Wes Montgomery

Featuring: Herbie Hancock

condition (record/cover): NM / VG+ (light wear and tag on front)

Gatefold sleeve. Insert included. No obi.

The last album released in his lifetime, and the one purists have argued about ever since. Wes Montgomery spent his final years with Creed Taylor making records built on melody, strings and short solos, and the jazz press treated it as a betrayal while the public bought it in enormous quantities. Listen without the argument attached and Road Song is a lovely thing: that octave technique, that thumb, that impossibly warm tone applied to pop material with total conviction and not a wasted note anywhere. He died a few months after it came out, at forty-five.

A&M pressing. Sweet, commercial, beautifully played, and a good deal more durable than its detractors expected.