Bo Diddley’s heyday was long gone by 1970 and he was mostly seen as a heritage act on the oldies circuit (if at all) by the time he tackled the topical issue of Pollution. But it’s a great track.

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Michael Chapman was a guitar virtuoso, acclaimed for his acoustic fingerpicking. But it’s Mick Ronson’s electric guitar that steals the show here.

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When what the music press lazily dubbed “The Scottish Sound” emerged at the end of the Seventies, Josef K were the yin to Orange Juice’s yang – the dark underbelly to their bright and sparkly pop.

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This lost gem from 1976 is a little piece of punk history – the first single to be released by a West Coast punk band. A double A-side of Hot Wire My Heart and Baby You’re So Repulsive (surely a contender for best punk song title), it was the debut single by a San Francisco band called Crime.

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A Carry On-style collaboration between John Martyn and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Big Muff came into being at the breakfast table of Island boss Chris Blackwell.

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Wishbone Ash were rock dinosaurs during the punk wars but they played the tiny Marquee Club one night in 1977, prior to playing Wembley Arena two days later.

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Annette Peacock’s steamy, sinuous blues-funk jam My Mama Never Taught Me How To Cook is a sultry coming-of-age tale of sexual liberation with disturbing undertones.

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One of the great singles from the punk period, Spanish Stroll has nothing much in common with the rest of the CBGBs crowd. But that’s where it came from. And it’s just a classic, with that lazily strummed guitar intro and the spoken word Spanish bit in the middle.

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I’ve never heard of Area Code 615 though I do know one of their songs without even knowing it – their number Stone Fox Chase is the theme music of the Old Grey Whistle Test. 

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Funny old time, the late 1960s. The British blues boom was coming to an end and bands were turning those 12-bar tunes into heavy rock.

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