Trash - the New York Dolls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMUnqxmiV2k We can't leave the New York Dolls and David Johansen after only one track so a return to their glorious first album and a number that once again tips its cap to their New York roots hits the nail. Besides being the most "punkish" track on the album, and most reminiscent of the songs that were played in the Squat (see last post), "Trash" references fellow New Yorkers Mickey and Syvlia's r&b classic, "Love is Strange" (see https://www
Looking For A Kiss - the New York Dolls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D_DAFhiD5E An example of the increasingly frequent phenomenon of the demise of the last man standing of the classic line-up of classic bands is David Johansen who died just over a year ago on February 28th 2025. Over the years, much has been made of the influence of the Dolls on punk rock although ex Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten is on record as playing this down, eschewing New York influences in favour of British glam rockers such as Bowie, T Rex
Tower of Strength - Gene McDaniels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKyitdO740c Gene McDaniels was one of the many MOR pop /soul singers making a quiet living in the US in the early sixties, until the British Invasion, spearheaded by the Beatles, effectively reducing them to musical also-rans.. (Others, for interest, included Garnett Mims, Chuck Jackson and even the wonderful Ben E,. King). He did have later success as a songwriter though, penning Roberta Flack's third and final US number one, "Feel Like Makin'
Compared to What - Roberta Flack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDUk9Lsy_yQ A severe attack of polymalgia rheumatica (a form of arthritis) that has lasted since just before Christmas till now has curtailed my keyboard time, but now the purchase of a new computer-friendly chair and a course of steroids has eased the keyboard pain. As a result I'm now almost exactly a year behind my remembrance of the musical troubadours queueing up at St Peter's gates. And there's plenty to get through, which I'm going to vi
Do You Believe in Magic - the Lovin' Spoonful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnbfuAcCqpY As well as inviting the Islington "tea dance mafia" to our Islington Pensioners Christmas party the following year (see last post), we hired a large hall in Finsbury so we could give a slap-up dinner and dance to them all, including the residents of five old peoples' homes, who were ferried in on coaches and sat at tableclothed round tables, with napkins and silver cutlery, their zimmer frames, stacked carefully in a large storeroom
Eddie don't like furniture - John Hegley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFkYJ_XeOY I first heard of John Hegley when I was part of a team that "put him on" at the north London community centre Caxton House, just ten minutes walk east of Archway tube station. The gig was a disability arts Christmas concert, perhaps the first collaboration between Islington Arts and Entertainments and SHAPE, and took place round about 1990 with John headlining with his band, the Popticians. We had advertised the event on the SHAPE m
Caravan of Love - Isley-Jasper-Isley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0TOPvCaX2M While "The Highways of my Life" may have been Chris Jasper "greatest hit" with the Isley Brothers, his finest hour - the one that he will be remembered for - is without doubt "Caravan of Love". In 1984 the three "youngsters" in the Isley Brothers, Ernie and Marvin Isley and brother-in-law Chris Jasper, left the band to form offshoot group Isley-Jasper-Isley. They split up three years later, with Ernie and Marvin returning to the Bro
Harvest for the World - the Isley Brothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUxiKQXxGR8 One of the results of the Isley Brothers expansion into a sextet was the introduction of social and political awareness into their music. The first example of this came early in 1975 when they recorded the angry "Fight the Power" (see https://www.unclestylus.com/single-post/fight-the-power-part-1-2-the-isley-brothers ). On the same day they recorded the gentler, sadder, even despairing "Harvest for the World", releasing it the fol
The Highways of my My Life - the Isley Brothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygAKlgB-8Ys Pub quiz question: which of the members of the Isley Brothers was not a bone fide Isley Brother and why? The answer is Chris Jasper, who died in February of this year. The Isley Brothers began in 1954 as a foursome of siblings Ronald, Rudolph, O'Kelly and Vernon, who was killed in a motor accident in 1955. The others continued as a trio until 1973 when their younger brothers Ernie and Marvin joined along with Chris Jasper, who's ol
Only the Strong Survive - Jerry Butler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkd9ZQOtbI Jerry Butler's biggest hit was "Only the Strong Survive" from his one classic album "The Ice Man Cometh". In 1967 he teamed up with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, soon-to-be major movers behind the TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia) sound of the 1970's. Ostensibly a parental advice song, for many it became one of those hidden black emancipation anthems, although this subtext is harder to envisage than, say, Joe Tex's "The Love You Save (
