If there was ever a competition to find the funkiest funkster in Funkville, then Sly Stone would be in the final funk-off, probably with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. (more…)

This may have been my introduction to folk music. I was a bit late, considering it’s a nineteenth-century song, though it goes back even further than that in its inspiration. (more…)

Lou Reed has probably loomed larger in my musical life than anyone else. Both as a solo artist and in his band The Velvet Underground. (more…)

This might not be not my favourite Bowie song – though it’s one of them). And it is, for me, the most perfectly produced song of all time. (more…)

It’s a sad irony that it typically takes a pop star to die before you start delving through their back catalogue. (more…)

From the last album Biggie Smalls released in his lifetime, a user guide to making money in the way he used to earn his. (more…)

I’m not normally a fan of mixing music and comedy – quite the reverse – but in this particular case it seems to work. At least it did at the time. (more…)

I’ve always regarded jazz-funk as the devil’s music, something for which I primrily blame George Benson’s scat singing along to his guitar. And Level 42, obviously. (more…)

Break-up songs don’t come much more devastating than The End Of The World, which gave country legend Skeeter Davis her only UK hit in 1963. (more…)

You can probably tell from their name that The Butthole Surfers are not for everyone. But the Texas noisemongers were very much for me. In parts, anyway. (more…)