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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What a classic this is! It’s one of those songs that lifts your spirits the moment you hear those opening chords. American Girl’s got one foot in the past (the jangly guitar of The Byrds) and one foot in the present (the driving rhythms of the New Wave). On top of that, it’s just a stone-cold classic.

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Even in the darkest depths of my lifelong jazzophobia I had a soft spot for Carla Bley. I’m not sure why; maybe because a female jazz musician is such a rarity.

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Roy Head had his solitary hit single with Treat Her Right in 1965 – aided by his extraordinary dance moves on TV shows like this.

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Over the years there have been songs that caught my imagination without the artist ever finding a place in my musical life. This is one of those songs – and Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band are one of those artists.

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Candi Staton had been singing in gospel groups for years when the future disco diva recorded a solo album of secular Southern soul at Muscle Shoals in 1969.

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Jamaican dancehall star Ini Kamoze started out singing roots reggae long before he topped the charts with his signature song Here Come The Hotstepper.

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Here’s an oddity from the depths of my punk-era singles collection. It was only decades later that a friend picked this obscurity out and recognised two of the names on the sleeve – not as musicians, but as music journalists.

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For years I knew the name (once heard, never forgotten) but never really paid any attention to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Until I saw them in the rockumentary Dig!

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I never heard this when it came out back in 1975 – I was listening to Wish You Were Here until Horses came along – but I’ve heard that drum break sampled dozens of times in hip hop and house tunes since then.

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