The O’Jays exchanged smooth soul for fat funk when they recorded For The Love Of Money at Philly’s Sigma Sound Studios. (more…)

It may not have been the first time I heard it but the first time I took notice of this song was over the opening credits of Jackie Brown in 1997. (more…)

Late-night burgers in LA with The Temptations on the jukebox. (more…)

One is a young Norwegian singer-songwriter who makes minimalist electronic folk music. The other is a legendary Jamaican reggae producer in his mid-eighties. (more…)

The most frightening musical term for me is “free jazz.” So it’s odd that I should enjoy this nine-minute noodle by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. (more…)

A mash-up before mash-ups were invented, this finds the great/bonkers Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, taking two classic reggae tunes, pulling them apart and putting them back together. (more…)

If Jimmie Rodgers bridged the gap between blues and country, then The Carter Family did the same for folk and bluegrass. (more…)

Jimmie Rodgers might not have been the first country musician to make a record – that was Eck Robertson. But with his Blue Yodels he was country music’s first superstar. (more…)

Eck Robertson was the first country musician to make a record. He might have been called “the Hendrix of the fiddle” if only he’d been born half a century later.

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