This song is such a masterpiece with which to launch a career. And Donny Hathaway is rightly regarded as one of the greatest of all soul singers.

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Cream’s original version of this song was played a lot when I was at school, driven along by a bassline Jack Bruce apparently inspired by seeing a Hendrix concert. It was only much later that I heard this funky soul version by Spanky Wilson, with its exuberant horns and serpentine basslines.

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Like great novels, great songs often have their roots in real life. But I never knew that was the case with this Suspicious Minds.

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I was busy building tree houses and playing with train sets when The Stooges released their debut album so I can only imagine the impact of hearing this when it came out. No need to say when that was either – it’s right there in the title.

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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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