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These recently released CD's and books are sure to please any
Seventies music fan on your shopping list this holiday season.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Letter To You ( Columbia $11.99) With 12 tracks and a healthy, almost one-hour running time, Letter To You is Springsteen's 20th studio album and his first reunion with the E Street Band since their 2016 "The River" tour . The LP, the follow-up to his 2019 release Western Stars , features nine songs written recently by The Boss, plus new versions of previously-unreleased compositions from the 1970s, "Janey Needs a Shooter," "If I Was the Priest," and "Song for Orphans. Letter to You was co-produced by Springsteen and Ron Aniello at Springteen's home studio in New Jersey, and features the previously-released songs "Ghosts" and the LP's title track. * * * * 1/2

PAUL McCARTNEY - McCartney III ( Capitol, $13.98) The third album in his 50-year-spanning "McCartney" series, McCartney III hits stores on Dec. 11. In a statement, Sir Paul said he hadn't intended to release a new album in 2020, but during the "isolation of 'Rockdown', he soon found himself fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating even more new ones." The COVID-19 quarantine resulted in what Macca described as a "stripped back, self-produced and, quite literally, solo work marking the opening of a new decade." Paul says he recorded McCartney III earlier in 2020 at his home in Sussex, England, and like it's predecessors McCartney (1970) and McCartney II (1980), it's built from mostly live takes of himself on vocals, guitar and piano, with overdubbed bass and drumming. The session found him revisiting an unreleased track from the 1990s, "When Winter Comes," which was transformed into album opener "Long Tailed Winter Bird." * * * *

BOB DYLAN - Rough And Rowdy Ways ( Columbia, $13.72) Another apocalypse -- another side of Bob Dylan. The man really knows how to pick his moments. Dylan has brilliantly timed his new masterpiece for a summer when the hard rain is falling all over the nation: a plague, a quarantine, revolutionary action in the streets. Rough and Rowdy Ways is his first batch of new songs in eight years, and it's an absolute classic -- it has the bleak majesty of latter-day Dylan albums like Modern Times and Tempest, yet it goes beyond them, tapping even deeper into cosmic American mysteries. * * * * 1/2

GRATEFUL DEAD - Workingman's Dead: The Angel's Share - Deluxe Edition ( Grateful Dead Production, $28.49) Pegged to the 50th anniversary of one of their totemic LP's, Workingman's Dead: The Angel's Share is the first time the band has given us an exhaustive overview of its studio process. These two and a half hours of previously unreleased tapes allow us to finally hear Jerry and Co. at work, honing every song on their pivotal, roots-centric album: Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir practice the chord changes to "Uncle John's Band"; Weir works out his guitar part in "Casey Jones"; the late Ron "Pigpen" McKernan leads everyone through more than half a dozen slightly different, sometimes eerie takes of his showcase "Easy Wind"; and the band members attempt, over 11 tries, to nail a satisfactory version of "New Speedway Boogie." It all demonstrates what they could accomplish when practice and focus were as important as toking. * * * *

TOM PETTY - Wildflowers & All The Rest ( Warner Bros., $49.98) In 1994, at the age of 44, Tom Petty debuted his finest collection. Wildflowers is the diary of a man who, as he sings on "To Find a Friend," "in the middle of his life/ He left his wife/ And ran off to be bad" -- but it's not what he intended to release. In the early stages of a divorce and a heroin addiction, Petty spent two years with producer Rick Rubin. The songs, which feel like unhurried batches of self-dialogue, just kept coming. Yet Warner Bros. Records deemed it criminally long. In 2017, he spoke about releasing his initial vision; unfortunately, as we know now, he would run out of time. The sprawling deluxe set includes the ten tracks left off the original LP, plus never-before-released home demos and recordings from Heartbreakers shows. It's a triumph we can only hope Petty enjoys from behind the shimmery screen. * * * * 1/2

THE ROLLING STONES - Goat's Head Soup - Deluxe Edition ( Interscope, $18.59) The Rolling Stones' often-derided 1973 album now feels like a beautiful murky step toward adulthood. Goat's Head Soup - The Deluxe Edition features the new stereo album mix, sourced from the original session files and three previously unreleased tracks -- "Scarlet," "All The Rage," and "Criss Cross." * * * * 1/2

CAT STEVENS - Tea For The Tillerman 2 ( A&M, $13.58) Yusuf re-recorded his 1970 classic Tea for the Tillerman earlier in 2020 to mark its 50th anniversary. The multi-platinum original album, which included the classic "Wild World," as well as "Where Do the Children Play" and "Father and Son," catapulted the 22-year-old musician to global stardom and helped define the singer/songwriter era. "Not that I'm going to try to beat it or compete with it, but at least make it relevant to me today so the people can hear me singing it all over, but with some very interesting and new novel arrangements on some of the songs at least," Yusuf says. "If you do a masterpiece, people always want to see you do it again. That's another reason why I'm doing it because I'm satisfying that part of the curiosity of people to see how would I approach it today." * * * * 1/2

NEIL YOUNG - Homegrown ( Reprise, $13.99) Back in 1974, Neil Young recorded what his label was absolutely sure would be an album stacked with hits. Young was certainly in the market for a few -- Time Fades Away and On the Beach , his two previous LPs, hadn't fared well with fans. But Homegrown, a de facto musical companion to 1972's Harvest written in the wake of his break-up with girlfriend Carrie Snodgress, was never released -- until now. Seven of the songs are previously unreleased on any album, and different versions of the other five songs would appear on later Neil Young albums. Neil plays guitar, piano and harmonica on the album, and is accompanied by a stellar group of musicians including Levon Helm, Ben Keith, Karl T Himmel, Tim Drummond, Emmylou Harris and Robbie Robertson. * * * * 1/2

THE DOORS - Morrison Hotel - Deluxe Edition ( Elektra Catalog Group, $49.49) This 2-CD/LP 50th anniversary edition of The Doors' acclaimed 1970 album Morrison Hotel features a newly remastered record by the band's longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick. The release also includes over 60 minutes of unreleased studio outtakes of the band's fifth studio LP. "There are many takes, different arrangements, false starts, and insightful studio conversations between the band and producer Paul Rothchild who was in the control room," Botnick says. "It's like being a fly on the wall." * * * * *

THE DECADE THAT ROCKED - Mark Weiss ( Insight Editions, $44.04) As a teenager, photographer Mark Weiss used to sneak his camera into concerts and later sell the pictures that he took to fans. He stopped in the late Seventies after spending a night in jail for hawking shots of Kiss; once out, he brought his portfolio to Circus magazine, which bought one of his photos of Aerosmith. Before long, he was on the front lines of the Eighties' hard-rock revolution. Now he's looking back on the big-hair era in The Decade That Rocked, which includes a forward by Judas Priest's Rob Halford. * * * * *

Five decades after its release, singer-songwriter Yusuf/Cat Stevens rerecorded
his seminal 1970 album 'Tea For The Tillerman'. Here, he breaks the new and
old versions down, track by track.

By Jordan Runtagh in Entertainment Weekly

1 / "Where Do The Children Play?" This song has become even more vivid as a statement of what our world is going through: "Will you tell us when to live?/ Will you tell us when to die?" That's not far off.

2 / "Hard Headed Woman"
I've amended the lyrics [for Tea for the Tillerman 2 ]. Instead of "I'm looking for my hardheaded woman," I say, "I've found my hardheaded woman." That's my reality now with my wife.

3 / "Wild World"
"Wild World" is probably the biggest departure [on the new album]. I imagine it as part of Casablanca, where Humphrey Bogart is in that bar. It's got a '40s tilt to it.

4 / "Sad Lisa" Looking at the oncome [onset] of lonesome individuals experiencing virtual life, this song seems to have growing relevance. It's about a sweet girl called Lisa who came to work in our home in 1969. I captured the spirit of her loneliness.

5 / "Miles From Nowhere" [This song] defines where I was at that time. I can't say I'm at that place anymore, but that doesn't mean there are no mountains to climb. Once you've started this search for higher meaning, that never stops.... That's [still] me in the song. That's my bones.

6 / "But I Might Die Tonight" Corporate companies are getting bigger and more monstrous. If you don't belong to a company, you're in the danger zone. This song is talking about people who feel their life is in somebody else's hands.

7 / "Longer Boats"
I gave "Longer Boats" a new twist [on Tillerman 2 ]. You hear the original folkie intro, and then... we break into this James Brown explosion. I've always loved R&B, so I just experimented with that.

8 / "Into White" This is one of my favorite songs on the album, and always has been. It's a very folkie tune. It paints a picture, which I always tried to do. [It's] my van Gogh tribute in a way.

9 / "On the Road to Find Out" [This song] almost foretold what was going to happen to me and my [faith]. "Yes, the answer lies within, so why not take a look now?/ Kick out the devil's sin. Pick up a good book now." Before I received any book, I was writing about this book that was going to change my life. And wow.

10 / "Father and Son" The song is a testament to the differences we represent to each other, especially in age and traditions. Traditions have a big impact on our lives, and sometimes you've got to walk away.

11 / "Tea for the Tillerman"
The [ Tillerman 2 ] cover depicts a new scene, where the kids are playing with their phones. Yet the Tillerman is a constant, drinking his tea in a space suit because he's prepared for whatever. Pollution is affecting this world, and he's still optimistic. In the last words of that song, he's reaching out for a happy day. I love that song. And I love the Tillerman. 

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