1997 The 5th Dimension Up Up and Away: The Definitive Collection

1997 Up Up and Away: The Definitive Collection
The 5th Dimension
Louie Shelton - Guitar (Electric)

The subtitle on this anthology is correct: this is truly the definitive collection of the 5th Dimension's music, including all the hits and most of the album cuts that anyone could want. The 20-bit digital mastering provides a crisp, bright audio experience, and the joyous harmonies bring back the positive side of the late-'60s/early-'70s era in which the songs were recorded. The megahits are all here: Jimmy Webb's "Up, Up and Away," Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic" and "Wedding Bell Blues," the Bacharach/David opus "One Less Bell to Answer," the beautiful "(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All," and the Grammy-winning number one smash from the spring of 1969, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" from Hair.

1973 Judee Sill Heart Food [Expanded]

1973 Heart Food [Expanded]
Judee Sill
Louie Shelton - Musician

Sometimes myths become reality, or apocryphal tales bear enough weight to be documented as fact. Heart Food, Judee Sill's legendary, and up until now very rare, second and final album, was recorded and released in 1973 by Asylum Records when she was 29; she passed away six years later. Heart Food has been equated with Laura Nyro's classic New York Tendaberry, Essra Mohawk's Primordial Lovers, and Carole King's Tapestry as being a definitive moment in the work of female singer/songwriters. Part of this myth comes out of the reality that Heart Food has not been in print in more than 20 years.

1971 Barbra Joan Streisand

1971 Barbra Joan Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Louie Shelton - Guitar

On her follow-up to the comeback album Stoney End, Barbra Streisand tried to do for (or to) Carole King what she had done the last time around with Laura Nyro, to redo her material in a similar manner and essentially hijack it (while providing a big jump in songwriter royalties, of course). This was not so easy to do in the case of "Beautiful," "Where You Lead," and "You've Got a Friend," however, since, unlike the Nyro songs, by the time Streisand got to these tunes, they were already on King's own chart-topping album, Tapestry.