The most extraordinary thing about this tune is the age of the man who made it. Marshall Allen, the sprightly old fellow you can see capering about in the video, celebrated his 100th birthday almost a year ago.

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The Jam gig I’ll always remember – along with the last one at the Rainbow in 1981 – is the time my mate filled in for drummer Rick Buckler at a gig.

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Brass Construction burst out of Brooklyn in the wake of B.T. Express with a similar recipe of supercharged funk with horns blowing up a storm.

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The late Sixties and early Seventies were incendiary times in politics and music – reflected in the fiery brass sections of funk bands like Tower Of Power.

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B.T. Express were pioneers of the funky early-1970s Brooklyn Sound with their proto-disco classic Express.

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Here’s a ’60s band I’ve never heard of before, a female-fronted outfit with the disappointingly humdrum name of Smith, with their solitary hit single – a cover of Baby It’s You.

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Dobie Gray’s stomper Out On The Floor has been called the best Northern Soul record of all time, though I remember Dobie Gray for two other songs – Drift Away and The In-Crowd.

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It’s impossible to forget this tune once you’ve heard it because it lives inside your head for ever and will pop back whenever you hear the word Milkshake for the rest of your life.

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Like everyone else I know* I discovered Bob Marley when the live version of No Woman, No Cry became a huge hit in the summer of 1975. Then I dug deeper and discovered this tune from five years earlier.

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The Saints, who formed in Australia in 1973, were arguably the first punk band of all – but they always claimed not to be punks. Whatever they were, they were fantastic.

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