Marty Robbins – Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Western music had been a cornerstone of American culture for decades before Marty Robbins released Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs in 1959, but few…
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Latest Reviews
Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book
The Great American Songbook has inspired countless recordings, but very few have achieved the artistic ambition and enduring brilliance of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the…
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Ray Charles – The Genius of Ray Charles
By 1959, Ray Charles had already transformed rhythm and blues with a string of groundbreaking hits that blended gospel, blues, jazz, and country into…
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Ravi Shankar – The Sounds of India
By the late 1950s, Indian classical music remained largely unfamiliar to Western audiences. While jazz, classical, and folk traditions had begun crossing cultural boundaries,…
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Billie Holiday – Lady in Satin
When Lady in Satin was released in 1958, Billie Holiday was nearing the end of a career that had forever changed the art of…
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Count Basie and His Orchestra + Neal Hefti Arrangements The Atomic Mr. Basie
By the late 1950s, Count Basie had already secured his place among the giants of jazz. His original orchestra had defined the Kansas City…
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Sarah Vaughan and Her Trio At Mister Kelly’s
Live jazz albums often reveal an artist more completely than even the finest studio recordings. Without endless retakes or carefully edited performances, the singer…
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Machito – Kenya
Machito & His Afro-Cubans: Kenya — The Album That Redrew the Map of Jazz Released 1957 (Roulette Records) | Genre: Afro-Cuban Jazz / Mambo…
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Tito Puente – Dance Mania
By the late 1950s, few musicians had done more to bring Afro-Cuban and Latin dance music into the American mainstream than Tito Puente. A…
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Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Jack Takes the Floor
Long before the folk revival reached its commercial peak in the early 1960s, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was already carrying traditional American songs from coffeehouses…
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Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners
By 1957, Thelonious Monk had spent years earning the admiration of fellow musicians while remaining something of an enigma to the broader jazz audience.…
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Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool
Few albums have altered the course of jazz as profoundly as Birth of the Cool. Although the recordings were made between 1949 and 1950…
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Sabu – Palo congo
When discussions turn to the greatest jazz albums of the 1950s, names like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Charles Mingus usually dominate the conversation.…
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Fats Domino – This Is Fats
Few artists helped shape the sound of early rock and roll as profoundly—or as effortlessly—as Fats Domino. While some of his contemporaries built their…
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Little Richard – Here’s Little Richard
If rock and roll had a heartbeat in the mid-1950s, it was probably pounding somewhere inside Here’s Little Richard. Released in 1957, this explosive…
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The Crickets – The Chirping Crickets
When people think of the birth of rock and roll, names like Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry usually dominate the conversation. Yet…
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Duke Ellington – Ellington at Newport
Few live albums have altered the course of a musician’s career quite like Ellington at Newport. Recorded on July 7, 1956, at the legendary…
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Louis Prima – The Wildest!
Few entertainers have ever embodied pure joy quite like Louis Prima. A singer, trumpeter, bandleader, comedian, and consummate showman, Prima built his reputation on…
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Frank Sinatra – Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!
Just one year after exploring heartbreak and loneliness on In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra made a dramatic change in mood with Songs…
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Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley
When Elvis Presley was released in March 1956, popular music was in the middle of a revolution. Rock and roll was still in its…
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The Louvin Brothers – Tragic Songs of Life
Country music has never shied away from heartbreak, loss, or hardship, but few albums embrace those themes as completely—or as beautifully—as Tragic Songs of…
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Frank Sinatra – In the Wee Small Hours
By the middle of the 1950s, Frank Sinatra had already experienced more highs and lows than most artists encounter in an entire lifetime. Once…
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