The Media Tourist

Skaggs & Hornsby pick and sing on live album collaboration

Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby

Cluck Ol’ Hen

CD ($11.99 / Skaggs Family Records)

Skaggs, the award-winning country-bluegrass picker, and Hornsby, the pop singing-and-songwriting pianist of “The Way It Is,” “Mandolin Rain” and “Every Little Kiss” fame, were touring together when they got the idea to record some of the tunes they tossed around every night on stage. This lively collection of live recordings is an exhilarating blend of their two distinctive styles on a 12-song stroll through a shared songbook of Bill Monroe classics, mountain music gems, instrumental improvisation and high-lonesome harmonies.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

Captures tour of 1976 at its zesty zenith

Rockshow

Paul McCartney

(Blu-ray $34.98, DVD $29.98 / Eagle Rock Entertainment)

McCartney and his post-Beatles band, Wings, took their show on the road in a massive 1976 tour that resulted back then in the double album “Wings Over America,” which generated the hit live version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” and also included performances of “Lady Madonna,” “Live and Let Die,” “My Love,” “Silly Love Songs,” “Band On The Run,” “Yesterday.” This documentary, originally released theatrically in 1980 as a pared-down version of the show, chronicles the tour during its stop at the Kingdome in Seattle. Now restored with additional footage to include the whole concert with remastered, remixed and restored video and sound, it’s a tune-filled time capsule of ’70s McCartney mania at its zesty zenith.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

Latin-pop superstar gives American songbook international spin

Gloria Estefan: The Standards

CD, $14.13 / Sony Masterworks

The Latin-pop crossover superstar covers tunes from the great American songbook, plus some international favorites, in this smooth, sexy, romantic spin around the musical globe. Singing in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and French, the former Miami Sound Machine lead singer respectfully reworks Dinah Washington’s “What a Difference a Day Makes,” Billie Holliday’s “Good Morning Heartache,” Fred Astaire’s “The Way You Look Tonight,” Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and Frank Sinatra’s “Young At Heart,” duets with Italian pop star Laura Pausini on silent-movie pioneer Charlie Chaplin’s iconic theme song “Smile,” and dusts off an Argentinean tune to which she and her husband danced at their wedding 22 years ago.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine