When it comes to Burl Ives, the world has (kind of) got it wrong.

Justifiably renowned as a folk troubadour, yuletide and children’s entertainer, what you may not know is that Burl could drink anybody under the table, possessed a sharp social conscience and a temper like a trooper. Hounded by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee, ...

Built around a concept and songs supplied by maverick songwriter/cartoonist/libertine Shel Silverstein, Bobby Bare’s “Hard Time Hungrys” is an astounding and affecting chronicle of economic depression and the people most buffeted by it. Recorded in 1975 the album is more timely than ever with its moving and good humoured tales of the disenfranchised and their plight. Fro...

Perhaps the most influential recording in the history of electronic music, Song Of The Second Moon is far more than an historical curiosity. For the very first time electronic music was conceived as popular music, an incredibly listenable mélange of jazz and concrete stylings. Composed by Dutch Philips Research Laboratories employees Tom Dissevelt and Dick Raaijmakers (Kid Ba...

Founded in Rome in 1964, ‘Il Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza’ was a collective of noted and noteworthy composers who challenged the very structure and performance of music itself. Today the most renowned of its members would be film scoring genius Ennio Morricone (indeed “Il Gruppo…” performed on many celebrated Morricone scores of the 1960s and 1970s) but...

Egisto Macchi (1928-1992) has long existed in the shadow of his friend and famous collaborator Ennio Morricone. As Morricone melded pop idioms and western scores, Macchi too melded classicism, the avant garde and early electronic music. Aside from his frequent collaborations with Morricone (in the astounding ‘Il Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza’) Macchi was a bus...