My playlist for September is devoted to bass guitarists and the iconic basslines they played. So we’ve lots of funk and soul, a bit of reggae, and classic tunes by legendary figures from Jaco Pastorius and Bootsy Collins to Jack Bruce and John Paul Jones, Jean-Jacques Burnel, James Jamerson and Robbie Shakespeare.

Cheetah Chrome was “a one-man hurricane tearing up the musical landscape with his feral guitar riffs and manic energy.” That’s how his old bandmates from The Dead Boys paid tribute to the punk pioneer following his death at the age of 71. 

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Jack Bruce was widely revered in the late Sixties and early Seventies for his work as one-third of the first supergroup, Cream.

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Jean-Jacques Burnel, or “JJ” as he was universally known, was the French bassist who gave The Stranglers their distinctive sound.

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Oxford’s Samurai Seven Reunite After 25 Years – And One Shooting

Here is the last playlist of summer (probably), so let’s kick off with a blast of sunshine from The Isley Brothers and fade into autumn with the gentle melancholy of Thelonius Monk. In between there are all sorts of goodies, from Eighties novelty pop (Sigue Sigue Sputnik) to Seventies demos (Roxy Music) and unfamiliar blues takes on a classic (Roy Buchanan’s Hey Joe). And all sorts of other stuff old and new, black and blue.

Wyclef Jean offers advice to his homeboys on Mr October, from the first of seven planned solo albums in different genres by the former Fugee.

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Derry Brownson was the co-founder and keyboard player of EMF, who had a huge hit all over the world with indie-dance anthem Unbelievable in 1991.

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Mary In The Junkyard are the latest in a recent tradition of highly original British bands whose influences are hard to detect.

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Death Valley Girls return after a hiatus caused by the California wildfires with a stripped-back sound on this taster of new album Welcome To Earth.

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