A gift guide to musical boxed sets

Good luck finding a record store to buy them, but there is no shortage of new musical boxed sets available this season. And considering how long labels have been raiding their vaults, it's surprising how many big-name artists are the subjects of new mega-compilations designed for that special Dolly Parton or Rod Stewart fan in your life.

That's partly due to the music industry's tendency to rely on the tried and true, particularly in times of desperation. And it's partly because, having scavenged their supply of studio recordings, labels are unleashing a torrent of live recordings, with new in-concert collections from Ella Fitzgerald, the Doors, Frank Sinatra, Tom Petty, and the Rolling Stones.

So here's a roundup of brand new boxes for those who don't want to take the easy way out and plunk down $200 for the 14-disc box of the remastered Beatles catalog - or go all-in for $364.98 on Amazon for the 70-CD Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection.

AC/DC Backtracks (Legacy ***) This is a rarities box designed for the hard-core fan that nonetheless provides a decent overview of the iconic Aussie hard-rock band. The first CD collects studio odds and ends from throughout the Angus Young-led outfit's 31/2-decade career, and a DVD gathers videos and live performance footage.

The middle disc, which pulls together dependably blistering live cuts, is the keeper, covering the early era when Bon Scott fronted the band and later decades when Brian Johnson has been doing the screaming. (2 CDs, 1 DVD, $39.98.)

- Dan DeLuca

Big Star Keep an Eye on the Sky (Rhino ****) The long-awaited Big Star box does justice to the greatest of Southern rock bands that didn't play Southern rock. Instead, the 1970s foursome led by Alex Chilton concocted their own transcendent Memphis power-pop blend of Beatles and Beach Boys influence, overlaid with Velvet Underground alienation and Chilton and Chris Bell's own acute sensitivities. Keep an Eye on the Sky, with superb liner notes from fellow Memphian Robert Gordon, includes the three studio albums, many illuminating unreleased tracks, and a 1974 live hometown concert before an unappreciative audience. (4 CDs, $69.98, $49.98 digital.)

- D.D.

Bing Crosby The Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings, 1954-1956 (Mosaic ****) Has there ever been a more relaxed singer than Bing Crosby? Listening to this jazzy 160-song set, which features Der Bingle effortlessly swinging through the Great American Songbook with energetic and inventive keyboard whiz Buddy Cole and his trio, leads one to conclude that the answer is no. The great majority of these sides have never been released, and the sound quality and quality of Crosby's performances, from "The Nearness of You" to "Try a Little Tenderness," are impressively high throughout. Outstanding. (7 CDs, $119.)

- D.D.

Dolly Parton Dolly (RCA Nashville / Legacy ***1/2) Beginning in 1959, when she was a precocious 13-year-old, and concluding in 1992, after she had become a multimedia crossover superstar, Dolly makes a strong case for Dolly Parton as a giant of American song. The singer and songwriter transcended her Tennessee mountain roots - and country music - without losing her genuine down-home soul, although she came dangerously close to squandering that irrepressible charm during her pop period in the '70s and '80s. The 99 songs here, including 11 of her duets with longtime partner Porter Wagoner, are not a complete portrait of the artist, because she has done some of her best work in this decade. (4 CDs, $49.98.)

- Nick Cristiano

The Doors Live in New York (Rhino ***) After Val Kilmer's fey Lizard King impersonation, it's time to salvage the Doors' reputation for putting on a ferocious live show. This package from their final N.Y.C. shows with Jim Morrison in January 1970 does the trick. The gigs find Morrison confidently caressing each dark sentiment with his duskiest baritone on the freak-flying blues original ("Roadhouse Blues") and covers (of Howlin' Wolf and Bo Diddley). (6 CDs, $89.98.)

- A.D. Amorosi

Ella Fitzgerald Twelve Nights in Hollywood (Hip-o Select.com/Verve ***1/2) You get the gift of Ella Fitzgerald live on these four discs caught at the Crescendo club in Hollywood in 1961 and 1962. Despite the less than perfect recording - guitarist Herb Ellis is often hard to hear - the 77 cuts provide a sonic torrent of Fitzgerald's peerless scatting, musicianship, and humor. Her imitations of singers from Louis Armstrong to Dinah Washington are funny and fabulous. And she works so hard, singing melodies and solos for hour after hour. Fitzgerald, then 44 and 45, often sounds world-weary. But the set captures an amazing artist in the moment. (4 CDs, $69.98.)

- Karl Stark

Elvis Presley Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight (Legacy ***1/2) "I don't sing like nobody," an 18-year-old Elvis Presley famously told Sam Phillips' secretary Marion Keisker when he showed up at Sun Studios in Memphis to record the version of "My Happiness" in 1953.

Billy Altman retells that story at the start of his liner notes for Elvis 75, whose title refers to the King's 75th birthday, which is coming on Jan. 8. The box, which will be released next Tuesday, has 100 songs on four CDs. None are unreleased or alternate takes.

Instead, Elvis 75 sticks to the basics, from the incandescent early Sun sessions to the late swagger of "Suspicious Minds" and "Burning Love." (4 CDs, $59.98.)

- D.D.

Frank Sinatra Sinatra: New York (Reprise ***½) This year's Ol' Blue Eyes box follows the same blueprint as 2006's Sinatra: Vegas in compiling series of live performances from one of Sinatra's favored locales, ranging from a 1955 Manhattan Center appearance at a Tommy Dorsey tribute to a 1990 show from Carnegie Hall. There, the 74-year-old Chairman was in fine form: "I'm so glad that I had 4 cents to leave Jersey and come over here, many years ago." The treasures: a 1963 concert at the United Nations accompanied only by a pianist, and a DVD of a 1980 Carnegie Hall show with a stirring saloon-song interlude. The music is great but the booklet is wanting, despite a good Nat Hentoff essay. (4 CDs/1 DVD, $79.98 physical, $39.99 digital.)

- D.D.

Rod Stewart Sessions 1971-1998 (Warner Bros. **) This may appear to be a pretext for squeezing a few bucks out of the old material moldering in the warehouse: 66 tracks of preliminary or rehearsal versions of Stewart songs. Unpolished and underarranged.

You can certainly find a good deal of indulgent twaddle on these four discs.

But the collection has some kicks, thanks to Stewart's sweet sandpaper voice and the quality musicians he surrounded himself with, from the Faces fraternity of Ron Wood, Ian McLagan, and the rest to the legendary Muscle Shoals sidemen (Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, et al). These guys sound fabulous even when they're woodshedding.

Some tracks are close to the final released product ("You Wear It Well"); some are even preferable, warts and all (Dylan's "Girl From the North Country").

Many of these studio outtakes have a rough charm that makes Sessions, if nothing else, an interesting artifact. (4 CDs, $64.99.)

- David Hiltbrand

The Rolling Stones Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out (ABKCO ***) Sure, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, which catches the Stones of the Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed era at Madison Square Garden at the height of their powers, just might be the greatest live album of all time. That holds true from the wicked rip through "Stray Cat Blues" to the between-song plea of a female fan for Jagger to "Paint it black, you devil!" This 3 CD, 1 DVD set, however, hardly justifies its price tag with a mere five extra songs, a disc devoted to opening acts B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner, and a DVD of 29 minutes of outtakes from the Mayles Brothers Altamont documentary Gimme Shelter (3 CDs, 1 DVD, $59.98.)

- D.D.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers The Live Anthology (Reprise ***) This vivacious collection, spanning the years 1980 to 2007, was recorded at venues from Los Angeles to London. (One of the earliest performances here, of "Century City," took place at the Spectrum.)

Over four discs and nearly four dozen songs, you get the big hits ("American Girl," "Free Fallin' "), some obscurities (the opening track "Nightwatchman," which sounds like Jane's Addiction), and some surprising covers (a Dick Dale-like romp through 007's Goldfinger theme; a spirited version of the early Fleetwood Mac gem "Oh Well").

What stands out in the pure Americana of Anthology is the consistent discipline and modest virtuosity of Petty, guitarist Mike Campbell, drummer Stan Lynch, and keyboardist extraordinaire Benmont Tench. These guys are like clockwork, always in the pocket, keeping meticulous time for more than three decades. (4 CDs, $24.99.)

- D.H.

Various Artists Def Jam 25th Anniversary Box Set (Def Jam ***) From LL Cool J's "I Need a Beat" to Young Jeezy's "Put On," the Def Jam label has stayed on top of the fickle rap game since its founding by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, finding room for eccentric geniuses like Slick Rick and superstars such as Beastie Boys and Jay-Z (not to mention Philadelphians the Roots and Beanie Sigel). This is as inclusive a history of hip-hop as one record company could put out. From Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" to Kanye West's "Jesus Walks," the hits keep on coming. There could have been more of them, though, on this 5-CD collection, which includes a mere 12 songs per disc. (5 CDs, $59.98.)

- D.D.

Various Artists Fire in My Bones: Raw & Rare & Otherworldly African American Gospel, 1944-2007 (Tompkins Square ****) "Rock and roll has just about brought about the disintegration of our civilization," Elder Beck testifies on the second song on this rough, ragged, often distorted and altogether thrilling collection of African American post-World War II gospel music. The irony about his performance? It rocks. As does most everything on this Mike McGonigal-produced set, which spans a variety of styles, from the barrelhouse piano of Sister Goldia Haynes "The Truth in the Gospel" to Ray Branch & His Guitar's plainspoken "What Can I Do Without the Lord." The fire burns hot, from start to finish. (3 CDs, $25.98.)

- D.D.

Various Artists Sacred Music: Cornerstone Works of Sacred Music (Harmonia Mundi ****) No single label is so well equipped to encompass sacred music from the fifth century to the present as Harmonia Mundi - from chant to Monteverdi's Vespers to Handel's Messiah to Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil to Bernstein's Mass - in performances that are among the most authoritative out there. Given the communicative function of this repertoire, the enjoyment potential is nearly equal among veterans and newcomers. Conductors include William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Marcus Creed, and Paul Hillier, plus a well-annotated book and a 30th disc containing PDF files of the sung texts. (29 CDs, $99.98.)

- David Patrick Stearns

Various Artists Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets, 1965-1968 (Rhino ***1/2) The latest Nuggets box, like its garage-rock predecessors, provides an alt history of the '60s, focusing on a trippy, psychedelic rock scene that includes time-honored bands such as the Byrds, Love, and the Doors, along with forgotten ones such as the Chymes and London Phogg. Action kicks off with the Standells' "Riot on Sunset Strip," and expertly documents a specific youth culture moment when British invasion influence bumped up against sunny Southern California ambition at a tumultuous time. (4 CDs, $64.98.)

- D.D.

Woody Guthrie My Dusty Road (Rounder ****) All but six of the 54 songs on this set have been heard before. What's noteworthy about this box, which comes in the shape of a hobo's valise, is the sound quality. These 1944 performances are from newly discovered metal recording masters. The result is that the iconic folk storyteller and agitator is brought out of the grainy past as his takes on "This Land Is Your Land," "Pretty Boy Floyd," and others from his canon have a remarkable new clarity. In many cases, Guthrie is accompanied by mates Cisco Houston and/or Sonny Terry, and their interaction has a thrilling new immediacy. The well-done booklet tells the story of the masters' discovery and offers extensive notes on each track. (4 CDs, $79.98.)

- N.C.

Yo-Yo Ma 30 Years Outside the Box (Sony Classical ***1/2) No questions about quality here: Cellist Ma thoroughly deserves his superstar status and few have recorded so much great music with such fine collaborators. However, those most likely to appreciate Ma's complete recordings in this highly attractive box will already have many of them. And will any single consumer embrace Ma's excursions into film soundtracks and ethnic music (that also fill the two bonus discs)? Also, no Ma discography is truly complete without his very first commercial recording - Finzi's splendid Cello Concerto for Lyrita, which is missing here. (90 CDs, $789.98.)

- D.P.S.