Clarence Gatemouth Brown was already in his seventies when he recorded this memorable blues number. Just don’t call it blues.

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Funkytown is a slice of cheesy disco fun that’s almost perfect in its simplicity – and the only hit for disco group Lipps Inc.

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The Barracudas’ only hit is almost perfect: a punk-propelled pastiche of a Sixties surf-pop song, complete with that opening radio ad to set the scene.

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Rewind to 1995 and here, with a little assistance from Boy George, is Lippy Lou with her ragga-rave crossover coming-out anthem Liberation.

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Tony McPhee never achieved the fame and fortune of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck, his fellow British guitarists to emerge from Britain’s blues boom in the 1960s.

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This song has history. In 1955 it gave Johnny Ace his biggest hit single… but only after his unusual death at the age of only 25.

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I don’t know a darn thing about Jacqueline Jones, and I can’t find anything out on the Interweb. No biographical details, no other tunes. But what a voice! 

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A decade ago I went to see a new band called Poliça somewhere in Shoreditch. They didn’t fit into any category I knew: their immersive electronic sound had a dreamy sort of quality with an RnB undercurrent. (more…)

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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Rewind to 1975 and here’s an infectious tune by Max Romeo, one of reggae’s great survivors – still performing at the age of 78.

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