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…)

This may have been the first jazz song I ever heard. If it’s even jazz. Perhaps it’s blues. Or something in between. It’s also the only song I’ve ever heard by Maria Muldaur. (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…)

I love this strangely timeless tune as much now as when it came out in 1973. And I’m sure this clip is the only example of a hit single prominently featuring the oldest instrument in the world. (more…)

This is another of those uniquely strange and timeless songs that would leave its mark in any era. (more…)

Frank Zappa once said there were only two bands worth buying a ticket to see: The Mothers Of Invention and “an English group called The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.” (more…)

Linda Lewis was a one-off. Not just for her extraordinary five-octave-spanning voice, nor her blissful smile, but just as a black girl with a guitar. (more…)

This might not have been the most obvious of Christmas songs when it came out in December 1973 but it was The Faces at their raucous, rowdy, ramshackle best. (more…)

There were two newcomers in 1973 whose debut songs genuinely sounded like nothing before them. One was Rock On by David Essex and this was the other one by Leo Sayer – the last I’ll be posting from that year. (more…)