HERE COMES THE SONG

I joined the Van Morrison Appreciation Society late. I knew of him from the Belfast-based band Them and liked his raucous, blues-shouter…

We’ll skip the light fandango and cut to the chase. In my opinion Procol Harum’s magnum opus is not A Whiter Shade of Pale, which announced…

Prefab Sprout are a confoundedly strange band, seemingly out of time yet of their time (whatever that was – it isn't really a definable era)

Ronnie Lane had three distinct career phases: bass-playing mod turned psychedelic imp in the Small Faces, wine-swigging heartbeat of the…

No one covers Bob Dylan like the man himself, even though The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix and Richie Havens made a fair attempt. It has been the…

On a blisteringly hot Sunday in June 1937 a young man walked into the striking art deco office building that stands at 508 Park Building in…

More than half a century has passed since Walk Away Renée first entranced radio listeners and record buyers. Fifty-one years – and yet, as…

On 30 September 1978 Elvis Costello and the Attractions played in front of 150,000 people at the Anti-Nazi League carnival in Brockwell Park

A day after Donald Trump was sworn in as 45th president of the United States, millions of people gathered in cities around the globe, to…

If you like your songs sad then there are few more desolate than Etta James’ I'd Rather Go Blind. A bluesy soul classic from 1967, it simply

Mary Chapin Carpenter’s 2016 album The Things That We Are Made Of signalled a rejuvenation – of spirit and musical excellence. And in Deep…

Regular listeners to Paul Jones's Radio 2 show will be familiar with the work of the British bluesman John Pearson. His 2012 CD, Coal in the

Christopher Hitchens, a finer writer than me, called Most Of The Time by Bob Dylan, a finer writer than him, ‘one of the most vertiginous…

Dancing our sorrow away... no one does poignancy quite like Jackson Browne. Especially with a maestro like fiddler David Lindley for an…

Cardiff-based Andy Fairweather Low has had a 50-year career in the music business in four distinct phases. In the 1960s he was a teen-idol…

There are many songs that flick a switch in your brain, some that make your feet start to dance, some that bring a tear to your eye and the…

I absolutely love maps. I always have. I can’t walk past any of those information boards dotted about town and countryside without examining

If your favourite cricket team is losing, don’t despair. Just play this ballad. Only Harper could have written these lines…

In the summer of 1974, like many other 18-year-olds at the time, I was nervously awaiting my A-Level results. I needed a B and two Cs in…

I first saw Mike Hart perform as part of the Liverpool Scene, the bohemian collective of poets and musicians, in the basement of the…