The Deplorables' Hit List: ten recordings that go down well with American patriots (and I like some of them too)

Canadian commentator Gordon Sinclair's 1973 single started out as a radio broadcast - they just added...

The secret of Chic's success, revealed by Nile Rogers on BBC4 - start your song with the chorus!

Strictly speaking, most of Chic's hits start with the instruments establishing a groove for anything up to 30 seconds - but what follows is the chorus (i.e. the  rousing, chanty bit where everyone usually sings the song's title - the part listeners tend to remember), rather than the verse (usually a single voice setting the scene, telling a story etc.): it's normally the other way round. Chic's first hit, "Le Freak", goes straight into the chorus ("Ahhhhh...FREAK OUT! - Le Freak, c'est chic"):

This is to grab the listener's attention...

Take the "My Favourite Song Openings" quiz - a blast from the past

First warning: I first posted this four years ago. Second warning: If you want to test your knowledge of popular music (1953-1983), you should look away while the video is playing, because it includes a host of visual clues. The titles of the 31 songs can be found below:

Why am I repeating myself, I hear you ask? Because...

Happy 66th Birthday, Jonathan Richman, you splendidly goofy musical misfit!

Very Velvet Underground - but minus the heroin and the gloom. "Roadrunner" is from 1974, and it's still his finest recording, but I have huge affection for this instrumental chart hit from 1977 (even if you can't abide the song, you'll enjoy the video):

If reincarnation exists, next time round, I'd like to be able to play the guitar like Phil Baugh...or Vince Gill, or Danny Gatton, or...

If reincarnation exists, next time round, I'd like to be able to play the guitar like Phil Baugh...or Vince Gill, or Danny Gatton, or...

That's Phil Baugh in 1965, performing his hit from that year, "Country Guitar". Here he is with Glen Campbell, who, before he became a superstar ballad singer, earned his crust as a top session guitarist:

So farewell, George Martin, famed producer of The Vipers Skiffle Group!

But, of course, George Martin is probably better known for his work with...

Isolated music tracks are an absolute delight for obsessives - The Band, Beach Boys, ZZ Top, Stones, Beatles...and Linda McCartney!

A brilliant Lego tribute to Lemmy - and a bit of Bowie (because there hasn't been enough, obviously)

And my three favourite covers of Bowie songs:

Farewell, Cynthia Robinson, the lady who ordered us to "get on up, and dance to the music"

She was the trumpet player whose high-pitched, rasping, trumpet-like voice can be heard at the start of one of the most exciting, energy-charged singles ever released - Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music" - and who later yells "all the squares - go home!" And she's the "Cynthia on the throne" referred to by band-leader Sly Stone in the song.

The legendary New Orleans musical giant, Allan Toussaint died this week - here are some of his greatest songs

I was going to write about the great New Orleans R&B, soul and funk performer, producer, studio and record-label owner and songwriter Allen Toussaint, who died earlier this week at the age of 77, but there’s a handsome obituary of him available here in the Daily Telegraph (although I should point out that “Mother-in-Law” was a No. 1 US hit in 1961, not 1970, and that “Here Come the Girls was first released in 1970, not 1979). Toussaint was a self-effacing music industry figure the greatness of whose achievements eventually dawned on me one day in the late ‘70s when I realised how many of my all-time favourite records were largely the product of his multi-faceted musical genius. Here are eight beloved tracks written by - and in some cases produced and played on - by the great man, plus two of his finest productions of other people's songs. Prepare for musical magic:

If Steve Miller isn’t inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, I will be jolly cross

Since its creation in 1983, there have been a total of 321 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Steve Miller isn’t one of them, and yet the following acts have been honoured: Hall & Oates, Heart, Joan Jett, Kiss, Laura Nyro, Rush,  Cat Stevens, U2 and The Young Rascals. Apart from a couple of Laura Nyro tracks, I’d happily go to my grave without hearing anything by any of those acts again. But there are at least a dozen Miller sides I’d be very sorry not to hear on a regular basis between now and clog-popping time, whenever that might be. I’d even go so far as to claim that Miller has made some of the most purely enjoyable records in pop music history. I’m happy to report that he’s one of the nominees this year (along with the likes of Yes (!), The Cars, Chicago, Deep Purple, The Smiths and Chic). If Chic and Steve Miller don’t get the nod, I'll be writing to my MP)  Here’s one excellent reason why Miller should be welcomed into the fold without further delay:

Diminutive Welsh guitarist, singer and producer Dave Edmunds is a giant of British rock music - I salute him

Yes, I've heard all the criticisms - he's derivative, predictable, stuck in a time-warp, hasn't written any classic songs, and, au fond, he's a heads-down-no-nonsense-mindless twelve-bar pub-rocker whose terrible twin, lanky Nick Lowe, was the truly creative force in their erstwhile partnership. Some of that's partly true, I think - but if it is, it's because Edmunds has always been a hugely obsessive music fan, in awe of the wonderful noise produced by his heroes and determined to discover how they managed it - and to recreate it using any means at hand, including his own considerable talents as a guitar-picker and a vastly under-rated singer.

My favourite songs about sex workers

The story about a hotel in Hull refusing to admit an 18-year old Romanian student because staff thought she was a prostitute surprised me, because every report I saw on the incident used the word “prostitute” rather than “sex worker”. Sky News and the BBC went through a phase of favouring the latter term, which implies that whoring is a perfectly respectable way to earn a living, rather than the old-fashioned, judgmental one. Is this a sign of political correctness finally loosening its suffocating hold on the nation’s throat? Probably not. I’m sure our collective timidity will ensure that the void between, for instance, “coloured people” and “people of colour” will grow ever wider, and that the use of "homosexual" - as opposed to "gay" - will eventually be outlawed altogether.

"Chinese wrestler's jockstrap cooked in chip fat on a greasy day" - and other hippy ditties

It about to get very hot here in London - the temperature could be in the 90s by the end of the week, and the fans (the air circulating devices rather than worshippers) will be blowing up a storm in the Grønmark household. For some odd reason, when the temperature gets that high I tend to start listening to hippy music, which I always associate with summer - perhaps because intense heat renders me less judgmental and allows me to ignore the spectacular goofiness of most of the lyrics. Here's a selection of tracks from the late '60s that will be helping me weather the impending inferno. I'll start with the song which mentions the Chinese wrestler's jockstrap, whose lyrics are definitely a cut above the competition  (although the music isn't) - Roy Harper's "Nobody's Got Any Money in the Summer":

15 toe-tapping tunes to help banish the January blues

Oh God! The news has been full of stupid politicians saying stupid things and lying through their teeth, we've just taken down our lovely Christmas tree, some idiot bumhole has dumped a bunch of crud on top of the black bin-bags waiting for collection around the lamp-post nearest our front door, so the foxes will be on the rampage all night long and the bin-men will as usual do everything in their power to leave an even worse mess in their wake, and the sky is grey and boring, and... well it's early January and I"M NOT GRUNTLED! So I've whacked on the light box and gone hunting for some insanely cheerful songs to take the edge off my mood, and - just in case any of you are feeling low as well - I've decided to share them with you. I'll start with possibly the most cheerful song I know, from 1946:

My favourite story songs, Part 2: from Creedence and Kassenetz-Katz to Sufjan Stevens and Fairport Convention

Gertcha! A dozen of this Londoner's favourite London songs - from "Play with Fire" to "We're the Sweeney"

Jimmy Rodgers to Stevie Ray Vaughan - twelve terrific tunes toasting Texas

Thomas Sowell once mocked alarmist claims about the threat of overpopulation by pointing out that every single person on earth would fit into the state of Texas - in fact, given the Obama administration's love affair with illegals and its unwillingness to protect America's borders, I'm not sure the experiment hasn't already begun. Having once travelled across Texas in a Greyhound bus, I can quite believe Sowell's claim: damn thing seemed to go on forever. The only city I spent any time in was San Antonio, which was pretty, and I seem to remember stopping off in Dallas - but if I did, I can remember nothing about it. The problem is, I love greenery and hills and sea and geographical diversity - and all I remember about Texas (at least, what I saw of it) was endless, monotonous flatness unleavened apart from the occasional cow, oil derrick or truck-stop.

My fifteen favourite Bob Dylan tracks

I listened to an awful lot of Bob Dylan tracks before writing my post on The Basement Tapes, and, as it's my wife's turn to host her book group and I'm stuck in my top-floor eyrie this evening, I've been messing about coming up with a list of my favourites. I've gone for performances rather than songs - i.e. this isn't primarily about hipster coolness or political messages or about songs that changed the direction of popular music: these are the Bob Dylan tracks I still listen to for sheer, instant, visceral enjoyment. There's nothing after 1973 (although I have practically everything he's released since then), and there's a preponderance of tracks from his magnificent quartet of mid-to-late-'60s masterpiece LPs.

So farewell, Alvin Stardust aka Shane Fenton - I met your son once, and was oddly thrilled!

The glam rock singer Alvin Stardust has died following a short illness, aged 72. Born in Muswell Hill as Bernard William Jewry, he went on to achieve a small measure of fame as the pop singer Shane Fenton in the early '60s. All I remember of him from that period was his single, "I'm a Moody Guy" and his backing group The Fentones' hit instrumental version of "The Breeze and I". But it was as the extravagantly quiffed, slinky, leather-clad Alvin Stardust that he achieved real success with a trio of hit singles in the '70s. Unlike another notable contemporary '60s'-teeny-bopper-turned-glam-rock-star, Gary Glitter, I'm not aware of a whiff of scandal attaching iteself to Alvin Stardust, so the nation can still smile fondly at the mention of his name and the peculiarly British form of end-of-the-pier variety pop silliness it evokes.