Harmonia Mundi is well known for elegant and comprehensive classical box sets and their new Sacred Music limited edition is no exception. Plus, given the subject matter, it’s perfectly timed for this part of the year. Spanning a staggering 29 discs, the set covers all manner of, you guessed it, sacred music from the Gregorian chants of early music up to the 20th century masses of Leonard Bernstein and Francis Poulenc. There’s also an in-depth book and a PDF disc containing all the tests of the music. Highlights include the full Handel’s “Messiah” and Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis”, but the star of the collection is an utterly transcendent version of Mozart’s “Requiem” that argues the case for this being among the finest works of music ever created by a human being.

What do you get when you add 22 Billboard Top 20 singles, six number ones, six platinum albums, plus another six gold LPs? You get the pop music duo, Daryl Hall and John Oates, of course. Their sweet rock ‘n’ roll / rhythm ‘n’ blues, ‘chicken soup for the soul’ sound is captured here in 74 songs on four disks (including 16 previously unreleased cuts). Hall and Oates provide commentary from their interviews with Ken Sharp. Between the Mileys and Lil’ Waynes, the music of Daryl Hall and John Oates has made a come-back of sorts as new fans discover their tunes, but this is for the ‘mid-lifer on your list who really knows what good music is.

Best live album ever? Who cares. What is beyond dispute is that 1970’s Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out is certainly the best live album the Rolling Stones ever recorded. And here we are, 40 years after the concerts took place in NYC at Madison Square Garden. World’s Greatest Band + World’s Greatest Stage = Deluxe Box Set! What are we looking at here? The original, remastered album? Check. Six unreleased tracks? Check. Bonus disc of opening acts B.B. King and Ike & Tina Turner? Check. Bonus DVD mixing live songs and offstage antics? Check. Obligatory booklet with critical essays and never-before seen photos? Check. Caveat emptor: for anyone thinking of shelling out $40-to-$60, be warned that the extra Stones material and the DVD are both less than 30 minutes in length. For Stones enthusiasts, this newly unearthed bounty is essential and price should be no object.

It has been called “the single most important day in the career” of Johnny Cash. The date was January 13, 1968, a year that will forever go down in infamy in American history on account of the shocking assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, not to mention the infamous Tet Offensive. January 13, 1968 was the day Cash stepped through the gates of the notorious Northern California maximum security prison at Folsom—flanked by his ever-present entourage of his then-fiancee June Carter, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and his longtime backing band the Tennessee Three, as well as a posse of suits from Columbia Records, including legendary house producer Bob Johnston—to perform before a mess hall of inmates. There were two performances that day, one at 9:40 am and the other around lunchtime. Both shows were recorded by Johnston and his crew, although the first show was exclusively used for the official record, after Johnston felt that Cash didn’t quite deliver with the same fire the second time around. But now, for the first time, both sets have been made available as part of this beautiful Legacy Edition , along with an informative DVD with a documentary on Cash’s trip to Folsom, featuring interviews with Roseanne Cash, Merle Haggard, Marty Stuart, and several former inmates who attended the iconic concert.

The estate of Alan Lomax, Haitan scholar, and the Library of Congress have joined forces to produce a chronicle of Lomax’s 1936 Haitan recording expedition in collaboration with The Association for Cultural Equity. Along with 10 CDs of recordings of Haitian musicians, the set also includes two books. One, the field journal of Lomax and a hard-bound set of liner notes and essays detailing and translating all the songs in the set. This scholarly collection of the American folklorist and ethnomusicologist’s work in Haiti will be a special gift for hard-core folk music fans.