Lavinia Blackwall dives deep into the folk-rock past with the title track of her second solo album since leaving Trembling Bells.

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Labi Siffre was a West London boy but paid tribute to a beauty spot in Staffordshire on his song Cannock Chase.

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There was much more to Chris Rea than the hit singles – a multi-talented artist whose first loves were the blues, racing cars, cinema and journalism.

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I’m familiar with Odetta as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement back in the ’50s and ’60s and I know Martin Luther King called her the Queen of American folk music. But I’d never heard this ’til now.

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It’s impossible not to love Snap!’s hybrid of hip-hop, house, soul and a dash of heavy rock. It kicked off the whole dance music scene when it topped the charts in early 1990.

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It was when The Clash invited Joe Ely to join them on tour in 1980 that I began to understand the parallels between punk and rebel country music.

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Here’s UK dubmeister Dennis Bovell making a cameo appearance on fellow dub maestro Elijah Minnelli’s new album, the interestingly titled Clams As A Main Meal.

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I vividly remember the first time I heard Public Enemy. It was the most exciting new music since I first saw and heard the Pistols, Ramones and Clash.

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Here’s another Northern Soul classic, courtesy of The Younghearts from Los Angeles,  California. This was their debut single in 1967, with a falsetto vocal that calls to mind Smokey Robinson.

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This is The Stranglers song Golden Brown as you’ve never heard it before – transformed into a slice of smooth jazz. And it’s wonderful.

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