Sylvia Robinson is one of the most important figures in music history. She’s been called the Mother of Hip-Hop for her key role in the birth of rap, founding Sugar Hill Records in the late Seventies. But before that she was a one-hit wonder with this saucy disco hit. (more…)

If the marketing arm of the British musical instrument manufacturers Vox wanted one song to sell their electric organs, then they would surely give their donor card to 96 Tears. (more…)

The exhilarating melody of this tune has stayed with me since childhood.
I had not heard of Jr Walker & The All Stars when it was a modest hit in the summer of 1972 and I’m not sure I even thought of them as a soul group. (more…)

The first time I heard or saw Cliff Richard was when he sang Congratulations in the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest. But he had been having hit singles since the year I was born. This one was top of the Hit Parade on my third birthday. (more…)

Here’s a summery reverb-drenched slice of Sixties psychedelia to send the mind spinning back to San Francisco in the Summer of Love. (more…)

This is the song that was number one on my first birthday. Obviously I don’t remember it, though I do remember the song from Glen Campbell’s version in 1970. (more…)

What was the first disco hit? The Trammps would define the genre with Disco Inferno. But before that came this old Broadway tune in 1972. (more…)

I never thought I’d be waxing lyrical about The Stranglers 45 years after I first saw them, supporting Patti Smith at The Roundhouse. (more…)

Nat Turner Rebellion: Laugh To Keep From Crying – album review

Barry White’s only chart-topping single started life as a country-and-western tune before he gave it a disco makeover. (more…)