perfect outlet. The masterpieces follow one after another (Working Class Hero, Mother, God, Power To The People) while, behind the glass at Abbey Road studios, playing utterly against type, genius American producer Phil Spector, inventor of the famous Wall of Sound, soberly shapes this fascinating inner journey which never goes down the path of the easy blockbuster hit. Accompanying John on this journey are Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann on bass, Yoko, Billy Preston and Spector on piano for one track. There’s no fancy dressing on his limpid ballads, which are sometimes extremely oneiric (the incredible Love), heartbreaking (the opener Mother, as its name suggests about his mother, killed by a car in 1958), or even verging on angry on the simple (not simplistic) rock numbers (I Found Out)… Fifty years after its release, this elemental record benefits from the luxurious reissue treatment with almost 7 and a half hours of music! These kinds of 5-star editions always pose the question: who is it for? Obviously, you have to be a hardcore fan of the Fab Four and / or Lennon to immerse yourself in such a musical (and financial) commitment. For those among us who are simply musical tourists, it's arguably more advisable to stick to the eleven tracks of the original Plastic Ono Band …As with the 2018 reissue of Imagine and the subsequent best-of Gimme Some Truth, this Plastic Ono Band Ultimate Collection has been completely remixed from the original tapes by sound engineer Paul Hicks. The 'Ultimate Mixes' are the closest to the originals but have been cleaned up a bit, making Lennon's vocals clearer. The 'Out-takes' are rawer mixes. whilst the 'Elements Mixes' bring parts that were eradicated from the original final mixes back to life. Finally, there are also some other demos, jams on which we come across songs formerly covered by The Beatles (Matchbox, Honey Don’t), and even covers of the Fab Four (Get Back, I’ve Got A Feeling). This treasure chest also includes songs that weren't on the original album, including Give Peace A Chance, Instant Karma and Cold Turkey. Here's an Ultimate Collection that lives up to the name. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

With the death of Cyrus Chestnut's 85-year-old father, McDonald Chestnut, in 2021, the pianist lost not only his most passionate supporter but the man who first taught him to play. A self-taught pianist and organist, the elder Chestnut played in church (along with his wife, a choir director). He introduced the younger Chestnut to classical piano, gospel, and traditional spirituals, setting Cyrus on the path to eventually become one of the most accomplished jazz musicians of his generation. With 2022's My Father's Hands, Chestnut pays tribute to his dad, crafting a heartfelt album that touches upon jazz and pop standards, Latin rhythms, and originals. Joining him are two of his longtime associates and esteemed contemporaries, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash. Together, they play with an intuitive warmth and camaraderie. As the album is an homage to his father's memory, one might expect it to be melancholy or sad. However, while there are certainly moments of tearful beauty, as on Chestnut's lyrical rendition of the ballad "But Beautiful," the record is never maudlin and finds him in a lively mood. This is especially true on the opening original "Nippon Soul Connection," a blues swinger in the '60s hard bop tradition. He also dives into Ray Bryant's Latin number "Cubano Chant" and subtly subverts expectations with his bossa nova take on the classic "There Will Never Be Another You." We also get a dusky and introspective reading of the Beatles' "Yesterday." His father's essence is perhaps best captured on "I Must Tell Jesus," a soulful hymn that Chestnut plays solo, infusing the measured gospel melody with warm chordal harmonies that shimmer with joy. © Matt Collar /TiVo

Taking a cue from like-minded purveyors of moody, shape-shifting modern rock like Wild Beasts, the XX, and Alt-J, London four-piece Arthur Beatrice cast a seductive shadow on their major-label debut, the icy and elegant Working Out. Choosing the band's moniker by inverting head Golden Girl Bea Arthur's name aside, the quartet's 11-track inauguration is a brooding, largely quirk-less affair that sounds a bit like Beach House setting up shop on a bridge above the Thames. Vocal duties are split between the fantastically named, Morrissey-esque Orlando Leopard and the soulful Ella Girardot, the latter of whom imbues each syllable with a sort of restrained, wounded elegance that's both bewitching and melancholy, like Adele or Florence Welch at their least bombastic. Musically, the duo toe the line between urban sophisti-pop and crestfallen indie rock, and at their most effective ("Late," "Midland," "Grand Union"), they evoke the best works of the artists they sound most similar to, while managing to sow some of their own seeds within the existing architecture. One of the group's most subtle selling points are brothers Hamish (bass) and Elliott Barnes (drums), whose tasteful contributions to tracks like "Carter (Uncut)" and "Charity" are so immaculately rendered and refined they could be bottled and sold at top-shelf prices, and they help to reinforce the stateliness of Leopard and Girardot's vocals without usurping them in the process. Working Out is an apt title, as Arthur Beatrice sound a little bit like they're in the late stages of development, where momentum is sometimes mistaken for maturation, but there's little doubt that they have the tools and the talent to carve out their own niche if given the room to grow a bit further out of the very populated one they currently reside in.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

Historically, there's a progression that bands usually follow before their sound goes full-on arena rock. Things will start small and gritty, and then as the fame and crowds build, the sound changes to match the massiveness of the venues. However, on their debut album, Imagine Dragons buck tradition and swing straight for the cheap seats, doing away with generations of sonic evolution in favor of the huge, arena-made sound of Night Visions. Dramatic and sweeping, the Las Vegas band works in the same vein as pop giants Coldplay, offering up track after track of hooky and emotional midtempo jams. While a move like this might seem overly ambitious for a freshman band, Imagine Dragons are able to pull the sound off, with songs like the already ubiquitous, seemingly soundtrack-ready "It's Time" having no trouble worming their way into whatever part of the brain it is that likes to trap songs against listeners' will. The problem is, while the band's electronically reinforced sound is definitely big, it sometimes feels as though it lacks depth. Despite this, "Every Night" will certainly have some listeners unconsciously reaching for a lighter to wave in the air before they realize what they're doing, and it's exactly these kinds of surface pleasures that we turn to pop music for in the first place. What this means is that even though Imagine Dragons might have skipped a few steps along the way to their arena sound, Night Visions is still an album that, at least for a few minutes at a time, will make everyday life seem just a little bit bigger.© Gregory Heaney /TiVo

Mark Knopfler wrote and performed the soundtrack to Barry Levinson's political satire Wag the Dog, and it is one of his best scores, alternately graceful and rootsy. Seven of the eight tracks are instrumental, with the last being reserved for the agreeably humorous single "Wag the Dog."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Cock Sparrer's second album, but their first to actually see the light of day, was released in 1983, following their revitalization as progenitors of the Oi! movement. It's a brittle and, in places, brutal offering, although it's tragic that its best-known cut, "England Belongs to Me," was co-opted by the right wing, at a time when rock journalism was seriously beginning to examine the links between Oi! and the Fascist movement. Cock Sparrer were tarred and feathered accordingly, and the band's reputation still bears the unjust scars. But, away from that controversy, Shock Troops leaves you in no doubt as to where its allegiances lie, politically and musically -- this is Oi! par excellence, with at least half its contents standing proud among the band's finest moments, while the Captain Oi reissue adds a string of equally crucial bonus tracks. Welcome back!© Dave Thompson /TiVo

It's easy to forget, in the wake of a decade of bizarre behavior, rumors, and innuendo surrounding Michael Jackson that the Jacksons were once known solely for being a major music franchise. This live album, which was pretty obscure in its original double-LP vinyl version, is a reminder of how great an act they were, and captures what was just about the end of Michael Jackson's work with the family group, all of it very much on a high-note. Live opens with a pounding, powerful rendition of "Can You Feel It" and, with one exception, never lets up, pushing on through a high-velocity and high-articulation version of "Things I Do for You," and a soaring "Off the Wall." There's an unfortunate lag where Michael Jackson slows things down for "Ben" (arguably the nadir of his Motown career), but "This Place Hotel" and the far more effective ballad "She's Out of My Life" make up for that lapse. The last section of the album, commencing with Off the Wall's "Rock With You," is practically a live rendition of that album, and so bracing as to almost exhaust the listener; and the preceding medley of their early Motown hits is just about worth the asking price of the disc by itself. On the down side, there are no notes and barely any credits, and the volume is set a bit low, but it pumps up beautifully with virtually no excess noise. The album is worth tracking down as an artifact of a simpler, more unabashedly joyous time in music, as well as the family's history.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

The crown jewel in Apple/EMI’s extensive 2010 John Lennon remasters series, Signature Box contains all of the solo studio albums Lennon released during his lifetime (minus the trio of experimental duet LPs with Yoko Ono released on Apple and Zapple), his first posthumous album Milk and Honey, a disc of non-LP singles, a disc of home demos, but not the 2010 showcase item Double Fantasy Stripped Down, which is available only as a bonus on the indvidual reissue of Double Fantasy. It is, in other words, close enough to complete to perhaps invite a little bit of quibbling about what is absent -- Live Peace in Toronto could fit in nicely with this batch and there are outtakes from Menlove Ave missing but the real niggling comes with the home demo disc, which emphasizes demos and alternate takes of songs from Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, leaving behind demos of songs Lennon gave away, including “I’m the Greatest” and “Goodnight Vienna,” which he handed over to Ringo, and songs that never made it to one of his records. Ultimately, this is nitpicking because Signature Box is handsomely produced and contains the best-sounding Lennon remasters -- remastered by the team that did the acclaimed 2009 Beatles remasters, using the original mixes, not the recent remixes -- which is enough to make this more than worthwhile for the serious Lennon fan.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The yang to Astral Weeks' yin, the brilliant Moondance is every bit as much a classic as its predecessor; Van Morrison's first commercially successful solo effort, it retains the previous album's deeply spiritual thrust but transcends its bleak, cathartic intensity to instead explore themes of renewal and redemption. Light, soulful, and jazzy, Moondance opens with the sweetly nostalgic "And It Stoned Me," the song's pastoral imagery establishing the dominant lyrical motif recurring throughout the album -- virtually every track exults in natural wonder, whether it's the nocturnal magic celebrated by the title cut or the unlimited promise offered in "Brand New Day." At the heart of the record is "Caravan," an incantatory ode to the power of radio; equally stirring is the majestic "Into the Mystic," a song of such elemental beauty and grace as to stand as arguably the quintessential Morrison moment.© Jason Ankeny /TiVo

Unable to perform his 2021 spring tour at the Royal Albert Hall due to COVID-19 restrictions, Eric Clapton, a staunch defender of free access to his concerts, is playing an intimate show at Cowdray House, a plush mansion in England’s Sussex countryside. Spectators? Only one. In the balcony, his wife Melia McEnery, for whom the work is titled, in the form of a declaration of love: The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions. But anyone else can watch too, since the whole thing was captured by Russ Titelman and even screened in the cinema. This is how the maestro responds to the harshness of the current situation: by offering moments of grace. With his musicians Chris Stainton (keyboards), Nathan East (bass) and Steve Gadd (drums), Clapton plays a whole range of classic blues songs from his discography: Key To Highway by Big Bill Bonzy, his cover of JJ Cale's After Midnight, Man of the World and Black Magic Woman written in the early days of Fleetwood Mac by Peter Green, whom Clapton salutes in passing, or the vintages Layla or Tears In Heaven. The old friends end on electric with Muddy Waters' brilliant Long Distance Call and Got My Mojo interspersed with Bad Boy from Clapton's first album. With the unlikely acoustics offered by the venue and a particular attention to the impeccable sound recording, Slowhand goes on a journey, in a peaceful mood, among friends. A Dantean era calls for an exceptional concert. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Allen Toussaint experienced a late-career revival sparked, ironically enough, by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He had to leave his hometown New Orleans after the hurricane, relocating to New York City where he started to play regular gigs at Joe's Pub and, soon enough, he cut The River in Reverse with Elvis Costello. That 2006 album propelled Toussaint toward a greater audience, leading to more headlining concerts, two of which are chronicled on Rounder's 2013 release Songbook. Recorded in 2009 at Joe's Pub, Songbook features nothing more than Toussaint alone at a piano running through songs he's written over the decades. He sprinkles in a New Orleans standard here and there -- there's an excellent rendition of "St. James Infirmary" -- but the spotlight is on his peerless originals, songs that are standards in their own right: "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)," "Holy Cow," "Get Out of My Life, Woman," "Yes We Can," a medley of "A Certain Girl/Mother-in-Law/Fortune Teller," "Southern Nights." Toussaint's voice sounds smooth and silky -- he in no way seems as if he's in his seventies -- and his piano is similarly nimble as it glides from signature New Orleans stride and boogie to sophisticated, elegiac chords. Perhaps this album packs no revelations -- there are no rearrangements, nothing unexpected in the songs -- but as an elegant summation of strengths, this Songbook is mighty attractive.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

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