This came out in 1977 when I was pogoing in a seedy cellar somewhere to a snotty young band that sounded nothing like this. But if you love soppy soul ballads, with a sweet singer emoting at the top of his range and backing vocalists echoing his heartfelt words back at him, then this is for you.

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The Undisputed Truth were Norman Whitfield’s Motown laboratory for his psychedelic soul constructions, testing out songs that would end up with The Temptations. This was their only hit.

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This should be terrible. It’s a cover of a rock’n’roll standard by a one-hit-wonder known only for a novelty song half a century ago.

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Country music was so uncool in the Seventies that I never went near it in my youth. Until I came across Joe Ely. There was something about his debut album in 1977 that struck the same sort of chord as the ramshackle thrashings of punk. But in an American way – specifically a Texan way.

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Returning to Seventies schmaltz, here’s another oldie from another husband-and-wife duo, Captain & Tennille. It’s not their debut single, Love Will Keep Us Together, and not the peculiar Muskrat Love, but their comeback song after a stint hosting their own TV show.

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On the surface this Seventies oldie is the epitome of clean-cut middle-of-the-road soft rock schmaltz. Pause for a moment, though, and the words beneath those blissful harmonies are pure filth.

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I didn’t discover Elvis until the early Seventies when he was that big sweaty guy with huge sideburns in the white rhinestone-studded jumpsuits singing overblown ballads on a stage in Vegas.

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I think the only Jeff Beck record in my collection is the single Hi Ho Silver Lining, which does not exactly show the guitarist at his virtuosic best. But this does: an incendiary live performance of a tune from his instrumental album Blow By Blow, recorded at Ronnie Scott’s in 2007.

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Merle Haggard’s self-penned number from 1974 has all the elements of the perfect Christmas song – a sad, sentimental, yet optimistic lyric, and a cracking tune.

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These guys were never more than a name to me – a name synonymous with psychedelic San Francisco acid rock. So too the name of their virtuoso guitarist John Cipollina.

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