Backed with jittery rhythms and violins whirling on sadly wild flights of fancy, Romica Puceanu’s explosive voice reached higher and higher to ecstatic crescendos. The Romanian Gypsy was comparable to her contemporary, Aretha Franklin. Soulful and daring, she demanded respect. The second in a series of important reissues from Eastern Europe, the Puceanu disc is culled from recordings made during the Communist era in the 1960s and ’70s. Her music is strikingly similar to the sounds of Serbia and the northern Balkans, testifying to the crosscurrents that influenced traditional cultures—a role that roving Gypsy players gladly assumed.

-David Luhrssen