This year’s wish list rich with talent

This week I continue my wish list for upcoming holiday releases.

One of my most anticipated releases drops on Tuesday with "Sinatra: New York," a four-CD, one DVD box set of Sinatra performing 71 live and unreleased songs recorded in the Big Apple from 1955 to 1990.

Sinatra, born in Hoboken, N.J., across the river from New York, may have been from new Jersey but his adopted home was New York City.

This retrospective released by Rhino Records will undoubtedly be superb, and I'm sure similar in quality to Rhino's other astonishing box set featuring Old Blue Eyes live in Las Vegas released two years ago.

That box set was a revelation, as the quality of Sinatra's performances from the 1950s until the 1980s were amazingly consistent.

Even when his voice had obviously seen its better days, Sinatra's sense of drama was more than enough to cover what he had lost in sheer vocal technique. Of everything I'm looking forward to in the last two months of this year, this has to be my No. 1 choice. And I've never met a Sinatra box set I didn't like, particularly when compiled by Rhino.

One of my other favorite live recordings of all time is getting the super deluxe treatment, with the Rolling Stones "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!," recorded in 1969 before a sell-out crowd at Madison Square Garden, being released by Abkco records.

The original release boasts everything the Stones were at the end of the 1960s - loud, dangerous, snotty and ferocious live. This album inspired me to no end as a teenager, and I learned to play the Stones' catalog by playing along with this record. Since then its cache has only risen in stature, but I always thought it was one of the greatest rock live albums of all time.

The single album is being augmented in this Tuesday release with two additional CDs of more unreleased performances that steamy evening, including a smoking CD of the never-before-released set by blues legend B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner, who opened the concert for the Stones. There's also an additional DVD included with film footage of the concert and intimate shots backstage. If that isn't enough for you, there's also a super, duper deluxe edition with all of the above and the entire concert on three vinyl records along with the CDs and the DVD.

Guess which deluxe edition I'll be getting? "Jumping Jack Flash" will be on my turntable this Christmas, baby.

On Nov. 10 Rhino releases another winner with "The Doors Live in New York," a six-CD set featuring the legendary band's complete performances at the Felt Club recorded in 1970. While the Doors catalog may be known to most rock fans, what isn't well-known is how compelling the band was live. Every show was a new experience for the band led by the murcurial and unpredictable Jim Morrison. You never knew what you were going to get listening to Morrison - it's either stunning brilliance or drunken ramblings, with little in-between. It didn't hurt that all were master musicians, and the extended jams on familiar tunes get to showcase the band at its very best. I love this stuff, and you should, too.

Next week I discuss more cool stuff coming for the holidays, including a review of Bob Dylan's new Christmas album.

(Miller is co-editor of Weekender.)