I always thought I Can’t Explain was the first single by The Who, and it is. But before that, in July 1964, they released this song under the band name The High Numbers.

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Bob Dylan painted a picture of economic despair in his heartbreaking tale of a farmer driven to familicide, The Ballad Of Hollis Brown.

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Sheer perfection. My Girl is a classic from the opening notes of James Jamerson’s opening bassline, echoed by Robert White’s electric guitar. And then there’s the dancing!

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Blues legend John Lee Hooker stretched out his already lengthy I Hate(d) The Day I Was Born to nearly 20 minutes in San Francisco in 1964.

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When I first heard Nina Simone sing this, and for a long time afterwards, I thought she was singing about a “Sea Lion Woman.” Some time later I found out that the song title, which appeared as the B-side of Mississippi Goddam, is actually See-Line Woman.

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Like so many Sixties soul singers, Northern soul favourite Jackie Ross started singing in church, though her first performance was at the age of three, on the radio show of her preacher parents.

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If anyone remembers Diane Renay’s brief 15 minutes of fame, it’s as the teenage one-hit wonder who sang Navy Blue. (more…)