Chicago blues and soul man Lou Pride recorded this Northern Soul favourite after moving down south to El Paso in 1972.

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This is powerful stuff: it reminds me of when I first heard Linton Kwesi Johnson back in my youth. Like LKJ, Cleeshay uses spoken word, though the music is stripped-back R&B rather than roots reggae.

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The Bee Gees song written for Otis Redding but redone as a hippie country-soul heartbreaker. Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers, give it a country twang replete with pedal steel guitar that was entirely absent from the original.

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Full disclosure: not being a jazz buff, I had never heard of Lou Donaldson who died this week at the ripe old age of 98. This is his masterpiece. (more…)

If there’s one artist I wish I’d seen live more than any other, it’s probably Nina Simone. Especially when she was a regular at Ronnie Scott’s in the 1980s. Except I had probably not heard of her back then.

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The second single by The Bee Gees back in 1967 was originally written for their mentor Robert Stigwood and intended for Otis Redding to record.

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Here’s a tune from the early days of reggae by Nora Dean, who earned herself a place in the niche genre of “naughty” reggae, best known for her saucy hit Barbwire (In His Underpants).

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I think it’s that gorgeous melody played on a harpsichord – or is it a hammered dulcimer? – that makes this Four Tet track so special. It lends the tune, from his 2017 album New Energy, a kind of medieval madrigal vibe that chimes so well with the sleepy beats.

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I have to confess I’ve been a bit late getting into Michael Kiwanuka. Which is strange, because I saw one of his very first shows.

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Ringo Starr releases the first track from a new album of country songs written and produced with T Bone Burnett at the age of 84.

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