My Favourite Albums

Just thinking of all the great music I've bought and enjoyed over the years, and decided to put some of my very favourite albums on this blog...here they are (in no particular order and likely with some omissions) : Etta James "Greatest Hits" (best tracks; At Last and Tell Mama). Santana "Abraxas" (best tracks; Black Magic Woman and Samba Pa Ti). Stevie Ray Vaughan "In Step" (best track Riviera Sunrise). Todd Rundgren Greatest Hits (Hello It's Me and We Gotta Get you a Woman). Amy Winehouse "Back To Black" (all tracks; best album of the last decade in my opinion). The Beatles are my all-time favourite group and their best work for me is "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul", but it's really way-too-difficult to pick any bad ones! Steely Dan "Aja" album with "Peg" and "Deacon Blues" as stand-out tracks. Aja was a real sort of turning point for me musically, as it turned me on to jazz and blues in a small way, so I started to kind of "look backwards" to find other "real" jazz and blues music which has been a great source of pleasure to me since that Aja album came out in around 1976. I only then figured out that most of the rock music I was loving as a kid came directly out of the blues and jazz greats of the past. Van Morrison "Astral Weeks", "Moondance" and "Too Long in Exile" (also full of great tracks including "Moondance" itself. America "America". Beck "Guero". Radiohead "OK Computer". Miles Davis "Kind of Blue", Dave Brubeck "Time Out". John Coltrane "Love Supreme". Joni Mitchell "Court and Spark" Robbie Robertson's "Underworld" cd featuring a very haunting track called the Sound is Fading".....hmmmm....now it's getting difficult to stop! I've also been listening to lots of "World Music" by people like the "Buena Vista Social Club" from Cuba and the "Orchestra Baobab" from Senegal (Click here for Baobab live in Poland). What are your favourite albums?

Best Red Wine under $10

This is my new favourite red wine, called Misterio, an Argentinian Malbec. Fantastic, full-bodied wine at only $7.95 per bottle! I've been buying it by the case lately. Decant it for an hour or so and then do a blind taste test against more expensive Shiraz's and/or Cabernet Sauvignons and see how it fares... My opinion is that it tastes more "expensive" than it is.