This is a fantastic discovery If you like funky horn sections and you like powerful female voices. They don’t come much more powerful than Lydia Pense and her San Francisco-based band Cold Blood.

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Sixties soul veteran Gary U.S. Bonds had a second career in the early ’80s after Bruce Springsteen wrote and produced two albums for him.

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Bobby Byrd ought to be much more famous. He gave James Brown his big break and wrote most of his hits but never became a household name.

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This is such a sad and shocking song. The confessional domestic drama that unfolds over its two minutes is nothing less than heartbreaking. Especially if you listen all the way through to the abrupt surprise ending.

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This is the perfect soundtrack for a summer’s day, with the sun shining, and the perfect video for a summer night in the city. And today seems like it might (fingers crossed) be that day – and night – at last.

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This Northern Soul classic is, as far as I know, the only single ever released by Lester Tipton, a one-miss wonder who met a tragic fate. No wonder they call it Rare Groove.

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This song is such a masterpiece with which to launch a career. And Donny Hathaway is rightly regarded as one of the greatest of all soul singers.

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Cream’s original version of this song was played a lot when I was at school, driven along by a bassline Jack Bruce apparently inspired by seeing a Hendrix concert. It was only much later that I heard this funky soul version by Spanky Wilson, with its exuberant horns and serpentine basslines.

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There’s nothing like a Northern Soul stomper to start the day with a lift – and this is one of the best. Rita and the Tiaras do the trick better than a triple espresso.

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The moment you first hear Jordan Rakei’s stunning voice, you imagine you must be listening to some long-lost soul singer from the Sixties or Seventies.

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