Album

Comprehensive 'official bootleg' four-CD set compiled by Robbie Krieger

Superior then-and-now compilation ensures the circle remains unbroken

Premier league rap producer makes his dazzling solo debut

Mixed bag from McGuinn's immediate post-Byrds career

Moody Blues man's mid-'70s missives, produced mostly during the group's five-year break

After 2002's storming Hollerin' At A Woodpecker, Minnesota-based Weaver's latest compounds his promise. The song, essentially, remains the same—chilly steel, sparse banjo, stroked acoustic—but these vignettes sound like gutter-pulpit sermons in a disturbed netherworld. Weaver's voice—which makes Lee Marvin sound like Aled Jones—lends biblical portent to the most mundane detail. Standout track "John Martin"—its protagonist duped by a sinister drifter—is claustrophobic as hell. A one-man Brothers Grimm with no happy endings. Enjoy.

Hushed, vivid, wonderful Southern folk

First time on CD for vanished 1972 solo album by leader of The Strawbs, featuring Rick Wakeman and Roger Glover

The mould-breaking Nashville singer-songwriter gets a marvellous best-of

Already touted as the next big thing, this 26-year-old Idaho native retains the folk-country purr of first album Golden Age Of Radio, and there's an obvious debt to Dylan in the subtle phrasing. Mostly set to quietly rolling acoustic guitar—with Sam Kassirer's Hammond adding an Al Kooper-like undertow—Hello Starling casts Ritter in the same wry glow as early Jackson Browne or James Taylor. Celtic ballad "Kathleen" proves he's fully assimilated the traditional, and the lovely "Wings" was recently covered by Joan Baez.