If I believed in guilty pleasures I’d list one of mine as cod reggae. Especially electro-reggae like this. But I don’t, so I’m very happy to own my love of this.

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The Blue Aeroplanes, led by the Langley brothers from Bristol, emerged in the early 1980s and are still going strong four decades later.

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It’s funny, looking back now, to recall that The Motels were sold as a “New Wave” band. This is the only song I remember – and it’s an epic ballad.

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Zoot Money was one of those Zelig-like characters who turned up as a sideman, playing keyboards on hundreds of records from the early Sixties. But he actually started out as a front man.

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Beautiful song, beautiful voice, beautiful boy… Ricky Nelson was only 17 when he sang this back in 1958. (more…)

I was sad when The Specials fell apart: they had been such a part of my life for what they represented as much as their music. But it didn’t take long to fall in love again with the Fun Boy Three.

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When I was a schoolkid I loved Cream. Everybody loved Cream. And this was their signature song. They were the original “power trio” of guitar, bass and drums – Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.

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This is a fantastic discovery If you like funky horn sections and you like powerful female voices. They don’t come much more powerful than Lydia Pense and her San Francisco-based band Cold Blood.

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Tim Hardin’s struggles with addiction are mirrored in Black Sheep Boy, his heartbreaking tale of alienation from his family.

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Samuel Maghett – “Maghett Sam” merging into Magic Sam – was a Chicago bluesman who had moved north from his Mississippi Delta birthplace in 1956 when he was 19.

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