Whoever said white men can’t sing the blues (or play them) had clearly never heard this tune by Blood, Sweat & Tears. (more…)

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band created the template for Acid Rock with the sprawling title track of their second album East West in 1966. (more…)

There’s something horribly prophetic in the lyric of Gil Scott-Heron’s song The Bottle: “Look around on any corner/If you see some brother lookin’ like a goner/It’s gonna be me.”
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Quincy Jones came up with the song named after the Japanese arthouse porn film that gave me one of my most memorably horrible experiences in a cinema. (more…)

The Meters defined the sound of New Orleans funk on this instrumental back in 1969. It’s still winning new friends in movies today. (more…)

The life story of Waylon Jennings is the stuff of country music legend. And it’s all true, from his youth picking cotton in Texas to teenage radio DJ to playing bass with Buddy Holly – giving up his plane ticket on that fateful day the music died. (more…)

Once in a while you come across an old tune you’ve never heard before by a musician you’ve never heard before and it’s so great you can’t believe you didn’t know it. Like this slice of psychedelic soul. (more…)

You hear the word ‘classic’ bandied about a lot but Express Yourself is a solid-gold soul and funk classic of the first order. (more…)

If you’re going to be known for just one song, then you might as well make it a great one. Like King Floyd’s solitary hit Groove Me. (more…)

Big lady, big voice, big hair – Jean Knight had it all. Mr Big Stuff was her takedown of that guy all women know, the one who thinks he’s God’s gift. He’s begging to be taken down, and Jean did the job for us all in this stone-cold funk and soul classic. (more…)