Musical Holiday Gift Ideas for 2015

So you need some musical holiday gift ideas for 2015 – no problemo!  I have donned Santa’s hat and sprawled many tasties on a table for your amusement and to make suggestions on what to buy for yourself or the music lover on your list.  From the king of Afrobeat Fela Kuti to Rage Against The Machine, we’ve got wax and discs of audio and video to inspire and delight.

The Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Volume 12: The Cutting Edge certainly yields some treasures for Zimmy enthusiasts.  This set offers alternate takes and other bric-a-brac from the Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde sessions.  If you’re writing a book on Dylan focusing on that period, maybe you’d want every note available on 18 CD’s!  If you’re hardcore, you’d likely go for the version on half a dozen CD’s.  I’m satisfied getting the best bits which are available on 2 CD’s and/or what I got – the 3 LP set which is packaged with the utmost affection.  I could say the same about the Spoon 10th anniversary re-issue of Gimme Fiction. 

The Sly and The Family Stone set offers both early and late shows recorded at Fillmore East, the storied joint on 2nd Avenue around 6th Street, in 1968.  The Who box set offers a DVD along with 2 CD’s in what could be their final live album, but I think I said that about Who’s Last in 1984.  Same format for Eric Clapton with a DVD/2 CD’s captured at Royal Albert Hall for his 70th birthday celebration.  I was lucky enough to catch one of the two Madison Square Garden shows that he played two weeks before the Royal Albert ones so I was especially pleased that it was recorded and released as Slowhand was in such sparkling form.  The Queen DVD is worth a peek and as far as Jazz goes, I can’t speak highly enough about the Miles Davis set covering 20 years of performances at Newport Jazz Festival.  It’s phenomenal.  The Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius soundtrack I’m just scratching the surface on, but these promise many hours of rewarding listening.

The Big Band Holidays disc by Wynton Marsalis and the fellas hits the spot, as does the Johnny Mathis box which has a few Christmas songs among the singles released between 1956 and 1981.  It’s a worthy collection on Johnny’s 80th birthday.  The Them compilation includes all the tracks on Angry Young Them (1965) and Them Again (1966) along with demos and what have you and it sounds great in remastered form.  Happy holidays!

Donovan was inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this Spring and he decided to play three concerts in the U.S this fall to celebrate with a promise of a full-on tour next year.

At the intimate 800 capacity Society for Ethical Culture on the UWS, he reminded his fans how well his songs have held up. He told stories of getting high with Gypsy Dave and being adrift on the Ganges with The Maharishi and The Beatles. Through one acoustic set and one electric one with a four piece band, he was the hippy philosopher and spiritual troubadour that I expected and hoped he would be.

On the evening of the Led Zeppelin press conference earlier this month, I saw Pete Townshend chat with Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner at Barnes&Noble in Union Square. Pete said he is happy and has dealt with any of the weirdness of his youth that he details in his new autobiography Who I Am. He was engaged and engaging.

He played Drowned and Won’t Get Fooled Again on acoustic to wrap up the festivities. He’s touring with Roger Daltry playing Quadrophenia beginning next month..