London,

CDs of the week

Simon and Garfunkel: A cornerstone of 20th-century American songwriting

Various: Zooming in on San Francisco

Pink Floyd: A somewhat wistful pop group

Bireli Lagrene: Returning to his Django roots

Womad: Conjures memories of baking summers

A bumper collection from Simon and Garfunkel and some prog rock from Pink Floyd are among the CDs of the week.

POP
Simon and Garfunkel
The Collection (Sony BMG)
*****
Not all box sets are lavish: this one doesn't even bother with a booklet. No matter, its simple premise works well enough and The Collection features all five Simon & Garfunkel albums (each with extra tracks) and a DVD of their 1981 Central Park reunion concert. The scope, scale and emotionally charged literacy of the classics - The Sound Of Silence, Mrs Robinson, Bridge Over Troubled Water - still dazzle, but the pair's hinterland is a fascinating place to visit, be it the genuinely peculiar So Long Frank Lloyd Wright, the joyous The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) and He Was My Brother, a better class of protest song. A cornerstone of 20th-century American songwriting and vocal harmonising. JOHN AIZLEWOOD

Various
Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 (Rhino)
****
The original Nuggets double LP of underground rock and psychedelia was essential listening for future punks in the early Seventies. Now the concept has expanded to become a series of luxurious CD box sets aimed at well-off fiftysomethings.

Aspiring musicians, however, should still dig in. Having showcased obscurities from all over the world in past collections, this fourth set of Nuggets zooms in on the epicentre of the late-Sixties counterculture, San Francisco. Big names such as Santana, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead are all represented over four discs, but there's equally worth cuts from long forgotten longhairs including the Mojo Men and the Frumious Bandersnatch. The hardback book is gorgeous too. DAVID SMYTH

Pink Floyd
Oh By the Way (EMI)
***
The offhand title conceals a massive box containing every note and squeak Pink Floyd have perpetrated. The original record sleeves have been miniaturised to CD size, which is cute but renders much information illegible. And there is no accompanying booklet. This leaves us with the music which traces a path from early psychedelia to latter day pomp and portent - The Final Cut, from 1983, is a particularly dismal affair. What does emerge after protracted listening is that, beneath all the bombast and David Gilmour's monolithic guitar, Pink Floyd were a somewhat wistful pop group engaged in a frequently successful search for effective melodies. Try anything on the Harvest label, which, back in the early Seventies was a guarantee of decent prog rock. PETE CLARK

JAZZ
Bireli Lagrene Gipsy Project
Just the Way You Are (Dreyfus Jazz)
****
Skilful, cheerful and rhythmically buoyant, gipsy jazz has the right holiday vibe and nobody does it better than French virtuoso Biréli Lagrène. Having absorbed contemporary guitar technique in search of modernism, the former child prodigy returns to his Django roots with these Continental allstars, featuring saxman Franck Wolf and rhythm guitarist Hono Winterstein. In their hands Elvis's ballad Love Me Tender and Billy Joel's title track adapt perfectly to the Hot-Club ethos. Older standards like Flamingo, After You've Gone, It's Impossible and All of Me (with a Lagrène vocal) receive similarly canny makeovers, and See You in My Dreams is a real dazzler. JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
Music & Rhythm: Womad 1982-2007 (Womad)
*****
During the winter chill, this excellent compilation conjures memories of baking summers - even if this year's Womad festival was a muddy quagmire. The 3CDs on this box set look back over 25 years of Womad, from Shepton Mallet in 1982 with Echo and The Bunnymen on stage with the Drummers of Burundi, the Bhundu Boys at a farm near Bristol in 1986, Ali Farka Touré on a Cornish beach in 1988 and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at Womadelaide in 1995. The most recent recording is from 2006, so maybe nothing escaped the mud of 2007. The pictures in the accompanying booklet are a reminder of how benign the weather usually is and how popular Womad has become - with 96,000 people at the festival in San Francisco. SIMON BROUGHTON

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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