This may be the most extraordinary discovery I’ve stumbled upon.
It was recorded in 1963 but its psych-tinged blend of jazz, soul and blues is way ahead of its time. (more…)

When I was 18 I hated disco. I thought it had nothing to do with “proper” music involving men with electric guitars. But there was something about Tina Charles and this infectious earworm that broke through my snobbery.

(more…)

I Feel Love is so obviously the greatest disco song of all time that no others need apply for the title. But spare a moment for the song that gave Donna Summer her first international hit a couple of years earlier. (more…)

Betty Davis is the missing link between Tina Turner and Millie Jackson, her raw sex appeal proving too much for America in the early 1970s. (more…)

Parliament-Funkadelic whip up a fiery furnace of funk on this live version of Flash Light lasting almost half an hour. (more…)

Soul singer and trumpeter Joe Quarterman is another unfairly overlooked funkster I’ve just stumbled upon while delving deep into a YouTube wormhole.
(more…)

I don’t know where I was in 1974… I mean, I do, but I was listening to Bowie and T.Rex, Slade and The Sweet. So I had never encountered William DeVaughn. (more…)

(more…)

I would be being unfair to myself – and Dolly – if I failed to include her greatest song, yet I had somehow neglected it until now. So here it is.
(more…)

I’ll make no apology for staying in New Orleans – or for posting another song by Aaron Neville, this time from 1973. (more…)