One-off songs or artists with an interesting backstory.

Arthur Russell: Another Thought (1985)

Curiously, it has only been in recent years that the British music press "discovered" Arthur Russell. But maybe not so curious: Russell died of Aids-related illnesses in '92 and although he left behind literally many hundreds of reels of recordings (everything from disco through experimental pop to Russell singing with just his cello for accompaniment) his work was little known beyond... more >>

Added: 22 May 2013

Timothy Leary: You Can Be Anyone This Time Around (1970)

Older, if not wiser, "heads" will know exactly who Dr Timothy Leary was -- an advocate of the widespread use of LSD to change cultural consciousness and to open individuals to the vastness of the cosmos within and without. Tune in, turn on and drop out became a mantra in the late Sixties. His album You Can Be Anyone This Time Around was one of the first cut'n'splice albums of... more >>

Added: 17 May 2013

Bernard Butler: Woman I Know (1998)

Was it Bob Dylan who said something to the effect, "amateurs borrow, professionals steal"? Not to encourage plagiarism, but Bernard Butler certainly took a leaf or two -- if not a whole chapter -- from the Book of Fleetwood Mac for this track which uses Albatross as it's starting point -- but then doesn't go too far with it. This was the opening track on Butler's solo album... more >>

Added: 16 May 2013

Marilyn Monroe: You'd Be Surprised (1956)

Although it's hardly surprising that Marilyn Monroe would sing a song as suggestive as this interest alights on who wrote it. Yep, the man also responsible for such classics as Blue Skies, White Christmas, God Bless America, There's No Business Like Show Business (from Annie Get Your Gun) and hundreds of other songs imprinted in the collective memory of Americans and large portions of the... more >>

Added: 15 May 2013

Rufus Wainwright: Medley from Brian Wilson's SMiLE (2009)

As most people who follow such things know, the album SMiLE was the one that broke the Beach Boys' composer Brian Wilson. After labouring over it for months and months -- his spirit increasingly battered by complaints about its complexity from within the band, issues with record company and an increasing intake of marijuana which didn't help -- the project was finally abandoned in '67.... more >>

Added: 13 May 2013

Eden Kane: Boys Cry (1964)

When Peter Sarstedt had his smash hit single Where Do You Go To My Lovely? in '69 some unfairly asked . . . where did his brother Richard go? Richard, who used the stage name Eden Kane, had enjoyed some chart success in those pre-Beatle days (hence the name change, he was in there with Adam Faith, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury et al) but had largely disappeared after his one last flash, the... more >>

Added: 6 May 2013 3 Comments

Johnny Cash: Understand Your Man (1964)

The friendship and mutual admiration in the late Sixties between Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan has been well documented: they did some sessions together in '69 (their duet on Girl From the North Country appeared on Dylan's Nashville Skyline), and Cash subsequently invited Dylan onto his television show as a guest. But their friendship went back even further and Cash was an early supporter of... more >>

Added: 29 Apr 2013

Joe Boot and the Fabulous Winds: Rock and Roll Radio (1958)

From The Ventures (Walk Don't Run) and the Kingsmen (the garageband classic Louie Louie of '63, see clip) through Jimi Hendrix, the grunge bands (Nirvana, Mudhoiney, Pearl Jam etc) to the Posies, Sleater-Kinney and Modest Mouse, the Pacific Northwest has been a breeding ground for rock'n'roll. It's fitting that it should be the home the EMP (Experience Music Project), a terrific museum of... more >>

Added: 25 Apr 2013

Steve and Eydie: Black Hole Sun (1997)

The fad for lounge music in the late Nineties was amusing enough, but inevitably most of what emerged was forgettable. (Although who could expunge this from the memory.) Still, groups like Pizzicato Five were kind of amusing, and it was good to hear the great Esquivel and Martin Denny's names being mentioned in hip'n'fashionable circles even if you suspected most people didn't... more >>

Added: 24 Apr 2013 1 Comment

Graham Parker: Between You and Me (1975)

It's all every well to ridicule Dick Rowe of Decca Records for turning the Beatles down after an audition in '62 ("Not to mince words, Mr Epstein, we don't like your boys' sound. Groups are out: four piece groups with guitars particularly are finished"). But if he had just addressed the music he was probably right. The Beatles' Decca audition was hardly promising, largely... more >>

Added: 23 Apr 2013 5 Comments

Paper Knife: title unknown (1996?)

At some time in the mid Nineties while in Tokyo I ambled through Yoyogi Park where the Fifites rock'n'roll stylists slick back their hair and dance to old Elvis, and girls and boys alike dress like manga-mad characters. It is a vibrant and slightly circus-like atmosphere -- and that was where I saw Paper Knife, two young and slightly uncomfortable guys with guitars and a beat box of drum... more >>

Added: 18 Apr 2013

Lucille Bogan: Shave 'Em Dry II (1935)

In these days of earnestly crotch-thrusting young women on video clips you long for something which has that long forgotten ingredient: wit. Old time blues is ripe with innuendo, downhome analogies and suggestive lyrics. When Lonnie Johnson sings of being the The Best Jockey in Town he doesn't mean he brings home the winners. Lil Johnson in the Thirties delivered a line of sexually... more >>

Added: 17 Apr 2013 2 Comments

Noel McKay: Sweater Girl (1963?)

Noel McKay had a drag act in New Zealand in the early Sixties (and lesserly so into the Seventies) but always walked both sides of the line. He released albums in covers with him in drag but also had a series of EPs on the Viking label entitled Party Songs; For Adults Only which were directed at the straight audience. These included mildly risque songs such as Loretta the Sweater Girl... more >>

Added: 16 Apr 2013

The Gun: Race with the Devil (1967)

In the age of Cream (mid '66 to late '68), Blue Cheer and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the power trio became an established form and this group from Buckinghamshire -- two brothers and another -- took the hard rock, guitar pyrotechnics sound to the top of the British charts with this single. And that was about it for them. That's actually not entirely true, but there is a back-story and a... more >>

Added: 15 Apr 2013 1 Comment

The Beatles: I Saw Her Standing There (1963)

Half a century ago the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me was released. Legend has it that it took only 16 hours to record, the final song being Twist and Shout for which Lennon, suffering from a cold and drinking sweet tea, roared through in a searing performance. The album contained their earlier minor hit Love Me Do and chart topper Please Please Me alongside Arthur Alexander's... more >>

Added: 3 Apr 2013

Steeleye Span: Cam Ye Oer Frae France (1973)

As with Fairport Convention (which included Richard Thompson), Steeleye Span were in the vanguard of the British folk-rock movement of the late Sixties. Unlike Fairport however, Steeleye Span didn't move as often and as far from the roots of folk and frequently drew on Francis Child's text The English and Scottish Ballads for inspiration and source material -- a book which has more recently... more >>

Added: 28 Mar 2013 1 Comment

Gary US Bonds: Quarter to Three (1961)

In the DVD doco accompanying the box set version of The Promise -- the songs recorded while waiting to start a new album after Born to Run -- Bruce Springsteen talks about how he was a product of Top 40 radio, those great three minute songs which set you free just for that moment in time. And E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt later says that Springsteen could have been one of the great... more >>

Added: 27 Mar 2013 2 Comments

Peter Cape: She'll Be Right (1959)

Peter Cape was New Zealand's unofficial poet laureate in the days before television, when men were "jokers" and women were "sheilas" . . . and when you could afford to assume that "she'll be right". (ie no matter what happens, it'll be okay.) Cape wrote and sang of awkward young men and women at a rural dance (Down the Hall on Saturday Night), of train stops on... more >>

Added: 26 Mar 2013 1 Comment

Brute Force: The King of Fuh (1969)

The two hour-plus DVD doco Strange Fruit shone a spotlight on a fascinating period in the Beatles' career, that of their own production/recording and publishing company Apple whch McCartney described as "Western communism". The ethos of the label was to give artists freedom to record and as such the label openly touted for talent. Ironically not one of those who many hundreds who... more >>

Added: 25 Mar 2013

Lee Clayton: Industry (live, 1989)

Rocking country singer Lee Clayton out of Alabama and Tennessee almost made the big time at the end of the Seventies with two exceptional albums, Border Affair and Naked Child. In some ways he was ahead of his time and if they had arrrived around the same time as James McMurtry, Chris Whitley and a few others a decade later he might have been seen as a part of a tough-minded and poetic... more >>