This is, and always has been since I first heard it, my favourite song of all time. It’s just perfect in its simplicity: wistful, dreamy, mournful and melancholic.

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Not sure how I’ve missed seeing or hearing this remarkable piece of pop history before – a ten-year-old Michael Jackson singing the blues.

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RIP Melanie Safka (1947-2024)

I remember Melanie – just “Melanie” – as a hippie chick with long hair, black eyeliner and a warbling vibrato. I first heard her singing a song called Ruby Tuesday. I was a child and she sounded like one too.

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This song is so perfect, like a four-minute movie. A miniature kitchen sink drama. Shot in black-and-white, of course, with the principal characaters played by Albert Finney and Rita Tushingham.

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Donovan teamed up with the Jeff Beck Group and producer Mickie Most in 1969 to make the album Barabajagal, spawning his last hit single.

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Boz Scaggs is another of those guys I know a single song by. I’m not even a huge fan of that song – Lowdown – the single that came out in 1976. Until now.

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Candi Staton had been singing in gospel groups for years when the future disco diva recorded a solo album of secular Southern soul at Muscle Shoals in 1969.

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This tune was released on Syd Nathan’s legendary King label in Cincinnatti four years after they put out James Brown’s landmark first hit Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag in 1965.

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I can’t pretend i was ever a big Fleetwood Mac fan.
So the death of Christine McVie didn’t resonate with me as strongly as with those millions who bought Rumours. But the outpouring of love and sadness for her death is a poignant reminder of the unifying power of music.

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Here’s another sweet slice of Northern Soul from the vaults – a smooth ballad that introduced The Montclairs in 1969.

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