This is another long jam for a summer’s day, fusing an R&B groove with the flightier embellishments of jazz. (more…)

The Chambers Brothers blended their gospel roots with folk and West Coast rock to create a unique take on psychedelic soul in the first Summer of Love. (more…)

Whoever said white men can’t sing the blues (or play them) had clearly never heard this tune by Blood, Sweat & Tears. (more…)

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band created the template for Acid Rock with the sprawling title track of their second album East West in 1966. (more…)

In 1963 my mother bought her first and, I’m fairly sure, last pop record. I was five – and this is it. 
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Back in 1966, while England were winning the World Cup at Wembley, the boogaloo came out of every window in Brooklyn and the Bronx. (more…)

The Meters defined the sound of New Orleans funk on this instrumental back in 1969. It’s still winning new friends in movies today. (more…)

The Shirelles were still in their teens, fresh out of Passaic High School in New Jersey, when they became the first black girl group to top the US charts in 1960. (more…)

What a strange and compelling song The Letter is. And how strange to realise that husky blue-eyed soul voice comes from a 16-year-old boy. (more…)

Leonard Cohen’s song So Long Marianne reminds me of my first job, and the time I left home and moved to London when I was 17. (more…)