I don’t know a darn thing about Jacqueline Jones, and I can’t find anything out on the Interweb. No biographical details, no other tunes. But what a voice! 

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When it comes to Filipino funk, you could write what I know on the back of a postage stamp. I didn’t know it existed, and I didn’t know it was called Pinoy Funk.

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I don’t know if psychedelic drugs were involved in the making of this song but I would be highly surprised if they weren’t. Then again, just listening to it is a mind-bending trip.

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Randy Crawford joined The Crusaders to sing what became their biggest hit, Street Life in 1979. Or, as my old colleague used to call it, Street Light.

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This tune was released on Syd Nathan’s legendary King label in Cincinnatti four years after they put out James Brown’s landmark first hit Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag in 1965.

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Here’s one of those songs I haven’t heard in years (decades?) but it comes right back to me the moment the needle touches the groove. I was never a fan of jazz-funk but you’d have to have a heart of stone, and feet of concrete, not to be moved physically and emotionally by the infectious groove, skittering bassline and blissful vocal of Southern Freeez.

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When I first heard The Allergies I assumed they must be some long-lost American band from the early seventies. In fact they are a white duo from Bristol.

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London collective Hi-Tension flew the flag for the disco offshoot of Brit-funk with their self-titled hit single. I have to confess the song – and entire genre – passed me by completely at the time.

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As punk was mutating and evolving in 1978, a new band called Japan surfed in on the New Wave. I went to see them at the Music Machine, attracted mainly by their image.

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