Lot 51BEE GEES-SPIRITS HAVING FLOWN-1979-FIRST PRESS -JAPAN-RSO-NMINT/NMINT

ARABESQUE-ARABESQUE-1978-THE FIRST SCANDINAVIA-TALENT-TLS3051 PRESS.  A very rare Scandinavian original of the first album of disco giants. Arabesque I (Friday Night) is the debut studio album by the West German disco band Arabesque. It was released in 1978 on EMI Electrola in Germany and on Victor Record in Japan. The Arabesque disco group was founded in 1977 (registered in the German city of Offenbach in a recording studio owned by legendary producer Frank Farian). At that time, there was a fashion in Europe for "girl groups” in which female vocals were dominant: Baccara, ABBA, Boney M. The debut album of the Arabesque trio was recorded with the following line-up: Karen Ann Tepperis, Michaela Rose and Mary Ann Nagel. After recording the first record, Tepperis and Nagel left the band, and Jasmin Vetter and Heike Rimbeau became new members of the trio. In 1979, Arabesque joined the seventeen-year-old and still unknown Sandra Lauer, who replaced vocalist Heike Rimbeau. Sandra immediately became an informal leader in the band - in the vast majority of songs, the main vocals belonged to her. Arabesque were very popular in Japan; in Europe, however, until the release of "Marigot Bay" in 1980, the band could not boast of "frenzied" success. After that, they gained real popularity, but they never rose to the "Japanese" level. I must say that the girls from the group complemented each other surprisingly precisely: they seemed to represent "three elements", three different types - dark-skinned Southerner Michaela, blonde Northerner Jasmine and, finally, Sandra with her "Japanese" cut of the eyes.In 1984, Sandra's five-year contract to work at Arabesque expired. She, with the support of her future husband Michael Cretu, decides to start a solo career, and the band, which rose due to Sandra's talent, ceases to exist. In the same year, the band's last album "Time To Say Good Bye" was released. Michaela Rose and Jasmine Vetter, trying not to miss their chance, create a new band called Rouge, but it was not successful. Rouge disbanded in 1988. Popularity in the USSR. Despite the lack of popularization of disco in the Soviet media, it had a lot of fans in the USSR. Arabesque were one of the favorite bands in Soviet discos. The popularity of the band was so great that in 1984 the Melodiya company released a record with ten songs from different albums. The record quickly became, as they said at the time, "scarce", and it could only be bought with a huge overpayment. Most of the band's songs were distributed across the country in tape recordings. In 1989, in the wake of Perestroika, Sandra was invited to Moscow, where she was greeted by a full house of enthusiastic fans. Arabesque songs are still often heard on Russian radio in retro programs dedicated to the 1980s. ...more

QUEEN-SHEER HEART ATTACK-1974-FIRST PRESS UK-EMI - EMC3061. Of the matrix A-4U/B-4U. A rare British original. The first fame, as well as commercial success, came to the group with this record, and the song "Killer Queen" became their first big hit, reaching number two in England. The album itself also reached number two in the UK and number 12 on the 1975 Billboard charts. ...more

URIAH HEEP-FIREFLY-1977-THE FIRST JAPAN-BRONZE P-10312B PRESS. A very rare Japanese original of a cult album. Firefly is the 10th studio album by the British rock band Uriah Heep, released in February 1977 on Bronze Records in the UK and Warner Bros. Records in the USA. It was the band's first album without David Byron, the former lead vocalist and also one of the band's founding members, replaced by John Lawton. Bassist Trevor Boulder made his debut with Uriah Heep on this album and, apart from an 18-month hiatus in the early 1980s, he was a member of this band until his death in 2013. The album was successful and placed in the top 20 charts in Europe. It ranks 166th in the Billboard 200 rock Albums of All Time. ...more

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA-A NEW WORLD RECORD -1976-ORIGINAL PRESS 1977 JAPAN-UA-GP-530. A rare Japanese original of the cult album. A New World Record is the sixth studio album by the British band Electric Light Orchestra, released in September 1976. The album was remastered and re-released in 2006 with the addition of six bonus tracks. A New World Record became the band's first album to reach the top ten in the UK (the previous three albums had great success in the USA, but not in the homeland of the musicians). The album was certified platinum in both the UK and the USA, and sold five million copies in the first year after its release. Like the previous album, A New World Record was recorded at Munich's Musicland Studios. ...more

STYX-CORNERSTONE-1979-THE FIRST UK-AM-AMLK63711 PRESS. A rare British original. Styx is the ninth studio album by the American rock band Styx, released in 1979."Cornerstone" became Styx's third consecutive multi-platinum album and the first album to be nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group category. As with the previous four Styx albums, the band produced this album themselves. Styx recorded the album at Pumpkin Studios in Oak Lawn, Illinois. "Cornerstone" is best known for featuring the band's only song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the powerful ballad "Babe". The album also includes the folk-rock song "Boat on the River", which became a hit in Europe but did not chart in the United States. Cornerstone became Styx's first album to enter the top 5 in the United States, hitting Billboard on October 13, 1979 and peaking at number 2 in late November. ...more