TOMORROW ON OUTQ: HENDRIX, MARLEY, MICHAEL AND SPECTOR

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, you can hear me (almost) every Wednesday morning at 9 am ET on the SiriusXM Channel OutQ on the show The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. Every week I talk about music. Surprise!

The last few weeks, I've been pretty Grammy focused. Tomorrow, I'm talking about older music.  I mean, hey, if you still have those Amazon or iTunes or Barnes & Noble gift cards, you wanna use them, right?  (And if you have a Borders gift card, you really want use that one sooner rather than later!). Here's some ideas on what to use them on.

Last year, Sony Legacy released a new Jimi Hendrix box set, West Coast Seattle Boy. 4 CDs and a DVD, but it's mainly for the aficionados, I wrote a review of it here.  It's mostly hard-to-find stuff (disc 1 is all music from his days as a sideman) and alternate versions.

Bob Marley & The Wailers' Live Forever on Universal, is a recording of the man's final concert, recorded in September of 1980, just months before he died. It's pretty powerful stuff, although the sound quality starts to crap out towards the end.

Sony has also just re-released George Michael's 1987 album, Faith. Because of many reasons, people have forgotten that in 1987, he was really big - he was a peer of Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson. This reissue reminds you why.  Disc 1 features the album, Disc 2 is B-sides and dance remixes and Disc 3 is a DVD with an interview from the era, a doc on his Faith tour and his music videos from the album. If you're a George Michael fan, you should definitely pick this up.

Finally, it seems that Sony has acquired the Phil Spector catalog, and they are releasing single CD compilations from some of his artist.  Tomorrow I'll have best of albums by The Ronettes and The Crystals.

GEORGE MICHAEL AND MARY J. - NICE "AS"

A couple of years ago I was in a store somewhere, and over the soundsystem I heard what is maybe my favorite Stevie Wonder song ever: "As." It was a duet by, quite obviously, George Michael and Mary J. Blige. I found out it was only available as a very expensive import. I was like, "I want it, but not that bad."

Years later, I asked George Michael about it. I like his solo cover of Stevie's "I Believe When I Fall In Love (It Will Be Forever)," and told him so, and asked if "As" would ever be released. He said he hoped it would be in the U.S. at some point. So, now it is coming out on a new best-of that he has coming out.

I watched the video at VH1.com, and I still like their version of the song. It's not nearly as good as the original, but how could it hope to be? Still, if it brings more attention to the very underrated "As," and more people get turned on to it, then great.