Listening to a 78 credited to Al Vocale, I felt a tingle of recognition. Behind the lead vocal (Les Allen, pictured below), and sometimes singing pick-up notes, was the voice of an old man in a young man's body. Imagine my joy when a Bowlly...

I was tempted to post this one in September, when you tend to start receiving Christmas gift catalogues and stuff like that, but then I decided against it: I don't want this one to get lost down the back of the sofa - I want to picture you listening to...

Apologies for those of you with short attention spans, but what follows is a rather long post, beginning with a little required reading: What a revealing letter: full of prejudices so wholly opposed to our own!  How we recoil from the mention of...

The 'season to be jolly' is upon us already, but here at Music Makes Me, December is also be the time to recognise the influence of the Scottish poet Robert Burns and the power to move of songs celebrating the New Year. Not sure how 'coon' songs fit...

The dream sequences of that Bowlly-fest The Singing Detective alone are enough to remind me that I - and by extension, my generation - will never truly know the pleasures of the dance. This being a thought that often runs through my mind as I listen...