James Brown channels his anger into a revenge fantasy in the influential funk classic The Payback, much sampled by hip-hop artists in later years. (more…)

There’s something horribly prophetic in the lyric of Gil Scott-Heron’s song The Bottle: “Look around on any corner/If you see some brother lookin’ like a goner/It’s gonna be me.”
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During the seven years of my youth in Germany, I don’t think I heard a single note of music from my adopted country. The year I left school that changed. (more…)

Marlena Shaw’s spellbinding live version of Woman Of The Ghetto from 1974 transforms a tribute to African-American women into a civil rights anthem.

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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…)

Barry White’s only chart-topping single started life as a country-and-western tune before he gave it a disco makeover. (more…)

There was a time in the early Seventies when the “power trio” was a Thing. All the better to showcase a virtuoso guitarist with blues tendencies by backing him with a brutal rhythm section. (more…)

Mellow grooves don’t come much mellower – or groovier – than this soulful slice of pub rock that gave Ace their one and only hit in late 1974. (more…)

When we think of Brian Eno we usually think of the cerebral egghead who makes ambient soundtracks, or maybe the Glam guy from Roxy Music.
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While I was on an instrumental soul and funk tip with The JBs, I began exploring the interweb for new discoveries in that vein. And I came across Oliver Sain. (more…)