Candi Staton had been singing in gospel groups for years when the future disco diva recorded a solo album of secular Southern soul at Muscle Shoals in 1969.

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Jamaican dancehall star Ini Kamoze started out singing roots reggae long before he topped the charts with his signature song Here Come The Hotstepper.

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Butcher Brown are a self-proclaimed “proud throwback to the progressive jazz-funk bands of the 1970s with a 21st century twist” – a phrase that would once have filled me with horror.

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Here’s an oddity from the depths of my punk-era singles collection. It was only decades later that a friend picked this obscurity out and recognised two of the names on the sleeve – not as musicians, but as music journalists.

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For years I knew the name (once heard, never forgotten) but never really paid any attention to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Until I saw them in the rockumentary Dig!

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Here’s a marriage of two marvellous musicians making magic when they meet – Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Irish violinist Aoife Ní Bhriain.

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I never heard this when it came out back in 1975 – I was listening to Wish You Were Here until Horses came along – but I’ve heard that drum break sampled dozens of times in hip hop and house tunes since then.

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John Grant reunites with Midlake on a new EP, Roadrunner Blues, 13 years after they collaborated on his debut album. They’ve lost none of the magic they made together.

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A Taste Of Honey were one of the few disco outfits to write, sing and play their own tunes. This was their debut single – and their only hit.

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Here’s a nice thing by two of the great names in hip hop – DJ Muggs and Kool Keith. It’s the title track from the soundtrack of a new sci-fi film called Divinity by regular David Lynch composer Dean Hurley.

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