When it comes to jazz and classical music, the examples I like best are when they incorporate subtle electronic undertones. That’s the case here with German composer Ralph Heidel, though that element is almost  subliminal on this track, Wake Up.

(more…)

I was always put off listening to Viagra Boys because of their terrible band name. Which turns out to have been my loss.

(more…)

Here’s a deep cut from Santana… No, it isn’t. It’s by a school band from Nigeria called Ofege, recorded back in the early ’70s.

(more…)

Dub maestro Elijah Minnelli takes an ancient English folk song, A’Soalin’, and rearranges it as a 21st century reggae tune.

(more…)

Is this classic late-period disco? Or is it prototype ’80s dance-pop? Frankly, who cares when it sounds like this?!

(more…)

In their heyday in the early 1980s, it was impossible to ignore pop-soul trio Imagination with their infectious dance hits and flamboyant front man Leee John.

(more…)

Bob Dylan’s delivery drips with sarcasm on the opaque lyric of Idiot Wind, from my favourite album Blood On The Tracks, but the meaning remains elusive.

(more…)

There are a handful of musical moments in my life where I’ve heard a song for the first time and felt: This changes everything. Never Understand is one.

(more…)

Diana Ross will always enjoy a special place in my affections – the Queen of Motown sang the first song on the first album I ever bought.

(more…)

Etta James might not have come from the Mississippi Delta – she grew up Los Angeles and came of age in San Francisco – but she was a bona fide blues belter.

(more…)