Late-night burgers in LA with The Temptations on the jukebox. (more…)

The most frightening musical term for me is “free jazz.” So it’s odd that I should enjoy this nine-minute noodle by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. (more…)

This old earworm has taken up residence in my head and it won’t go away. Which is annoying as I didn’t much like it way back in 1970. (more…)

A mash-up before mash-ups were invented, this finds the great/bonkers Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, taking two classic reggae tunes, pulling them apart and putting them back together. (more…)

This may have been the first jazz song I ever heard. If it’s even jazz. Perhaps it’s blues. Or something in between. It’s also the only song I’ve ever heard by Maria Muldaur. (more…)

Marlena Shaw’s spellbinding live version of Woman Of The Ghetto from 1974 transforms a tribute to African-American women into a civil rights anthem.

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I’m posting this to sum up the wettest May in memory – in the hope that the act of doing so I will immediately banish the never-ending deluge. (more…)

If this doesn’t get your feet moving, you might want to check they’re still attached to your legs. As infectious as an Indian variant, it’s arguably the first disco hit. (more…)

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…)