The album you are holding right now is without doubt the King of all library albums, it is a living legend, it is The Big Beat. Not a big beat, but THE Big Beat. Oh yes. Composed by the undisputed heavyweight champions of the genre, Keith Mansfield and Alan Hawkshaw, and until now only available to vinyl junkies with the deepest of pockets it represents everything that is great and good about the music, the musicians and even the fiendish record collectors that make up the shadowy world of Library Music.
 
You could safely assume that an album made up of incredible Hammond organ playing, a really fat horn section, fuzz guitar solos and drum breaks would deliver the goods but this album does so much more than that. Just one listen to tracks like “Beat Me Till I’m Blue” or “Senior Thump” and you’ll know you are in the presence of something far greater than the sum of it’s parts. And when those parts are described as Pounding, Thumping, Rocking and Pulsating, you had better be prepared from a musical man handling that’ll have you smiling well in to retirement.
 
Tim “Love” Lee, Brooklyn, 2007.