José Feliciano

Coming off the awesome and well-deserved success of "Light My Fire" Jose Feliciano was given more free rein and a larger budget to work with at RCA, and he uses it to his full advantage on 10 to 23. The album opens with an archival recording of a very young (ten years old) Feliciano performing a Mariachi number. It's scratchy, funky, and completely charming. The rest of the album features some of the finer pop songs of the day and shows Feliciano to be one of the great interpreters of his time. The instrumental of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" will pull at your heartstrings, and the theme from "A Thomas Crown Affair," "The Windmills of Your Mind" is equally impressive. There is also a great blues, "Little Red Rooster," which is read in the unequaled Feliciano style. All in all, it's an awesome record. ~ Matthew Greenwald