It is surely more than serendipity that John Vaughan's magnificent new album Rhapsody from Sixth Avenue came out on the 40th anniversary of the Beatles White Album - the variety and complexity of musical experimentation and production techniques (superbly led by Ramesh Weeratunga), the quixotic switches from ballad to reggae, guitar solo to Joe Kucera's haunting soprano saxophone, weeping guitar solos to Richard de Bastion's marvelous piano all show an artist tipping his hat to his heroes of yesterday while at the same time, in Rainy Day in Liverpool saying what feels like his farewell to his boyhood heroes on a pilgrimage to his musical Mecca. 
And so to the songs - an exhilarating mixture of styles and themes - nostalgia, rain and mortality, mixing it up with upbeat themes of optimism summed up by "In the End" - - yet instead of "The love you take being equal to the love you make", we have instead here the fatalism of "In the end it really makes no difference, you always end up where you're going to be". And here is the lie exposed - John Vaughan has made a great difference, to a great many people, and his new album shouts out his artistic talent from the rooftops of Sixth Avenue back through time to the long-empty balconies of Hagelberger Street. Rhapsody sublime - The Notting Hill Gazette hails a masterpiece.
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