Sylvia Robinson is one of the most important figures in music history. She’s been called the Mother of Hip-Hop for her key role in the birth of rap, founding Sugar Hill Records in the late Seventies. But before that she was a one-hit wonder with this saucy disco hit. (more…)

The exhilarating melody of this tune has stayed with me since childhood.
I had not heard of Jr Walker & The All Stars when it was a modest hit in the summer of 1972 and I’m not sure I even thought of them as a soul group. (more…)

What was the first disco hit? The Trammps would define the genre with Disco Inferno. But before that came this old Broadway tune in 1972. (more…)

Nat Turner Rebellion: Laugh To Keep From Crying – album review

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

I love this strangely timeless tune as much now as when it came out in 1973. And I’m sure this clip is the only example of a hit single prominently featuring the oldest instrument in the world. (more…)

Some time in the summer of 1975 ads began appearing with the picture of a bloke I’d never seen or heard and the words: “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” (more…)

I knew Joan Baez more by reputation than her music when I was growing up – as a folk singer, and a protester, and for her Bob Dylan connection. But I do have fond memories of this song, which gave Joan her only hit in 1971. (more…)

By my mid-teens my musical interests were moving away from the singles chart and I was looking for something more substantial. Bob Dylan provided an answer.
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Pink Floyd’s next album after Dark Side Of The Moon made an even greater impace on me when I playe it for the first time, just after I left school. (more…)