For some musicians, a tragic death elevates a mediocre career to legendary status. But it didn’t work out that way for Cowboy Copas.

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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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Looking at a list of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s string of hits in the mid-1960s, I find I only know one of them… this summertime classic.

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Sixty years ago today… The Surfaris enjoyed their one and only hit with a hastily composed instrumental B-side called Wipe Out.

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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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Tina Turner’s career might never have got started if a backing singer had not failed to turn up for a recording session of this song in 1960.

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Soul singers don’t come much better than Marvin Gaye and this deep cut comes from a session in 1967 – the year he brought us his best known tune, I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

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Soul singer Al Wilson had a hit with this anti-racist allegory before Donald Trump appropriated it 50 years later as an anti-immigration parable. Because he’s an idiot.

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Darrell Banks had one of the greatest voices in soul music – and plagiarised his biggest hit from the equally great Donnie Elbert in their hometown of Buffalo, New York.

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Donnie Elbert displays his remarkable falsetto on this slow-burning jazz-inflected soul number from 1960 – a far cry from his string of hits a decade later.

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