Purple reign: Prince’s epic, super-deluxe “Sign O’ The Times” (Paisley Park) gets the reboot with an impressive remastering of his groundbreaking 1987 album. With 63 previously unreleased tracks, “Sign” is a trove of lost songs and dramatic lore and was a solo record for Prince, after the dissolution of his band, The Revolution. This new reissue leaves no refrain unturned – it’s got 8 CDs of music plus one DVD, to prove it. By most standards, this was an ambitious and urgent trek for the hyper-prolific Prince Rogers Nelson, which was primarily recorded between the end of 1985 and the beginning of 1987. This deluxe set includes all the audio material that Prince officially released in ’87, 45 unreleased studio songs recorded between May 1979 and July 1987, and a complete live audio performance from June 1987. Featuring the tracks “U Got The Look” and “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” “Sign” is gargantuan, generously stuffed with remixes and B-sides. It’s worth delving into, from informal jams to brilliant gems. And yes, there have been tales from exhausted musicians and studio engineers about the days-long recording sessions that found Prince so creatively grounded. The upside of everything is the bounty of music that he left behind.

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Recorded over a period of just 10 hours, Roberta Flack’s 1969 breakthrough debut captured her idiosyncratic mix of soul, jazz and folk. “First Take” (Atlantic), features the Black Mountain, North Carolina born pianist and singer accompanied by a tight backing band, consisting of stalwarts Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass and Ray Lucas on drums. The opening rip of “Compared to What” with its stabbing horns and unyielding groove, was a social precursor to artists like Marvin Gaye and Sly and the Family Stone. Other standouts include Leonard Cohen’s “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye,” perhaps one of the best covers of a Cohen song ever, and Flack’s signature, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is powerful yet understated.

Roberta Flack became a star – even if it took seven months for this album to enter the Billboard charts. “First Take” is a blinding flash during a time of political and social fever. The album is mesmerizing and Flack, a genre-busting songstress and a gifted aspirant.

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“Live At Montreux, 1983 & 1990” (Eagle Rock), finds famed bluesman John Lee Hooker delivering two blistering performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Reissued and remastered by the John Lee Hooker estate, Hooker is the boogie-king, joined by the Coast to Coast Blues Band over 18 tracks that includes the simmering mid-60s single, “Serves Me Right To Suffer,” and the funked out take on Tommy Tucker’s eternal “Hi-Heel Sneakers.” “The Hook” first charted in 1949 on the R&B chart with “Boogie Chillen,” (featured here), when producer Bernard Besman recorded him alone at the microphone with an electric guitar. A second microphone was placed in a wooden pallet beneath his feet to capture the sound of his foot stomping to the rhythm. The rest is one emphatic blues anthem. (“Bone Chillen” stretches into a 17-minute blaster opus.) “Montreux” is crisp and gritty all at once, as Hooker infuses songs from his comeback album, 1989’s Grammy-winner, “The Healer,” crowd-pleasers like “Boom Boom,” and a bone-shaking rendition of “I’m In The Mood For Love.” If you’re going to binge on blues, look no further.

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There’s something magical about a 10-inch LP, and when jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker is playing, the bird is the word. As part of the 100th anniversary of his birth, Craft Recordings has released a kick-ass boxed set, “Charlie Parker: The Savoy 10-Inch Collection, which celebrates this jazz great’s seminal recordings for this influential record label. What makes this reissue ultra-cool is not just the remastering, but the retro packaging with the re-creation of the original 10-inch LP designs. And that the new editions sound like the originals is important, and no small task. The only difference: the new versions are super clean. Featuring guest performances by Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis, Bud Powell and Max Roach, “Savoy” is bebop heaven over 28 luscious tracks. When alto sax man Bird (Parker’s nickname) and his contemporaries introduced the bebop sound in the 1940s, they ushered in a bold new style that influences modern music to this day.