A Trip To The Museum

I paid a visit to the museum on Friday 21st May. I am a member and had been a couple of times between lockdowns last year. Although most of it is the same, the main exhibition space upstairs changes periodically, and it is worth popping back on a regular basis to see what the current exhibition is. I will touch on the current exhibition (at the time) later.

Although I have been before, Helen hadn’t. Well, not recently, the last time she had gone to the Crawley Museum it had been at Goffs Park. Even with having been before, I find there is always something else I notice that I didn’t on the previous visit.

Wandering around, the museum is deceptive in that it initially looks quite small, but the way the space is set up on both floors, and how the exhibits are laid out, it crams a lot in and it seems to be a lot bigger than you first think. The ground floor deals with the history of The Tree, both the building the museum is housed in, and the actual tree it took its name from, and then takes Crawley history from the Victorian era to the modern day.

It has some of the original war memorial plaques (others having been stolen), that are replicated on the entrance to the Memorial Gardens from County mall. With my love of churches I am drawn to the Chapel sign, and of course to old street signs.

The wall around the stairs up to the first floor have a number of great photographs by Jeff Pitcher, where he is holding an old photograph in the foreground of the modern view of the same spot.

Upstairs, beyond the main exhibition hall, in a series of old, Tudor beamed rooms, is the more ancient history of Crawley from Iron Age times through to the Georgian era. I hadn’t noticed the little cupboard in the corner of the furthest room from the stairs before. It made a great place to hide so I could pop out and surprise Helen. Yes, I am still a very big child.

There is ongoing work to a new display, with a reconstruction being made to show Crawley High Street in Tudor times. It wasn’t complete when we visited, but what had been done to that point looked good, and I look forward to revisiting and seeing the finished version.

With the museum only having re-opened, the fact that the music exhibition was going to end the following week, was the main reason for this visit, and the main difference from my previous visits. I knew The Cure were famously from Crawley, and that Chico was, but it was surprising to learn about some of the other acts shown in the exhibition.

What I don’t know is whether what has been going on since is a coincidence, or whether the exhibition has prompted me to be on the lookout for musical links to Crawley.

On leaving the museum that Friday afternoon I soon found myself in Oxfam and browsing in their music selection I found the 7” single by Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs – “Sea Side Shuffle”; something I had been reading about less than an hour before. At 49p I couldn’t resist buying it and adding it to my wall of vinyl at home.

Then on Bank Holiday Monday, Radio 2 were doing all day Popmaster, and one of the questions was “Which one hit wonder had a 1972 hit with Sea Side Shuffle”. I’m not sure I’d have known the answer ten days before, and the contestant certainly didn’t. Other questions on the day asked about The Cure, Ms Dynamite, and Chico.

Speaking of The Cure, Mojo (the music magazine) had given away a cover CD called “I Wish I Were You” in April, which was a collection of covers of The Cure’s songs. Although I’d had the CD for a while, I was only really listening to it at the end of May. The track that caught my attention was one called “I Don’t Know”, which I didn’t recognise as a Cure song, but it was a hip-hop track using “Lullaby” as a sample. I was quite taken by the song and looked at who it was by to find it was Akala – Ms Dynamite’s younger brother – and another who I had read about in the exhibition. Again, I hadn’t really heard about him until reading the stuff in the exhibition. I went away and listened to some more of his tracks and now have bought his first two albums.

It’s possible all of this would have happened anyway, but I was certainly more aware of it all because of my trip to the museum.

And of course, any trip to any museum anywhere ends with me in the gift shop. I was quite restrained this time having spent a lot of money on my last visit, but I did manage to get a copy of John Goepel’s “How I Chose Crawley’s Street Names”, something to help me in my street sign photo taking obsession.

The End Isn’t In Sight

Absolute Radio bangs on about having a no repeat guarantee. However, it’s only between 9am and 5pm each weekday. Which means on my new elongated shifts I can hear the same record three times in a working day as they cram things into the 8-9 and 5-6 slots as well. Plus, there is nothing stopping them repeating the same songs at the same time every day. But I suppose the “not very many repeats guarantee” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

They were playing the Manic Street Preachers’ “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next”, and was suddenly struck by the fact that twenty odd years down the line, does anyone know what the “this” is? And by “your children will be next”, do they mean: next to tolerate whatever the mystery “this” is; or, that the children will be the next thing to be tolerated. Did no one ask these questions to clarify at the time?

And they are playing an advert for “Organ Donation Day”, which is a noble thing, but all I can think about is people rolling up with ten-ton trucks carrying Hammond organs or Wurlitzers. Articulated lorries with organs donated by churches with pipes wide enough for a child to crawl through. And then of course people wandering up with a Casio keyboard stuck under their arm. I’m wondering who all these organs are going to be donated to?

Whilst I’m on media outlets and adverts, it is with great relief that I can report that Dave have changed their sponsor adverts for weekday evening programmes. Finally gone are the three, now very monotonous Dacia adverts. They have been replaced by spots for Falken Tyres. They have at least four different spots, so already an improvement. I hadn’t heard of Falken before, but I’m sure if their sponsorship goes on for as long as the Dacia one did then I will be whole heartedly sick of them before too long.

And then before even a fortnight is out the sponsor slots change again and we’re back to whole cars, Citroen this time, and after one night’s viewing I can say with certainty they are going to be annoying as hell by next week.

They are bringing in a new learning platform at work, and in traditional style they are asking for employees to vote on the new name from the shortlist. Unsurprisingly there is an option starting “My”, which has won two previous such votes for naming a new system. Not only one option though, three of the five have names starting with “My”. The random word generator didn’t work very well, as along with three “mys”, there are two “skills”, two “hubs”, two “zones” and two “learnings” and two “thes”. So, by rights they should just amalgamate and call it TheMySkillsLearningHubZone and be done with it. Personally, I’m just disappointed that Learny McLearnFace wasn’t one of the options.

There have been a lot of Teams calls recently and one person who has been on a lot of the calls has a picture of swans behind them, and with them being stationary, it makes me think of a part of Eddie Murphy’s Delirious stand up concert from the early 1980’s. There is a part in where he is talking about singers getting a lot of sex, and that his tour band – The Bus Boys – will f#@& anything that moves. So much so that when they go to his house the fish stop swimming. Now think about why those swans aren’t moving.

It’s one of those weeks, so a couple of days after I mentioned the above, they had a different background this morning.

Got my weekly West Sussex County Council e-mail, and as usual the first paragraph is headed “Keep West Sussex Safe”. And as happens every time I read that line, I am expecting the follow up line of “move to East Sussex you unwashed peasants”.

Another random thought was about if when logging off we called shortened logging to loggi? For the single (and very simple) reason that at the end of the day we could chant “loggi, loggi, loggi, off, off, off, loggi, off, loggi, off, loggi, loggi, loggi, off, off, off!” so we signal the end of the working day with a flourish. No? Just me then.

It’s pancake day, one of the few things I’m reasonably good at cooking. A staple when I lived alone, and an excuse to mainline golden syrup. A stack of hot pancakes each with a layer of golden syrup on thicker than the actual pancakes. And once all that unrefined sugar has been inhaled it’s food coma time. No vegetables were harmed in the making of this evening’s tea.

And with more rain every day this week it is getting closer to the point where the Baker Lake out the back of the house is looking to burst its banks and flood the surrounding grounds. You do have to worry about its eco-culture if it does, as I’m quite sure there are at least twenty different unique species living in there now. Although it is interesting to note that the Google satellite view is from at least nine months ago and that the Baker Lake doesn’t feature on it. It was taken before a lot of updates to the garden were done as there is no new patio furniture, Nathan still had his motorbike out front, and it was bin day, and as the car is parked out front it must have been before I went back to the office in June, and with the fact that the park at the back isn’t overgrown it must have been early in the first lockdown when they were doing clap for the NHS as there is a NHS and heart mowed into grass nearby. Plus, none of the short-lived pop-up cycle lanes had been started on.

50 at 50 – Get Them All Here

I’ve collated the links for all the 50 at 50 lists in a single post for easy access.

People

Food

Drinks

Then in to a whole load of music related lists

A Song from each year

Artists

Northern Soul Songs

Hip Hop Tracks

Motown Songs

Albums

Record Labels

Most Played Songs

Then onto Books, TV and Film

Books – Fiction

Books – Non-Fiction

Authors

Films

TV Shows

Fictional Characters

A bit of sport

Footballers

American Footballers

Cricketers

Onto places

Churches

Pubs & Clubs

English Coastal Settlements

And finally

Collections

Quite a bit to get through there.

50 at 50 – Most Played Songs

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about most played songs. To do this properly I would need to be able to count all the times I’ve played records, listened to tapes on my Walkman, played CD’s at home or in the car, and work out all the times I’ve had the radio on. It wouldn’t just be a count from listening to my i-pod and i-tunes library on various computers over the last twelve years or so.

Even that count wasn’t straightforward, some songs are in the library up to ten times, added from different albums over the years (or multiple versions from the same CD single). And they might be on with slightly different spellings, or a band might have a leading “The” on one and not on another.

All the songs on the list have racked up over 100 plays over the years, which may seem excessive, but it is only twice a week for a year, which is a lot less than some radio stations play songs on rotation, and for some, spread over twelve years, it isn’t that bad at all.

A number of the songs on here would have had a lot of non i-tunes plays, Queens Of The Stone Age’s “No One Knows”, and Deep Dish’s “Flashdance” were both my alarm clock song for over two years each. Whilst other songs that aren’t on the list would certainly have been if other mediums could have been counted. One that springs to mind is Heavy D & The Boyz’s “Now That We’ve Found Love”, as the cassette single was the only thing in my Walkman for weeks auto looping for an hour a day.

As it turns out, only one song on this list is from before 1970 – Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’”. The list is in order of the number of plays.

  • Smokey Robinson & the Miracles – The Tears Of A Clown (313)
  • Deep Dish – Flashdance (291)
  • Plan B – She Said (245)
  • Young MC – Know How (242)
  • Plan B – Stay Too Long (235)
  • Killers – Mr. Brightside (207)
  • Paramore – Crushcrushcrush (181)
  • Four Seasons – The Night (180)
  • Jungle Brothers – Because I Got It Like That (172)
  • Fall Out Boy – This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race (160)
  • Enemy – Live And Die In These Towns (158)
  • KC & The Sunshine Band – Queen of Clubs (147)
  • The Jam – To Be Someone (145)
  • LMFAO Featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock – Party Rock Anthem (143)
  • Reverend & The Makers – Heavyweight Champion Of The World (136)
  • Linkin Park – Bleed it Out (133)
  • Plan B – Ill Manors (131)
  • Queens Of The Stone Age – No one knows (130)
  • Maroon 5 Feat. Christina Aguilera – Moves Like Jagger (129)
  • Blapps Posse – Don’t Hold back (127)
  • Eric B & Rakim – Follow the leader (127)
  • Panic! At The Disco – I Write Sins, Not Tragedies (127)
  • Wrinkly Pink Catsuits – Dear Diary (127)
  • The Jam – A Town Called Malice (125)
  • Commodores – Machine Gun (122)
  • Style Council – Wanted (121)
  • Kills – No Wow (120)
  • Al Wilson – The Snake (119)
  • Lloyd Cole And The Commotions – Perfect Skin (119)
  • Slipknot – Duality (119)
  • Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Lovin’ (119)
  • Eric B & Rakim – Eric B is President (114)
  • Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams – Get Lucky (113)
  • Eric B & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul (112)
  • Pharrell Williams – Happy (112)
  • Earth, Wind & Fire With The Emotions – Boogie Wonderland (111)
  • Arctic Monkeys – When The Sun Goes Down (110)
  • Big Daddy Kane – Wrath of Kane (110)
  • Eagles Of Death Metal – Flames Go Higher (110)
  • Eric B & Rakim – Paid in full (109)
  • Indiana – Solo Dancing (107)
  • Paramore – Misery Business (106)
  • Rolling Stones – Doom And Gloom (104)
  • Sophie B Hawkins – Damn I Wish I was your lover (104)
  • Stereophonics – The bartender and the thief (103)
  • Beastie Boys – Sabotage (102)
  • Kid Rock – Cowboy (101)
  • Paramore – Still Into You (101)
  • Third Degree – Mercy (101)
  • Dobie Gray – Out On The Floor (101)

There were three other songs that have hit a hundred plays – Larry Williams & Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Too Late”, Men Of North Country’s “Debut”, and Pretty Reckless’s “Heaven Knows”.

50 at 50 – Record Labels

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about record labels.

Now, most people will have bought a record, a cassette, a CD or a download because they like the music, or the artist, but being a geek, I’ve been fascinated by the label. It is most obvious on records, the patterned paper stuck in the middle of the playing surface, that tells you the artist, the song or songs and various other pieces of information.

I quickly found that similar types of music kept turning up on the same labels, and that I wound up with more records on some labels than others. Then I got into collecting based on label, or at the least picking up records because I recognised the colours and patterns on the label, and knew that I had other records I liked on that label. I built up a list of favourite labels as most would pick up favourite songs.

After the first five on here, there is no particular order to the list.

  • Tamla Motown (UK label for Tamla, Motown and Gordy US labels which hadn’t had UK distribution deals and had had to release on London, Fontana, Oriole and Stateside before founding the label in the UK – hence the TMG on the catalogue numbers)
  • Atlantic
  • Cooltempo
  • Fourth & Broadway
  • Champion
  • Gordy (Motown spun off some artists in the UK to this label in the early eighties)
  • Philadelphia International
  • Two Tone
  • Tam Tam
  • Citybeat
  • Def Jam
  • Cold Chillin’
  • Sugarhill
  • Rhythm King
  • FFRR
  • 10
  • Club
  • Jive
  • Polydor
  • Contempo
  • Grapevine
  • Wand
  • DJ International
  • Trax
  • Acid Jazz
  • DMC
  • Streetsounds
  • Paisley Park
  • ZTT
  • Buddah
  • Casablanca
  • Tommy Boy
  • De-Lite
  • Gee Street
  • Urban
  • T-Neck
  • Mowest (Another Motown spin off label)
  • Rare Earth (Another Motown spin off label)
  • Breakout
  • Serious
  • Tabu
  • Streetwave
  • Big Life
  • Sleeping Bag
  • Delicious Vinyl
  • East West
  • Circa
  • Profile
  • Music of Life
  • Respond

Most of these are soul, dance or hip hop based labels, and a lot were started up by larger well established major labels to sell dance music as they felt it didn’t suit their brand and they thought that these genres wouldn’t sell if they were on major labels.

Cooltempo was a Chrysalis spin off, Fourth and Broadway – Island, FFRR – London, Breakout – A&M, Urban – Polydor.

And I bought them all.

50 at 50 – Albums

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about albums. Again this is only covering albums released in or after 1970. I have included greatest hits; especially if that was the album from the artist I would play to death. I’ve also included compilations, and in a couple of cases they are box sets rather than just a single album.

The top five are pretty much set in stone, after that it’s a free for all. There is the usual kind of alphabetical order thing going on, but for a change it’s going to be on the album title. The first two have been the subject of previous much longer blog posts. And yes, some artists have more than one album on the list.

  • The Jam – Setting Sons
  • Various Artists – Electro 13
  • Eric B & Rakim – Paid In Full
  • The Killers – Hot Fuss
  • The Style Council – Café Bleu
  • Prince – 1999
  • The Jam – All Mod Cons
  • LL Cool J – B.A.D. Bigger And Deffer
  • Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
  • Various Artists – Bugsy Malone OST
  • Madness – Complete Madness
  • Plan B – The Defamation Of Strickland Banks
  • Pet Shop Boys – Disco
  • Green Day – Dookie
  • Darts – Double Top
  • Wham! – Fantastic
  • Eric B & Rakim – Follow The Leader
  • Alexander O’Neal – Hearsay
  • Various Artists – The History Of The House Sound Of Chicago Box Set
  • Bloodhound Gang – Hooray For Boobies
  • The Eagles – Hotel California
  • Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory
  • Earth, Wind and Fire – I Am
  • Ice T – Iceberg / Freedom Of Speech….Just Watch What You Say
  • Stevie Wonder – Innervisions
  • Terence Trent D’arby – Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’arby
  • Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
  • Black Grape – It’s Great When You’re Straight Yeah!
  • Kasabian – Kasabian
  • Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin 4 (The Four Symbols, ZOSO, or any other name people want to call it)
  • Beastie Boys – Licensed To Ill
  • Various Artists – Motown Hits Of Gold Box Set
  • The Prodigy – Music For A Jilted Generation
  • Nirvana – Nevermind
  • Paul Young – No Parlez
  • Various Artists – Now That’s What I Call Music! (Number 1, it wasn’t named so when released, there was no telling at the time what a shift in compilation albums this would have.)
  • Ice T – O.G. Original Gangster
  • Pet Shop Boys – Please
  • Wet Wet Wet – Popped In Souled Out
  • Prince – Purple Rain
  • Paramore – Riot
  • Iron Maiden – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
  • The Jam – Snap!
  • Reverend And The Makers – The State Of Things
  • Stone Roses – Stone Roses
  • NWA – Straight Outta Compton
  • New Order – Substance
  • Michael Jackson – Thriller
  • The Arctic Monkeys – Whatever You Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
  • Grandmaster Melle Mel & The Furious Five – Work Party

If albums were being included on their title only then Snow’s “Twelve Inches of Snow” would have won hands down. Granted the play on words only works on the vinyl album release, five and a quarter inches of snow (for the CD) or three and a half inches of snow (for the cassette) don’t really have the same ring to them.

50 at 50 – Motown Songs

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about Motown songs. Ones released in 1970 or after. Or, after what many people consider their glory years to be – 1964 – 1969 (I could easily do a top fifty for each of those years). I’ve avoided the easy way out and ignored the various sets of reissues they did over the years (all on new catalogue numbers).

There are some on this list that may not obviously be Motown releases, or even by Motown related artists, but they were desperately trying to survive in the eighties. Some artists may appears a lot more than others, which is an indication to their loyalty to the label as others jumped ship to more lucrative and artistically free contracts through the seventies.

This list has been run through two alphabetical order Kev filters, artist then track.

  • Boyz II Men – Motownphilly
  • Gary Byrd and the G.B. Experience – The Crown
  • The Commodores – Brick House
  • The Commodores – I Feel Sanctified
  • The Commodores – Machine Gun
  • The Commodores – Three Times A Lady (Lionel Richie had taken over most of the song writing by this point, and the Commodores had changed from a funk band in the style of Kool & The Gang and Earth, Wind and Fire – like the other three songs of theirs listed here, to a more ballad laden group.)
  • Dazz Band – Let It All Blow
  • DeBarge – Rhythm Of The Night
  • Dennis Edwards featuring Seidah Garrett – Don’t Look Any Further
  • Yvonne Fair – It Should Have Been Me
  • The Four Tops – It’s All In The Game
  • Marvin Gaye – Got To Give It Up
  • Thelma Houston – Don’t Leave Me This Way
  • Jermaine Jackson – Let’s Get Serious
  • Jackson 5 – I Want You Back
  • Jackson 5 – The Love You Save
  • Rick James – Superfreak
  • Magic Disco Machine – Scratchin’
  • Teena Marie – Behind The Groove
  • Mary Jane Girls – All Night Long
  • The Miracles – Love Machine
  • Motor City Crew – Scratch Break (Glove Style)
  • Billy Preston & Syreeta – With You I’m Born Again
  • Public Enemy – Fight The Power (The original of this is on their album ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’, but the single release came from the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s film “Do The Right Thing”, and at the time all his film soundtracks were released on Motown, and hence the single was the only Public Enemy release on Motown.)
  • Queen Latifah – U.N.I.T.Y.
  • Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – The Tears Of A Clown
  • Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me
  • Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out
  • Diana Ross – Love Hangover
  • Diana Ross – Upside Down
  • David Ruffin – Walk Away From Love
  • Jimmy Ruffin – It’s Wonderful (To Be Loved By You)
  • Shanice – I Love Your Smile
  • Edwin Starr – War
  • Stone City Band – All Day And All Of The Night
  • Syreeta – Your Kiss Is Sweet
  • R. Dean Taylor – There’s A Ghost In My House
  • The Temptations – Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)
  • The Temptations – I Can’t Get Next To You
  • The Temptations – Papa Was A Rolling Stone
  • Bruce Willis – Respect Yourself
  • Stevie Wonder – I Wish
  • Stevie Wonder – Living For The City
  • Stevie Wonder – Master Blaster (Jammin’)
  • Stevie Wonder – Positivity
  • Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours
  • Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
  • Stevie Wonder – Superstition
  • Wrecks ‘n’ Effect – New Jack Swing
  • Zhane – Groove Thang

Two things that I remembered from typing up this list are I cannot for the life of me type the word Temptations without missing the third T and have to go back and correct it every single time. And you don’t want to know how many attempts it takes me to get the word ‘rhythm’ correct.

50 at 50 – Hip Hop Tracks

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about Hip Hop Tracks. No need to be worrying about songs before 1970, there was nothing on vinyl until the end of the decade.

This took a lot of whittling down; I was jotting down songs and had more than fifty by the time I’d reached 1990. Not a surprise when I’m an old school devotee who thinks that it all started to go downhill from then. But I persevered and have some more modern ones in. And the thing I keep needing to remind myself about these lists is, they are my personal favourites, not a definitive greatest list.

I’ll start with the one that kicked it all off, and the second one is my all-time favourite Hip Hop track, the rest are shoehorned in as best as can be.

  • Sugarhill Gang – Rapper’s Delight
  • Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock – It Takes Two
  • 2Pac & Dr Dre featuring Roger Troutmann – California Love
  • Eric B. & Rakim – Follow The Leader
  • Eric B. & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul
  • Tarrie B – Murder She Wrote
  • Afrika Bambaataa – Bambaataa’s Theme (Assault on Precinct 13)
  • Beastie Boys – Sabotage
  • Big Daddy Kane – Wrath Of Kane
  • Blapps Posse – Don’t Hold Back
  • Gary Byrd – The Crown
  • Cypress Hill – Can’t Get The Best Of Me
  • Heavy D & The Boyz – Now That We’ve Found Love
  • De La Soul – Ring Ring Ring
  • The DOC – Portrait Of A Masterpiece
  • Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On
  • EPMD – Strictly Business
  • Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew – The Show
  • Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – The Message
  • Hijack – Doomsday Of Rap
  • House Of Pain – Jump Around
  • Ice cube – Check Yo Self
  • Ice T – The Hunted Child
  • Jay-Z – 99 Problems
  • Jungle Brothers – Because I Got It Like That
  • Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest & Monie Love – Doing Our Own Dang
  • Jurassic 5 – Jayou
  • Kid Rock – Cowboy
  • Kris Kross – Jump
  • Mark “The 45” King – The 900 Number
  • Monie Love – I Can Do This
  • MC Lyte – Cold Rock A Party
  • Mekon & Roxanne Shante – What’s Going On?
  • Melle Mel – World War III
  • Mr Thing & Yungun – Dancing Shoes
  • Musto & Bones – Dangerous On The Dancefloor
  • Nas – Hip Hop Is Dead
  • Naughty By Nature – OPP
  • Notorious BIG, Puff Daddy and Ma$e – Mo Money, Mo Problems
  • ODB – Got Your Money
  • Outkast – Ms. Jackson
  • Plan B – Stay Too Long
  • Public Enemy – Bring The Noise
  • Queen Latifah & De La Soul – Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children
  • Run DMC – King Of Rock
  • Salt ‘n’ Pepa – Push It
  • Sir Mix-a-lot – Baby Got Back
  • Ultramagnetic MC’s – Funky
  • Wu-Tang Clan – Gravel Pit
  • Young MC – Know How

This list got changed a lot, both in the notebook and when typing it up, changing song on an artist as I’m typing on a couple of occasions. I could easily have carried on adding to the list.

50 at 50 – Northern Soul Songs

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about Northern Soul songs. Ones released in 1970 or after. This is tricky, as although the scene really took off in the early seventies, a lot of the ‘rare’ soul singles that were being picked up and played were forgotten items from the sixties. They may well have got reissues on different labels and become chart hits in the seventies or later, but where this is the case I’ve tried to leave them off the list, instead treating their release date as the original release date. For every song on this list, I had to discard four others because they were originally released before 1970.

There are some on this list that purists would dismiss as not being Northern Soul, as they are covers, or were commercially successful at the time, or just as being too modern (some great Acid Jazz releases included). But they all have that four on the floor Northern Soul vibe regardless. Plus there are at least two records on here that Northern Soul snobs hate, so I’ve picked them on purpose. Plus there are no Motown releases included, I did a separate list for Motown, though a couple of its subsidiary labels’ releases are included.

The first one on the list is one of those, and of course it’s got a wider audience of hate since Donald Trump has taken to whipping out pieces of paper with the lyrics to it on them and reading them out at his rallies.

  1. Al Wilson – The Snake
  2. James Fountain – Seven Day Lover
  3. The Carstairs – It Really Hurts Me Girl
  4. The M.V.P.s – Turning My Heartbeat Up
  5. Jimmy Castor Bunch – Trogladyte (Cave Man)
  6. Dennis Coffey & Detroit Guitar Band – Scorpio
  7. Don Thomas – Come On Train
  8. Eloise Laws – Love Factory
  9. Joe Tex – Under Your Powerful Love
  10. The 8th Day – Rocks In My Head
  11. Soul Searchers – Ashley’s Roachclip
  12. Dobie Gray – Out On The Floor
  13. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – The Night
  14. Frances Nero – Footsteps Following Me
  15. Billy Butler – The Right Track
  16. Just Brothers – Sliced Tomatoes
  17. Edwin Starr – Back Street
  18. Reggie Garner – Hotline
  19. Toney Lee – Reach Up
  20. Pharrell Williams – Happy
  21. Nolan Parker – If I Could Only Be Sure
  22. Wayne Gibson – Under My Thumb
  23. The Voices Of East Harlem – Cashing IN
  24. Bobby Hutton – Lend A Hand
  25. The Drifters – You Got To Pay Your Dues
  26. Lou Pride – I’m Com’un Home In The Morning
  27. Men Of North Country – Debut
  28. The Dilemmas – Fahrenheit
  29. Lord Large & Dean Parrish – Left, Right and Centre
  30. Lord Large featuring Clem Curtis – Stuck In A Wind Up
  31. Men Of North Country – I’m Comun’ Home In The Morning
  32. Filthy Six – Girlfriend
  33. Milk – Hometown
  34. The Prophets – I Got The Fever
  35. Fascinations – Girls Are Out To Get You
  36. The Pointer Sisters – Send Him Back
  37. Nolan Parker – Keep On Keeping On
  38. Millie Jackson – My Man, A Sweet Man
  39. Billy Woods – Let Me Make You Happy
  40. Otis Smith – Let Her Go
  41. The Exciters – Reaching For The Best
  42. Levi Jackson – This Beautiful Day
  43. Jimmy James – A Man Like Me
  44. Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up
  45. Mr Flood’s Party – Compared To What
  46. Bobby Sheen – Something New To Do
  47. The Skullsnaps – I’m Your Pimp
  48. Millie Jackson – A House For Sale
  49. Armada Orchestra – Philly Armada
  50. Laura Lee – If I’m Good Enough To Love (I’m Good Enough To Marry)

Now, where did I leave my talc?

50 at 50 – Musical Artists

A retrospective of the first fifty years of my life, picking fifty items that resonate with me. This one is about Artists. Musical ones, nothing to do with painting and not p155 artists either. It is one of those that will include artists and groups that were around before 1970, I’ve tried to take into account of the fact there may be more stuff that I like from an artist from before I was born than after when including them.

The first five on the list are those artists / groups that always have at least one track in whatever the current on the go playlist is on my I-pod. After that they are in alphabetical order – it may not seem so – but they are as they would appear in the Guinness book of hit singles.

  • The Jam
  • Eric B & Rakim
  • Prince
  • The Rolling Stones
  • Stevie Wonder
  • The Arctic Monkeys
  • The Art Of Noise
  • Beastie Boys
  • David Bowie
  • James Brown
  • Depeche Mode
  • Duran Duran
  • Earth, Wind And Fire
  • Eminem
  • Foo Fighters
  • The Four Tops
  • Marvin Gaye
  • Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & The Furious Five (covers quite a few different naming conventions over the years.)
  • Green Day
  • The Heavy
  • Human League
  • Ice T
  • Isley Brothers
  • Michael Jackson
  • Billy Joel
  • Kasabian
  • Kid Rock
  • The Killers
  • The Kills
  • The Kinks
  • Kool & The Gang
  • Led Zeppelin
  • Linkin Park
  • LL Cool J
  • Madness
  • New Order
  • Paramore
  • Pet Shop Boys
  • Pink
  • The Prodigy
  • Public Enemy
  • Diana Ross
  • Run DMC
  • Simple Minds
  • The Smiths
  • Joss Stone
  • The Style Council
  • The Temptations
  • The Who
  • Weird Al Yankovic

There were loads more on the longlist, and those that missed out because they were more sixties (and fifties) than anything. And there is a bit more longevity to a number of the artists on here, it’s a bit difficult to include one hit wonders.