As I am still recovering from my holiday bug and feeling better but wiped out, I have had a bit of a TV Fest this weekend and been catching up with some recorded programmes. Last night watched another 'list' show [which I usually give a miss]James Bond's Greatest Hits.

It wasn't bad and included interviews with Don Black, Hal David and Mr John Barry. Was dissapointed that my all time fave, You Only Live Twice was way down the list and very surprised that Thurderball wavered at the bottom also.

I did predict Goldfinger would be top of the list, and I was right!

Best bit was Rita Coolidge saying [tongue in cheek] that 'once you are a Bond girl/singer you are special'.

By the way - have ssen Casinbo Royale and though it was the perfect Bond for 2006 but it has the most unforgettable song by Chris Cornell but a good score by David Arnold. You know you are in re-structured and updated territory when Bond orders a martini and is asked if he wanted it shaken or stirred and he replies; 'do I look like I give a damn!'

This new album from Sting is wonderfully atmospheric. In the very generous sleevenotes he says that it had been put to him that his 'unschooled tenor' would suit John Dowlands 16th century songs. I feel it is a brave and bold thing to record and applaud all musicians and singers who go into unknown territory - but the limitations of his voice does show here. Not so much in the range which he does manage to acheive, but in the phrasing which I just could not take seriously from someone with such a rock pedigree.

But Edin Karamazov's lute playing is sublime and the CD is worth buying just for this.

Stings readings of Dowlands letters are very flat which is also another minus. Again, with reference to the sleeve notes, he writes of music; '...it's strange power over our lives, it's infinate possibilities, and it's mystery.'

I am not sure that I will listen to this very often but I am glad I have it in my collection as I think I have every album Sting has done.

Explanation of title: Sting was given a lute as a gift and the design in the centre of it is a labyrinth.

I caught up on BBC's fab Listen Again option, with a documentary on Dusty Springfields classic album DUSTY IN MEMPHIS. How good it is that somehwere [and you do have search a little]there are still shows being recorded of depth and value and in this instance, a whole hour devoted to just one album. They should consider making this format a weekly show.

It is well researched and presented and made me want to listen to the whole album again which I duly did. This is probably a well known fact but it was the first time I had heard it - Dusty was so intimidated by the superb line up of producers and musicians who were working with her on the album, that she actually couldn't overcome her nerves in the Memphis studio's and so did not sing at all in Memphis. She cut the vocal tracks in New York. Somehow DUSTY IN NEW YORK doesn't really make for a great title does it?

Dusty's manager said something profound during the show and that was that she considered Dusty's voice to be a sound, a unique sound more than a unique voice; she said that Barbara Streisand was a vocalist and that Dusty wasn't - she was a sound.

The album was released in 1968, I have a remastered copy on CD which was released in 1995. It flopped upon it's release, probably because of the diversity of the tracks and the deep, soul groove she really wanted to record which were very different from the 'pop' songs in her recordings so far, and did so brilliantly. But the album has now become, and deservedly so, a classic. The textures in her voice on this album show us everything Dusty could be.

Son Of A Preacher Man is the key track and she makes it a very believable track. She uses a higher register on the complex Bacharach song In The Land Of Make Believe. Dusty was a great Carole King fan and proved this by including 5 Goffin/King track - Don't Forget About Me being the most soulful.

The racy and ultimately sexy Breakfast In Bed works really well but one of my faves is a very early Randy Newman track called Just One Smile. For me, she sings the ultimate version of Windmills Of Your Mind here, slowing it down a little, making the words mean more. On Willie & Laura Mae Jones you can really hear her getting into the full Mowtown groove. And it ends with a perfect rocking track What Do You Do When Love Dies.

Age does not wither this album whatsoever - it is flawless.