The Crystals - Discography 320kbps Bitrate

THE CRYSTALS

Among aficionados of the girl group sound, there can't be five acts more beloved than the Crystals. Their best-known songs, which include "He's a Rebel," "Uptown," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Then He Kissed Me," and "There's No Other Like My Baby," are among the finest examples of the best that American rock & roll had to offer in the period before the British Invasion; and decades into the CD era, the group's records are still prized in their original vinyl pressings even by non-collectors, who seem to recognize that there was something special about the Crystals' work. The group was originally a quintet consisting of Barbara Alston (born 1945), Dee Dee Kennibrew (born 1945), Mary Thomas (born 1946), Patricia Wright, and Myrna Gerrard, organized by Benny Wells while they were still in high school. All of whom had started out singing in churches; Barbara Alston was Wells' niece, and although she later became known as their lead singer on many of their records, Alston was actually recruited as a backup singer by her uncle. Under Wells' guidance, they began performing in more of a pop vein, and one of the gigs that they got was cutting demos for the publisher Hill & Range, which brought them to the Brill Building in midtown Manhattan. It was there, while they were rehearsing, that they chanced to be heard by Phil Spector, who at that time was just starting up his own label, Philles Records. He was in the market for new talent and the Crystals -- who, by that time, had lost Gerrard and added La La Brooks to their lineup as lead singer -- were just what he was looking for, sort of. He liked their sound and their range, but he didn't initially like Brooks' voice and insisted on Alston taking the lead, somewhat reluctantly on her part.

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The Who - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

The Who - Discography

Few rock & roll bands were riddled with as many contradictions as the Who. All four members had wildly different personalities, as their notorious live performances demonstrated: Keith Moon fell over his drum kit while Pete Townshend leaped into the air with his guitar, spinning his right hand in exaggerated windmills. Vocalist Roger Daltrey prowled the stage as bassist John Entwistle stood silent, the eye of the hurricane. They clashed frequently, but these frictions resulted in a decade's worth of remarkable music. Though it took a while to find their audience, by the late '60s the Who rivaled the Rolling Stones as a live act and in album sales.

TommyKey figures of the British Invasion and the mid-'60s mod movement, the Who were an undeniably powerful sonic force. They exploded conventional rock and R&B structures with Townshend's furious guitar chords, Entwistle's hyperactive basslines, and Moon's vigorous, seemingly chaotic drumming. Unlike most rock bands, the Who based their rhythm on Townshend's guitar, letting Moon and Entwistle improvise wildly over his foundation, while Daltrey belted out his vocals. The Who thrived on this sound in concert, but on record they were a different proposition: Townshend pushed the group toward new sonic territory, incorporating pop art and conceptual extended musical pieces into the group's style. He was regarded as one of the era's finest British songwriters, as songs like "The Kids Are Alright" and "My Generation" became teenage anthems, while his rock opera Tommy earned respect from mainstream music critics.

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Manfred Mann - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

Manfred Mann

An R&B band that only played pop to get on the charts, Manfred Mann ranked among the most adept British Invasion acts in both styles. The fact that their range encompassed jazz as well as rhythm & blues, coupled with some elements of their appearance and presentation -- co-founder/keyboardist Manfred Mann's bearded, bespectacled presence -- also made the Manfreds more of a thinking person's band than a cute, cuddly, outfit like the Beatles, or sexual provocateurs in the manner of the Rolling Stones. Yet, their approach to R&B was as valid as that of the Stones, equally compelling and often more sophisticated. They charted an impressive number of singles from 1964 through 1969, and developed a large, loyal international fandom that lingers to this day.

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Wilson Pickett - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

Wilson Pickett

Born: March 18, 1941 - Died: January 19, 2006

R.I.P.

Of the major '60s soul stars, Wilson Pickett was one of the roughest and sweatiest, working up some of the decade's hottest dancefloor grooves on hits like "In the Midnight Hour," "Land of 1000 Dances," "Mustang Sally," and "Funky Broadway." Although he tends to be held in somewhat lower esteem than more versatile talents like Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, he is often a preferred alternative of fans who like their soul on the rawer side. He also did a good deal to establish the sound of Southern soul with his early hits, which were often written and recorded with the cream of the session musicians in Memphis and Muscle Shoals.

Before establishing himself as a solo artist, Pickett sang with the Falcons, who had a Top Ten R&B hit in 1962 with "I Found a Love." "If You Need Me" (covered by the Rolling Stones) and "It's Too Late" were R&B hits for the singer before he hooked up with Atlantic Records, who sent him to record at Stax in Memphis in 1965. One early result was "In the Midnight Hour," whose chugging horn line, loping funky beats, and impassioned vocals combined into a key transitional performance that brought R&B into the soul age. It was an R&B chart-topper and a substantial pop hit (number 21), though its influence was stronger than that respectable position might indicate: thousands of bands, black and white, covered "In the Midnight Hour" on-stage and record in the 1960s.

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Cher - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

Cher

Cher has had three careers that place her indelibly in the public consciousness, and two have been in association with her then-husband, composer/producer/singer Salvatore "Sonny" Bono (b. February 16, 1935, d. January 8, 1998). She charted major hit records in the 1960s and 1970s, working in idioms ranging from early-'60s girl group-style ballads to Jackie Deshannon folk-influenced pop to adult contemporary pop in the manner of later Dusty Springfield. She also embarked on an acting career, initially in the late '60s in association with her work as part of Sonny & Cher but later on her own, which led to a series of increasingly polished and compelling performances in Silkwood, Mask, and Moonstruck, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Cherilyn Sarkisian was born in California in 1946; she was 17 when she first met Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, a songwriter and protégé of producer Phil Spector. Sonny brought her to Spector, who used her as a backup singer and produced one single by her, a novelty Beatles tribute record called "Ringo I Love You" issued under the name Bonnie Jo Mason. It disappeared without a trace, but the couple were undaunted -- they emerged as a duo, initially called Caesar & Cleo, later that year, and cut "The Letter," "Do You Wanna Dance," and "Love Is Strange."

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Ike & Tina Turner - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

Ike & Tina Turner

As husband and wife, Ike & Tina Turner headed up one of the most potent live acts on the R&B circuit during the '60s and early '70s. Guitarist and bandleader Ike kept his ensemble tight and well-drilled while throwing in his own distinctively twangy plucking; lead vocalist Tina was a ferocious whirlwind of power and energy, a raw sexual dynamo who was impossible to contain when she hit the stage, leading some critics to call her the first female singer to embody the true spirit of rock & roll. In their prime, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue specialized in a hard-driving, funked-up hybrid of soul and rock that, in its best moments, rose to a visceral frenzy that few R&B acts of any era could hope to match. Effusively praised by white rock luminaries like the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin, Tina was unquestionably the star of the show, with a hugely powerful, raspy voice that ranks among the all-time soul greats. For all their concert presence, the Turners sometimes had problems translating their strong points to record; they cut singles for an endless succession of large and small independent labels throughout their career, and suffered from a shortage of the strong original material that artists with more stable homes (Motown, Atlantic, Stax, etc.) often enjoyed. The couple's well-documented marital difficulties (a mild way of describing Ike's violent, drug-fueled cruelty) eventually dissolved their partnership in the mid-'70s. Tina, of course, went on to become an icon and a symbol of survival after the resurgence of her solo career in the '80s, but it was the years she spent with Ike that made the purely musical part of her legend.

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T-Rex - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

T-Rex  -  Discography

T. Rex were an English rock band, formed in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan. The band was initially called Tyrannosaurus Rex, and released four psychedelic folk albums under this name. In 1969, Bolan began to shift from the band's early acoustic sound to an electric one. The following year, he shortened their name to T. Rex. The 1970 release of the single "Ride a White Swan" marked the culmination of this development, and the group soon became a commercial success as part of the emerging glam rock scene.

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The Fireballs - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

The Fireballs

This New Mexican group was the primary exponent of the Tex-Mex sound in the instrumental rock & roll of the late '50s and early '60s, landing three Top 40 hits, "Torquay," "Bulldog," and "Quite a Party." Paced by the clean, economic guitar lines of George Tomsco, their moody, laconic arrangements and dextrous picking was similar in essential respects to the Ventures. The Fireballs, who used the same Norman Petty-run studio in Clovis, NM, as Buddy Holly, had a much more prominent "border" music feel to their melodies than the Ventures. The Ventures, on the other hand, had a much more full-bodied and versatile attack, accounting to a large degree for the Fireballs' comparatively slight place in history.

The Fireballs, who occasionally sang on their recordings, are actually much more famous for their controversial contributions to the Buddy Holly legacy. In the early '60s, in association with Petty (Holly's former producer and manager), they overdubbed some of Holly's demo tapes for posthumous release. Some Holly fans claim that these performances should have been left to stand as they were; Petty, and others, have claimed (dubiously) that they were only salvageable for commercial release via such overdubs.

In 1963, the Fireballs hooked up with singer Jimmy Gilmer. As Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs, they had one of the biggest hits of 1963 with a number-one smash lightweight-pop ditty, "Sugar Shack." A similar follow-up, "Daisy Petal Pickin'," made the Top 20, but the British Invasion wiped them out immediately. The Fireballs, sans Gilmer, made one last unexpected comeback in 1968, when their "Bottle of Wine" (featuring vocals by the group themselves) made the Top Ten.

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The Lovin' Spoonful - Collection - 320kbps Bitrate

The Lovin' Spoonful

Right on the tails of the Beau Brummels and the Byrds, the Lovin' Spoonful were among the first American groups to challenge the domination of the British Invasion bands in the mid-'60s. Between mid-1965 and the end of 1967, the group was astonishingly successful, issuing one classic hit single after another, including "Do You Believe in Magic?," "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice," "Daydream," "Summer in the City," "Rain on the Roof," "Nashville Cats," and "Six O'Clock."

1965 - Do you Believe In Magic
1966 - Daydream
1966 - Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful
1967 - The Best Of The Lovin' Spoonful
1967 - You're A Big Boy Now
1968 - Everything Playing
1969 - The Very Best of Lovin' Spoonful

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Len Barry - Discography - 320kbps Bitrate

Len Barry

Blue-eyed soul vocalist Len Barry paced several hits of the early '60s, both as a member of Dovells and as a solo act. Born in Philadelphia in 1942, he debuted on wax as the vocalist for the 1958 single "Mope-Itty Mope," as recorded by the Boss-Tones. He formed the group that became Dovells in 1957, and sang along on their Top Ten hits "The Bristol Stomp" and "You Can't Sit Down." Barry quit the group in late 1963 though, and soon signed with Decca as a solo act. The single "1-2-3" became a big hit in 1965, and just missed topping the charts. Amidst quickly changing times, however, Barry hit the Top 40 just twice more, with the early 1966 follow-ups "Like a Baby" and "Somewhere" (the latter from West Side Story). He continued performing his entertaining stage act, and later moved into production as well.

1964 - Len Barry Sings with The Dovells

1965 - 1-2-3

1967 - My Kind Of Soul

1981 - Len Barry's Greatest Hits - The Original Masters

2008 - Numero Uno

2009 - Len Barry

2016 - Black Like Me

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The Kinks - Discography 320 kbps Bitrate

The Kinks Discography

Although they weren't as boldly innovative as the Beatles or as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Who, the Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Like most bands of their era, the Kinks began as an R&B/blues outfit. Within four years, the band had become the most staunchly English of all their contemporaries, drawing heavily from British music hall and traditional pop, as well as incorporating elements of country, folk, and blues.

Arthur
Everybody's in Show-Biz
Face to Face 
Kinda Kinks
Kinks
Low Budget
Misfits
Muswell Hillbillies
One for the Road (Live)
Percy 
Picture Book
Preservation Act 1
Preservation Act 2
Sleepwalker
Something Else
Sunny Afternoon
The Anthology 1964 - 1971
The Kink Kontroversy
The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society 
The Kinks Greatest Hits!
The Ultimate Collection
You Really Got Me

1969 - Arthur

1972 - Everybody's in Show-Biz

1966 - Face to Face 

Kinda Kinks

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1964 - Kinks

Low Budget

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Misfits

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Muswell Hillbillies

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One for the Road (Live)

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Percy 

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Picture Book - [6 CDs] [1.10gb]

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Preservation Act 1

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Preservation Act 2

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Sleepwalker

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Something Else

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Sunny Afternoon

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The Anthology 1964 - 1971 [5 CDs] [1 Gb]

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The Kink Kontroversy

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The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society 

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The Kinks Greatest Hits!

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The Ultimate Collection

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You Really Got Me

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