Not many people know this but Helen Shapiro, famed for being a child star in the early Sixties, made her live debut with her school friend Mark Feld, later to become Marc Bolan. (more…)

Before soul music began, back in the Forties and Fifties, there was doo wop and gospel. And before Marvin Gay became better known as Marvin Gaye, he was one-quarter of The Marquees.
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I’m posting this to sum up the wettest May in memory – in the hope that the act of doing so I will immediately banish the never-ending deluge. (more…)

If I was about ten years older, I would probably remember this song coming out in 1965. Instead I heard it years later – but it’s one of my favourite Dylan songs. (more…)

An anti-racist anti-sexist anthem by a quartet of schoolgirls, performed in a public library, this song broke the internet on its release in May 2021 – and no wonder. (more…)

A hit from way back in the year I was born, this timeless doo wop ballad features two of the greats of soul music – Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler. (more…)

If this doesn’t get your feet moving, you might want to check they’re still attached to your legs. As infectious as an Indian variant, it’s arguably the first disco hit. (more…)

Sylvia Robinson is one of the most important figures in music history. She’s been called the Mother of Hip-Hop for her key role in the birth of rap, founding Sugar Hill Records in the late Seventies. But before that she was a one-hit wonder with this saucy disco hit. (more…)

If the marketing arm of the British musical instrument manufacturers Vox wanted one song to sell their electric organs, then they would surely give their donor card to 96 Tears. (more…)

The exhilarating melody of this tune has stayed with me since childhood.
I had not heard of Jr Walker & The All Stars when it was a modest hit in the summer of 1972 and I’m not sure I even thought of them as a soul group. (more…)