005 OZZY OSBOURNE RANDY RHOADS-TRIBUTE

Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist Randy Rhoads was a technical genius on his instrument, but that's only half the story. Rhoads shaped the direction of Osbourne's first two post-Sabbath recordings, Diary of a Madman and Blizzard of Ozz, which still stand as his best solo studio albums. Rhoads also was capable of pulling the best out of Osbourne onstage, a notable accomplishment in itself. This live set was released five years after Rhoads's death in a bizarre plane accident, and it's still a striking reminder of what was lost. Osbourne and company run through the Blizzard album in its entirety, adding a few tunes from Diary, and the Sabbath classics "Iron Man," "Children of the Grave," and "Paranoid." The highlights are Rhoads's guitar freakout on "Suicide Solution" and studio outtakes of his solo acoustic showcase, "Dee." --Daniel Durchholz

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003 LED ZEPPELIN-BBC SESSIONS

Frequently bootlegged and now digitally remastered by Jimmy Page, these tapes capture a 25-month (1969 to 1971) arc in which Zep's sound grew to encompass the speed rush and jazz/blues festival stuff of their 1969 debut, the fully developed folkie musings of "Going to California" (in which Plant vowed to make a hejira right up to Joni Mitchell's front door), and the band's modestly popular multilayered epic "Stairway to Heaven." The Sessions also give a glimpse of nearly off-the-cuff invention in an intense take on Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues." Most other white blues musicians would've rushed to get this on vinyl; Page and Plant instead used it for parts, most notably taking its profound acoustic freneticism for Led Zeppelin III. --Rickey Wright amazon.com

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