Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien and Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie had tremendous success in British light entertainment in the 60s. Dusty Springfield was a masterful interpreter of American pop written by the best – Goffin/King, Bacharach & David – and Lulu was the sprightly young pop poppet of the charts and the Eurovision Song Contest.

Dusty’s renditions of the classics gave her the leverage she needed to take a step up in class and record with the best. Though it had been very successful, Lulu simply hated what she was singing (though glimpses of the direction she was to take can be seen in her TV show, which also gave us one of most edgy television moments of the decade). Contract at an end, she signed up with Atco and got a chance to show what she could do with classier material. They both went to America.

Dusty worked with Aretha Franklin’s production team of Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin in Tennessee, backed by the legendary Memphis Cats (well known for providing a sterling musical service to Elvis, Wilson Pickett and more). Dusty In Memphis isn’t quite the gritty downhome album it might have been, but it is an incredible meeting of pop and soul, complete with superb funky arrangements.

Lulu headed for Alabama and the same production team as Dusty. The musicians were the awesome Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who were responsible for more than a few landmark recordings (Aretha’s Respect and Wilson Pickett’s Mustang Sally to name just two). Add legendary guitar slinger Duane Allman to the mix and you can see that Lulu was in the very best company in making New Routes.

Both these records made the lower reaches of the American top 100. The late 60s and early 70s were more about Woodstock, Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin, so these exemplary recordings were somewhat overlooked, but they represent the artistic high point of two remarkable British singers.

You’ll have heard Son Of A Preacher Man before, but maybe not seen this clip of Dusty. You might not have heard Lulu’s Oh Me Oh My, but Aretha knows how great a performance it is, since she recorded her own version on Young, Gifted and Black in 1972.

Ladies and  gentlemen, Dusty and Lulu.

P.S. Here’s a little extra Dusty – singing the blues. Following New Routes, Lulu went and did it all over again on an album called Melody Fair. The backing band on that record? The Dixie Flyers plus the Memphis Horns, augmented by Elvis’s backing singers The Sweet Inspirations, no less! Both albums are collected on The Atco Sessions 1969-1972.

Thanks to fellow bloggers ElTele and Talcy for spurring me on with their own excellent 26×26 selections. What’s next, chaps?

The Zombies released just two albums, and as they broke up shortly after recording Odessey & Oracle, you might say it didn’t have the huge impact it deserved. Their first record was a collection of singles and covers: this one is therefore their only ‘true’ album, written by Zombies Rod Argent and Chris White. It was recorded at Abbey Road (with no producer-ly interference), shortly after the aforementioned Sgt. Pepper and Pink Floyd’s Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. 1967 was a good year for the studio, but torture for the Zombies.

Morale within the band was low. Two singles from the sessions had been released to complete indifference from the record-buying public, the band were disillusioned and fighting amongst themselves. Singer Colin Blunstone hated what would become the album’s closing track Time Of The Season, but was persuaded to sing it.

The album was mixed in mono by Argent and White, but the record company required a stereo mix and said the band should pay for it themselves. This mix was completed, but it was the final financial straw, and the group split before the album release. Time Of The Season hit the charts, but it was all over for the Zombies.

Odessey & Oracle isn’t overly experimental or ‘out there’. It’s subtle, but daring and witty. It has a wistful air, chiefly due to Blunstone’s sweet voice. It has brilliant harmonies and superb composition. Odessey & Oracle is perfectly-formed intricate pop music.

And if that’s the kind of thing you like…

P.S. I could just as easily have written about: ZZ Top and the album Deguello. It was also the only other ‘Z’ I had in My Music.

Wow, that’s it then, 26 albums. I’m done.

Or am I? Stay tuned.

The ‘most blueswailing’ Yardbirds went through their own stylistic line-up changes, whilst serving as a finishing school for three English rock guitarists: the god-like genius that is Jeff Beck, and two other guys.

OK, just kidding, they were of course Eric Clapton (who left in ’65 to play the blues, not pleased with the commercial direction the ‘birds were taking) and Jimmy Page (who switched from bass to guitar in ’66 when Beck got tired and fired, and.. you know the rest).

Lester Bangs wrote that it was the Yardbirds, not the Stones, that were an inspiration for a thousand American garage bands, who were persuaded chiefly by Relf’s rougher, raggedy, definitely-a-white-boy yowl that they could ‘make it’ too. Listen to The Shadows of Knight and The Count Five. Lester was right.

And how frequently in those days did a group of spotty individuals from Greater London take American music to America and ‘give it back to the kids, man’?

Any road up, I’m going to steal what Charles Shaar Murray says about The BBC Sessions, because he’s spot on: “Judged as ‘blues’ it’s ridiculous. Heard as an example of how liberating blues material and attitudes were for stiff young Brits, it’s a revelation, despite the BBC engineers’ reluctance to allow the young brutes to turn their amplifiers up to real-life onstage levels.”

Play loud. This one’s for Linda in Wrexham, and all you other blues boomers out there.

N.B. I’ve got a few of these BBC Sessions compilations – The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream – and they’re really good.

P.S. I could have just as easily written about: Young Marble Giants and the album Colossal Youth, but I already did that, ages ago.

I just can’t wait for Z.

I also know that, as long ago as the letter ‘W’, I’ve been emphasising how great the albums as a whole are. Not just a few top tracks, but entirely great records.

So here’s a warning before I continue: this IS a five star record, I’m totally entranced by it whenever I put it on, and the superlatives are going to go off the scale.

Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) is XTC’s last studio album, from 2000. If it’s the last one they ever make, it’ll be, for me, their career high. Twelve perfectly constructed, charming pop songs, brilliantly produced: gleaming arrangements, playful lyrics, glorious melodies, radio hooks aplenty, sparkling guitar work. Not one single moment where the quality drops below ‘excellent’.

I could be exaggerating. It might not be your thing. But just listen to this, while I go and have a lie down to recover..

P.S. No way I was going to write about X or X-Ray Spex or The XX when XTC’s Wasp Star is alongside them in my collection.

Wonder what Y will be?

If you’re thinking my 26×26 is a bit ‘John Peel’ in places.. you’d be right. Just goes to show what a towering musical influence the man was on those of us who are a certain age. Here’s another Peelie favourite from 1987.

The Wedding Present played fast, jangling rhythm-guitar-led songs of love, loss and heartbreak, with a glorious matter-of-fact lyricism that just… said what you felt. I guess a modern equivalent might be The Libertines, except Weddoes supremo David Gedge can write Barat and Doherty under the table. The best version of the debut album George Best is the original CD – OK, you can go and get the extended mega super plus versions if you really want to – which has thirteen Gedge classics plus a blistering cover of Going Nowhere Fast by Girls At Our Best! (who, like the Wedding Present, came from Leeds, fact fans).

The song titles alone should convince you this is a great record (Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft and What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? open the album) and behind the blazing guitars, furious bass playing and thunderous drumming, every single track has a lyrical highlight:

Uneaten meals
A lonely star
A welcome ride in a neighbour’s car
A long walk home
The pouring rain
I fell asleep when you never came
Some rare delight in Manchester town
It took six hours before you let me down
To see it all in a drunken kiss
A stranger’s hand on my favourite dress

That’s poetry, that is.

N.B. The fun didn’t stop with George Best either: on through a Ukrainian folk song mini-album, their major label debut in Bizarro.. it’s all good. David Gedge had a detour into Cinerama, and still puts out Wedding Present albums. 2005′s Take Fountain is great, from which comes this superb song.

P.S. I could have just as easily written about: Wilco and the album A Ghost Is Born.

Wonder what X will be?

Before I make further comment on it, let me tell you a tale.

He’s a curmudgeonly old chap, is Van. You could argue he’s earned the right to be, with the classic material he’s put out over the years. He’s a legend, and he can do as he pleases. The times I’ve seen him in concert I was seeking the It’s Too Late To Stop Now experience, and I did get it, once, with a classic band led by Georgie Fame following Mr Morrison’s every move, sympathetic to the cause. Two hours of transcendent genius.

But the other times? A distracted, often grumpy Van and a parade of unnecessary ‘guest stars’ (if I want to hear Brian Kennedy sing Tupelo Honey I’ll go and see Brian Kennedy). Richard Gere on guitar one night. You think that sounds weird? It was. And not in a good way.

However, when Van is ‘on’, he’s really ON. It’s Too Late To Stop Now is the best officially released example of that: a storming collection of blues and soul classics (from Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Bobby Bland and more) plus eleven Morrison originals, belted out by The Man himself on top form. All his on-stage energy is constructive, not destructive, and he throws himself into the music. He’s backed by the superb Caledonia Soul Orchestra (eleven of them, including horns and strings). All the excitement of the original gigs is translated onto vinyl. All killer, no filler.

During the dramatic ten-minute-plus Cyprus Avenue which closes the album, the band drops back for a second, maybe summoning some last reserves of energy to really bring it home.. and some wag in the crowd dares to shout “Turn it on!”. With impeccable timing, the perfect amount of dramatic tension – will he reply? won’t he? – Morrison snaps back “It’s turned on already”.

Is it ever.

P.S. I could have just as easily written about: The Velvet Underground and the album The Velvet Underground

Wonder what W will be?

N.B. Van is assiduous in chasing down posting of his material on the net, so play this track from the album quickly, before Grooveshark are asked to take it down. Videos on YouTube are scarce for the same reason.

It’s fizzy orange pop, thieving Mars bars from the corner shop, snorkel parkas, zits, exchanging football cards, Doc Martens, a quick snog round the back of the bike sheds, and the joy and angst of being a hormone-stuffed delinquent teenager.

A sugar-rush debut, including John Peel’s favourite song ever. Feargal’s wobbly wail, the O’Neill brothers’ buzzsaw attack, plus Michael Bradley and Billy Doherty solid at the back.

Sixteen tracks, two minutes or so each, five guys, three chords, one whole lot of fun. It might just be perfect.

P.S. I could have just as easily written about: U2 and the album Achtung Baby which is remarkable for one reason – it’s the only U2 album I like. But I decided to write about another bunch of Irishmen instead.

Wonder what V will be?

Tubbs was at his peak in the 1960s. His ability, said Scott, “scared me to death”. In 1961 he was the first English jazz soloist to hold down a residency at a New York club, and he recorded this album. Later in the decade he toured the US, recorded with Roland Kirk and Paul Gonsalves, appeared in a movie with Charles Mingus, deputized in Duke Ellington’s band and, even more astonishingly, was awarded a prime time slot on TV for Tubby Plays Hayes.

I first came across the slouching, swinging tune Pint Of Bitter from New York Sessions on a cheapo jazz compilation, and a good few years later, was fortunate to track down this CD. It’s still pretty scarce. In fact, if you ever find any of Tubbs’ vinyl records on Fontana second hand, snap them up and sit on a goldmine.

On New York Sessions, Tubbs is assisted by Clark Terry (trumpet), Horace Parlan (piano), George Duvivier (bass), and Eddie Costa on vibes.  Tubby jumps out of the blocks on the opening You For Me with some dog-off-the-leash tenor and digs right in, the group right there with him. He’s brilliantly proficient, but there’s soul and blues in his tone, and the record has an intimate ‘small jazz club’ ambience that’s hard to beat.

I don’t have many jazz albums. I’ve got a few other favourites (Charlie Haden and Art Pepper to name two) but this record is terrifically well played and involving, so it was the one I chose to write about for this series.

Here’s some vintage Hayes, introduced by Humphrey Lyttelton. Niiiice.

P.S. I could just as easily have written about Teenage Fanclub and the album Grand Prix, but it’s good to write about something a bit different, as much as I love Teenage Fanclub (who incidentally use the same look for their web site as I do. Good taste!).

Wonder what U will be?

An small explosion of deft, politically active reggae groups – Misty In Roots, Matumbi and Aswad in particular – stood side by side with punk bands like The Ruts and The Clash, committed to the Rock Against Racism and Anti-Nazi League movements and railing against the oppression of the SUS laws and the economic situation.

Birmngham’s Steel Pulse were perhaps the best of the lot. Their first album for the Island label, Handsworth Revolution, is a taut collection of eight brilliant songs which surged to #9 in the UK charts. Great story-telling music played by a fiercely talented collection of musicians, driven by two strong characters in David Hinds and Mykaell Riley. It’s inventive, uncompromising, complex and enjoyable. Popular music, but not pop.

Their concerts were often a theatrical affair, accentuating the power of the music with costumes that mocked British archetypes (a vicar, a bowler hatted banker) and occasionally employing more striking imagery (as we shall see in the video below).

There were lots of reggae classics I could have written about for this series – Dillinger’s CB200, Culture’s Two Sevens Clash, Best Dressed Chicken In Town by Dr. Alimantado, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown with Augustus Pablo, Wise and Foolish by Misty In Roots.. the list goes on.

But Handsworth Revolution sits alongside LKJ’s Forces of Victory at the top of my reggae collection.

P.S. I could just as easily have written about The Stooges and the album Fun House.

Wonder what T will be?

There are several top Hitch albums I could have commented on (Element Of Light and Globe Of Frogs to name two) , but I chose one from 2006, Ole! Tarantula, for a couple of reasons. It has a consistently good track selection, and a prodigious backing band in the Venus 3 – Peter Buck deploying his signature Rickenbackers to great effect, Scott McCaughey on bass and keys (both from REM of course), plus Bill Rieflin (ex-Ministry) on the traps.

So it might be a cult classic, but it’s not erratic or wonky – this is a tremendously sure-footed album stuffed to the brim with great songs and classic observations.

Belltown Ramble is a lovely slice of folky goodness, Underground Sun is Byrds-meets-Floyd pop. (A Man’s Got To Know His Limitations) Briggs is the only song I know that refers to the 70s classic Clint Eastwood movie Magnum Force. Cause It’s Love is a jaunty melody co-written with XTC’s Andy Partridge. Authority Box explodes into rudeness, the title track spawns spiders – man, there’s a lot of sex on this record. A museum of it, no less – “On this deck, I stand erect, like an egg for you to swallow, kiss me till your light goes out, kiss me till there’s no tomorrow.” And the record closes with a most touching tribute to the New York Dolls bass player Arthur Kane, N.Y. Doll.

Here’s the stomping psych-tinged opening track from the album, and the video illustrates one of Hitch’s most endearing (and infuriating) qualities – the ability to ramble at length with surreal between-song flights of fancy. Sometimes you want to hug him, other times you want to throttle him. A national treasure.

P.S. I could have just as easily written about: Radiohead and the album Kid A

Wonder what S will be?