Banish The Mid Week Blues Big Style

Guaranteed to beat the mid week blues.

I defy anybody to stay still while listening to this.

Shake was one of 10 absolutely incredible vocal performances on the 1965 Atlantic album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. If you don't own this album then there is a huge whole in your existence and I suggest you go here tout suite and rectify the situation.

Otis Redding - Shake

il pleut

There's no place like home, well no place like the west of Scotland on Fair Monday. From 40 degree sunshine to bucketing down with rain, magic.

I will bore you with my travails on getting to the south west of France later. Now I have to go to Edinburgh to pick up my car which only made it as far as Birmingham!

Here is a song which the iPod decided it rather liked during nous vacances, as it came on when in shuffle mode 5 times over the course of  the fortnight.

Otis Redding - Down In The Valley

Its Friday . . . Let's Dance

Today it's the turn of 2 big hitters in the world of soul. One each from 2 of the most influential labels of the 60's, Stax and Motown.

First up is a track from my all time favorite soul album Otis Blue. This album was released in 1965 and was Otis' third album most of the tracks on the album are down tempo tunes, however with Shake, Otis turns an already good dance tune by Sam Cooke into an absolute stormer that you just can't help but move to.

Otis Redding - Shake

The next track is an unreleased track from Motown by Gladys Knight & The Pips - If You Ever Get Your Hands On Love. Like a lot of stuff from the Motown archives, when this came to light it became an in demand track on the Northern Soul Scene, even though the pressings were crackly copies from poor master tapes. It never ceases to amaze me the quality of the stuff that Gordy either never got around to releasing or deemed not good enough.

Glady Knight & The Pips - If You Ever Get Your Hands On Love