Golden Oldies Part 1

When I started this blog in early 2009 the readership was very much about quality not quantity (as opposed to quality and quantity as it is these days). I was lucky if I got more than a handful of visits a day, and most of them were from me checking whether anyone else had wandered by.

Looking back at some of those early posts the other day it occurred to me that there was a lot of good music there that deserved a wider audience. So today and tomorrow I am re-posting a few of those early underground sounds - five per day. Today's selections are:

• Some home-made new wave sounds from Dorset. I went to school with some of the band - including the guitarist Mike Topp, one of the nicest men in rock - and lead singer Simon Barber went on to have minor indie success with The Chesterfields.

"Who Let The Flowers Fall?" - The Act (1981)

• A bit of 1960s British blue-eyed soul.

"The Painter" - Elmer Gantry (1969?)

• Cash sings Costello.

"The Big Light" - Johnny Cash (1987)

• A lost Southern Soul classic (if you want to know more, details are available courtesy of the magnificent Sir Shambling).

"Sunday Afternoon In Memphis" - Steve Dixon (1972)

• And some Teutonic titans of groove.

"Swinging London" - Hazy Osterwald Jet Set (196?)

That's it for today - tomorrow we bring you a Lebanese garage band, some South African funk and three other delights.

To play us out, and apropos of nothing at all, here are Althea and Donna: