Once in a while you come across an old tune you’ve never heard before by a musician you’ve never heard before and it’s so great you can’t believe you didn’t know it. Like this slice of psychedelic soul. (more…)

You hear the word ‘classic’ bandied about a lot but Express Yourself is a solid-gold soul and funk classic of the first order. (more…)

The Shirelles were still in their teens, fresh out of Passaic High School in New Jersey, when they became the first black girl group to top the US charts in 1960. (more…)

Roy Ayers’s song Everybody Loves The Sunshine is the quintessential summer groove, guaranteed to brighten any day. (more…)

What a strange and compelling song The Letter is. And how strange to realise that husky blue-eyed soul voice comes from a 16-year-old boy. (more…)

Heard on its own, this melancholy ten-minute guitar apocalypse by Funkadlic would be impossible to categorise. (more…)

Everything about this sleazy song by Serge Gainsbourg is fantastic. Except its problematic subject matter – paedophilia. (more…)

If you’re going to be known for just one song, then you might as well make it a great one. Like King Floyd’s solitary hit Groove Me. (more…)

Big lady, big voice, big hair – Jean Knight had it all. Mr Big Stuff was her takedown of that guy all women know, the one who thinks he’s God’s gift. He’s begging to be taken down, and Jean did the job for us all in this stone-cold funk and soul classic. (more…)