The Abduction of Figaro is a comic opera in three acts, described as "A Simply Grand Opera by P. D. Q. Bach", by Peter Schickele. It is a parody of opera in general, and the title is a play on two operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384, and The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492. Those two operas, as well as Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni, and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance are among the core inspirations for the piece. The Abduction of Figaro is numbered S. 384, 492 in Schickele's catalogue of works.
Help! is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack to their film of the same name. It was released on 6 August 1965 by Parlophone. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride", appeared in the film and take up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side includes "Yesterday", the most-covered song ever written. The album was met with favourable critical reviews and topped the Australian, German, British and American charts.
René Jacobs is a Belgian musician. He came to fame as a countertenor, but later in his career he became known as a conductor of baroque and classical opera.
Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records, and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch has developed into a label that records critically acclaimed music from a wide range of genres. Robert Hurwitz was president of the company from 1984 to 2017.
The Well-Tempered Synthesizer is the second studio album from the American musician and composer Wendy Carlos, originally released under her birth name Walter Carlos, in November 1969 on Columbia Masterworks Records. Following the success of her previous album, Switched-On Bach (1968), Carlos proceeded to record a second album of classical music performed on a modular Moog synthesizer from multiple composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, and George Frideric Handel. Its title is a play on words from Bach's set of preludes and fugues named The Well-Tempered Clavier.
"I Am a Rock" is a song written by Paul Simon. It was first performed by Simon alone as the opening track on his album The Paul Simon Songbook which he originally recorded and released in August 1965, only in the United Kingdom. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, as the American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, re-recorded it on December 14, 1965, and included as the final track on their album Sounds of Silence, which they released on January 17, 1966. It was released as a single in 1966, and subsequently included as the B-side of the 1971 A-side reissue of "The 59th Street Bridge Song ".
"Act Naturally" is a song written by Johnny Russell, with a writing credit given to Voni Morrison and publishing rights transferred to Buck Owens. It was originally recorded by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, whose version reached number one on the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1963, his first chart-topper. In 2002, Shelly Fabian of About.com ranked the song number 169 on her list of the Top 500 Country Music Songs.
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, pianist, and musicologist. He is currently a professor of music at Boston University. As a performer he has recorded music by composers from Antoine Busnois to Silvestre Revueltas, and as a scholar has published research on composers from the Renaissance to the 20th century.
A Bit of Liverpool, released as With Love (From Us to You) in the UK, is the third studio album by the Supremes, released in the fall of 1964 on the Motown label. It was produced by Berry Gordy with Hal Davis and Marc Gordon doing the mixing.
In My Life is the fifth studio album by American singer and songwriter Judy Collins, released by Elektra Records in 1966. It peaked at No. 46 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts in 1967.
Peter Schickele Presents an Evening with P. D. Q. Bach (1807–1742)? was the first concert of and the first release of the music of Peter Schickele under his comical pseudonym of P. D. Q. Bach by Vanguard Records. The chamber orchestra was conducted by Jorge Mester. The album consists of musical parodies with commentaries by the composer.
Black Forest Bluegrass is a recording of the music of Peter Schickele under his comic pseudonym of P. D. Q. Bach, featuring the composer and "a bluegrass band with a Baroque orchestra, a wind octet with toys, a commercial with a snake — this album has it all!" The album was released on Vanguard Records in 1979.
Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities was released in 1990 by Telarc Records. The album contains works by Peter Schickele under his alter-ego of P. D. Q. Bach and won a 1990 Grammy Award for 'Best Comedy Performance'.
"Got Your Money" is a song by American rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard, released in 1999 as the only single from his second studio album, Nigga Please. Both the single and the album were the last to be released by Ol' Dirty Bastard, before his death in 2004. The song, produced by the Neptunes, features American R&B singer Kelis, who sings the chorus. It marked her first appearance on record, before the release of her debut single the following month. "Got Your Money" is listed at number 255 on NME's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", published in 2014.
The Shadow of Your Smile is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis, released in 1966 by Mercury Records.
Piano Rags by Scott Joplin is an album by Joshua Rifkin consisting of ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin, released by Nonesuch Records in 1970. The spine of the original album and various compact disc reissues render the title as Scott Joplin: Piano Rags.
Beatle Country is the fourth and final studio album by the American bluegrass band Charles River Valley Boys, released in November 1966 by Elektra Records. Where the Charles River Valley Boys' previous albums consisted of traditional and new bluegrass and some early country songs, Beatle Country contains only covers of the Beatles. The band and several session musicians completed the album at Columbia's studio in Nashville, Tennessee, across four days in September 1966. Paul A. Rothchild and Peter K. Siegel produced the album, with Glenn Snoddy as audio engineer.
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American folk-rock band which was originally active between 1964 and 1968. During their original tenure, they released five studio albums, two soundtrack albums, four compilation albums, and fourteen singles in the United States. Between October 1965 and January 1967, their first-seven singles reached the Top Ten in the United States on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, and the magazine's 1966 end-of-year issue ranked the group as that year's third-best-performing singles artist, after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Though the Lovin' Spoonful achieved success during the transition to the album era, they and their label remained focused on the singles market; the group's 1966 album Daydream was their only studio album to break the Top Ten of the Billboard Top LPs chart, and its performance was bested only by a 1967 compilation album, The Best of the Lovin' Spoonful, which RIAA certified for gold that year. The Lovin' Spoonful saw diminished success in 1967, when only two of their singles entered the top twenty in the U.S. Following further chart disappointments, the group disbanded in 1968.
Transformer is the only album by American musician David Stoughton, released in December 1968 by Elektra Records. Produced by Stoughton, the album is a mix of folk and pop songwriting with sound collages and musique concrète. The musician had drawn influence from composer John Cage and created the group The Cambridge Electric Opera Company to explore electronic and traditionally-based music; although the group perform on the album, it was credited to Stoughton alone to avoid confusion with fellow Elektra band Earth Opera.
