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Few figures from the music world personified the drug-fuelled excesses of the Sixties more than David Crosby, who has died at the age of 81.
The first time I heard this song was when The Clash did it as the lead track on their Cost Of Living EP in 1979. Before long it sent me back to this, the original hit by the Bobby Fuller Four.
Returning to Seventies schmaltz, here’s another oldie from another husband-and-wife duo, Captain & Tennille. It’s not their debut single, Love Will Keep Us Together, and not the peculiar Muskrat Love, but their comeback song after a stint hosting their own TV show.
On the surface this Seventies oldie is the epitome of clean-cut middle-of-the-road soft rock schmaltz. Pause for a moment, though, and the words beneath those blissful harmonies are pure filth.
Who was the first white artist signed to Motown? Well I always thought it was R.Dean Taylor, the Canadian who sang the great Indiana Wants Me (and Gotta See Jane and There’s A Ghost In My House). It wasn’t. I’m not sure who it was but Debbie Dean was their first female solo artist back in 1960.
This has to be one of the best Motown deep cuts – the solitary single released on Motown by Linda Griner. The schoolgirl singer from Washington D.C. was spotted by Smokey Robinson, who also wrote the song (with The Miracles on backing vocals).
I didn’t discover Elvis until the early Seventies when he was that big sweaty guy with huge sideburns in the white rhinestone-studded jumpsuits singing overblown ballads on a stage in Vegas.
Growing up, I knew this song as a hit single for The Carpenters in 1975. For older pop fans, it’s Motown’s first number one single by one of the first girl groups, The Marvelettes, from 1961.
I think the only Jeff Beck record in my collection is the single Hi Ho Silver Lining, which does not exactly show the guitarist at his virtuosic best. But this does: an incendiary live performance of a tune from his instrumental album Blow By Blow, recorded at Ronnie Scott’s in 2007.
Inspired by my birthday trip back to Belfast – and today’s ambulance strike – here is what must surely be Van Morrison’s finest moment. It’s certainly his most emotionally intense.