Your Go to CD to Impress


Friends come over and inquire why you would spend so much money on a stereo system, what is the CD you load up? For me,

Patricia Barber  ---Café Blue

Dead Can Dance-Into the Labyrinth


styxtrekr
When I play my system, or my violin for anyone, I select a piece that they know and already enjoy.  To understand something new in music and to evaluate a stereo system is just too much for most to handle.
"If they answer: "Oh, just about anything," I just quietly turn the system off and say ... hey, why don’t we go to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream cone?"

Perfect, oregonpapa. Another tell is if, within 30 seconds or less after the music starts, they begin visually searching for something to look at (a CD case/LP cover, or the completely unforgivable, their phone) instead of listening.
I had a bunch of 20 - 25 years old over. They like modern country music so we played some top 25.

They liked it a lot so I said how about this - folk not country but close enough.  

Alison Krauss - A Hundred Miles or More of a Collection from 2007.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WNpwyP0_IA


Many of the above are favorites.  Another to check out is on the NAIM label - Antonio Forcione - Ghetto Paradise.  Amazing guitarist.
James Taylor Gaya
Holly Cole Tennessee Waltz
Dire Straits Brothers in Arms
Blood Sweat and Tears Lonesome Suzy
Mighty Sam McClain Too Proud
Charles Lloyd The Water is Wide
Charlie Haden and Pat Metheney Behond the Missouri Sky
Dave Grusin Two for the Road