I’m wondering if any of Rudy’s Corner’s audience has heard, or heard of, Gino Vannelli’s new album, A Good Thing.
I’m a bit perplexed: it seems like it was released briefly in Europe this past February, but it’s now out of print. Gino’s site still shows that the CD is a “new release”, but you can’t yet buy it (unless you find one from Amazon). 
I can’t find anything online regarding the reason for its delay, or it being pulled from the market, but I’ll post an update here when I find out a worldwide release date.
Anyhow, I got ahold of a copy back at the end of May, and it’s pretty good so far. Many of the songs (including the first single, “Measure Of A Man”) bring to mind his pop music successes of the 70s and 80s, but filtered through the acoustic jazz stylings of Yonder Tree and Slow Love (both on Verve, from the mid 90s). Gino’s pop sensibilities are still intact, but the synthesizers from the 70s and 80s are gone for the most part. (They’re used more for sweetening.) His voice is still as good as it’s always been–in fact, it is richer and more expressive than on his earlier recordings.
For now I’ll leave you, dear readers, with this little teaser, and will return with a formal review of the rest of the album’s songs once it gets worldwide release. This is a very solid album so far, and I must say that the acoustic angle is very refreshing. And it’s nice to know that Gino still “has it”. With a forthcoming U.S. tour, this is shaping up to be a good year for Gino Vannelli fans! Be sure to visit Gino’s official site for news about the tour and (hopefully) updated information on the release of this new album.
I finally managed to get it to stop deleting the albums, but only after going in the complete opposite direction and trying to upload everything to the player in order to restore what was deleted. And then the software balked again: since I was overfilling the player, it prevented me from uploading! As it stands, I now have it on manual sync for the Zune 120.