{|NRBQ|} have frequently been described as America's Greatest Bar Band, but that says a bit more about their draw than the music they play. Active since 1966, {|NRBQ|} play music that fuses rock & roll, jazz of all stripes, vintage rhythm & blues, cl... Read more

{|NRBQ|} have frequently been described as America's Greatest Bar Band, but that says a bit more about their draw than the music they play. Active since 1966, {|NRBQ|} play music that fuses rock & roll, jazz of all stripes, vintage rhythm & blues, classic pop, country, standards, polkas, and anything else that strikes their fancy on a given night. {|NRBQ|} love to entertain, but despite the abundant joy and engaging melodies that pour out of their performances, there's nothing simple or easily classifiable about their work, which is why they play beer joints more often than more prestigious venues. {|High Noon: A 50-Year Retrospective|} is a five-disc set that celebrates the half-century since {|NRBQ|} first started making music, and it takes the time to embrace the group's body of work in all its marvelous complexity. In {|John DeAngelis|}' liner notes, he compares {|NRBQ|} to the {|Duke Ellington|} and {|Count Basie|} bands, and the metaphor is apt; while pianist, songwriter, and idea man {|Terry Adams|} has always been at the center of their music, {|NRBQ|} have been through plenty of transitions of personnel and outlook, and {|High Noon|} allows all of the different editions of the band to have their places in the timeline, reveling in their differences as well as their commonalities. The set opens with a disc covering the most recent chapter in {|NRBQ|}'s story, music {|Adams|} has made with new collaborators since 2005 (after the band briefly went on hiatus), and then jumps backward to the group's earliest days, eventually making its way to 2004 at the end of disc five. En route, {|High Noon|} delivers a delightfully exhaustive history of the band, sampling nearly all of {|NRBQ|}'s albums and lineups while folding in unreleased cuts, live tracks, and alternate takes that will give even the most zealous fans something new to enjoy. Plenty of box sets play like overgrown greatest-hits albums, but {|High Noon|} aims for something more ambitious and important. Compiler {|Cheryl Pawelski|} has instead curated a collection that makes a strong case for {|NRBQ|}'s place in the pantheon in American popular music, honoring their eclecticism and sophistication as well as their deep sense of fun. Even if you've been listening to the band for years, {|High Noon|} dazzles in its depth, and if this might seem daunting to a beginner, it's hard to imagine folks who love music at all not finding something here that will make them smile and tap their feet. In short, it's a box set just as special as {|NRBQ|} themselves. ~ Mark Deming Less