For me 1975 was a great year in music in at least one respect – it was the first year in my life that Cliff Richard had not had a hit single. Because this single, Honky Tonk Angel, was banned… banned by Cliff himself. (more…)

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What a gloriously uplifting song this is. Except it isn’t. It’s anything but uplifting if you listen to the lyrics. In fact it’s as dark a song as you’ll ever hear. And it’s all autobiographical. (more…)

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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…)

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…)

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…)

It’s only listening to this again now, 45 years later, that I realise it’s the best Four Tops song not actually by the Four Tops. (more…)

By the mid-Seventies you had to forage far and wide for rough-and-ready roots music in a music world dominated by prog dinosaurs and disco. (more…)