It may not include Bohannon's mid-'70s hits "Footstompin'Music"and "Disco Stomp", but stick around. Play it—his best moments from five albums for Mercury between '77 and '80 —and you're doing your thing like a hammer, knowing you got to stay funky. With a rhythmic fire that burns like a blaze-up between James Brown, Barry White and Talking Heads, mixing African beat with disco heat, Bohannon—drummer and former Motown arranger—took dance to the point of zen, years before people redefined the noun "trance".
The Beeb are hoping for a kind of Our Friends In The North success with this 1963-79-spanning Soho crime drama. Its author, Jake Arnott, has written sleevenotes for this 44-song double album, which moves from buoyant '60s hits from James Brown and Dusty to '70s landmarks by T. Rex and The Jam. R Dean Taylor's "There's A Ghost In My House" is exhilarating, Rod Stewart's "Reason To Believe" is moving, and Bowie's "London Boys" is seedily weird.
Yes, on tuesday, June 13, 1978, voodoo rockabilly avatars The Cramps (in their greatest line-up, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy backed by Nick Knox and Byron Gregory) rolled into the recreation room of California's Napa State Mental Hospital, to play for the residents. Don't ask how this was ever allowed.
