Don Barnes - Ride The Storm (1989)

♫

My favorite things to post, must be the unreleased albums. I mean really, that's as good as it gets, even if the music isn't always as good as what you know the artist is capable of. And sometimes it is as good as you hope it would be. For all you 38 Special fans, here is the unreleased Don Barnes album from 1989. And every bit as good as you would expect. Since Don has always been the main provider of 38 Special songs, it should come as no surprise that his music bears heavy similarities to Donnie van Zant's band. Don has been responsible for their biggest hits and has a knack for writing commercial songs of good quality. And this album is just full of that. I guess it leans even more towards straight-up AOR than any 38 Special album, but this is well worth your attention. (I found myself in the kitchen singing Foreigner lyrics to one of the songs here ;-) I'm not too crazy about the quality and I bet there might be better copies out there hiding from us. Someone tried to clean up the sound by using standard noise filters which, I'm afraid, didn't do it a world of good. Then a gain, it didn't do a world of hurt either, so I won't complain. I'm happy I get to listen to this! If you're up for some quality Southern AOR, grab your chance and ride the storm!

Cooper Brothers - Learning To Live With It (1981)

♫

The Cooper Brothers were a Canadian Southern Rock band. Or rather, are a Canadian Southern Rock band, since they apparently are still around doing their thing. Their thing way back in the 70's included releasing two albums for the Capricorn label. Pretty good yet very smooth albums, which should please fans of 38 Special and Thunder. This album is much less known (graciously provided by my good buddy Mawos) and is quite a treat. Actually quite a bit tougher than the Capricorn albums. Good songs, nice harmonies and a pretty good performance. So, try this. You won't have no trouble learning to live with it.

All about Bryan Cole by Scott Freeman

Excellent article - very informative - about the late Bryan Cole by Scott Freeman on ArtsATL.com