The story goes that Keith Richards once fell asleep onstage while playing this song at a Stones concert. I have no idea if it’s true but if it is, I suspect other factors apart from its opiate-friendly tempo may have been at play. (more…)

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I first heard this song when Canned Heat had a hit with their 12-bar blues version called Let’s Work Together back in 1970.  Six years later, along came Bryan Ferry to stamp his smooth sophisticated style all over it. (more…)

Full disclosure (as nobody said in the Seventies): I didn’t like disco at the time. But it was an inescapable part of my my late teens. (more…)

There are oldies and then there are oldies – this one is from before I was born. It’s a proper earworm, with some great lyrics, and it’s had almost 50 million views on YouTube, making it surely one of the best known oldies of all time. (more…)

Looking at the singles chart, 1976 was as dire a year as there’s ever been. No wonder punk came along to blow the rubbish away. (more…)

Another lost classic from the funk vaults, The Watts Breakaway is just one of many musical achievements of Johnny Otis. The singer is Delmar ‘Mighty Mouth’ Evans and the guitarist may well by Johnny’s equally well-known son Shuggie Otis. (more…)

Cliff Nobles is unique in the annals of one-hit wonders – he doesn’t appear at all on this his solitary hit. (more…)

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There’s not much to Tighten Up beyond a funk groove, some handclaps, and Archie introducing himself before urging the listener to dance. But it’s a classic. (more…)