Counting Crows came from San Francisco and immediately struck gold with their debut single, Mr Jones, in early 1994.

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Hothouse Flowers enjoyed their solitary big hit Don’t Go thanks to their exposure in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988.

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Here is a sultry slice of funk, driven by a killer bassline, with the sweet sibling vocals of The Pointer Sisters from their third album Steppin’ back in 1975.

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The Jones Girls may have come from Detroit but their sweet harmonies made them synonymous with the Philly Sound. And their big breakthrough came after almost a decade when they teamed up with Philly Soul titans Gamble and Huff.

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Sade’s smooth song is given a glorious makeover by New York producer Danny Krivit with Boyd Jarvis’s organ solo to the fore.

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October 1976: I’ve bunked off college early and I’m at the Victoria Palace Theatre to see Graham Parker & The Rumour. But what excites me more is the support band – The Damned.

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I’ve never been a jazz-funk fan and the vibraphone would be very low on my list of favourite instruments, ranking alongside the flute and just above the ukelele. But I’d have to make an exception for Roy Ayers.

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William Bell was one of the architects of Stax/Volt soul. His debut single in 1961 helped define the classic country-soul sound of Memphis when he struck gold with his debut single.

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Gene Allison was the accidental star who became a one-hit wonder in 1957 with his gospel-tinged debut single You Can Make It If You Try.

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He looked like Elvis, he sounded like Elvis, and that was Ral Donner’s golden ticket to pop stardom – for a brief period in 1961.

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