Soft Rock Space Race Special

You can blame Aimee Mann for this one. Towards the end of a very enjoyable show at the Festival Hall last night she name checked Poco and the Starland Vocal Band, and when the house lights came up not long afterwards the PA blasted out "Jackie Blue" by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

I have always had a soft spot for all three bands ever since, as a lad in South Africa in the mid-1970s, I spent hours adjusting my shortwave radio to pick up the likes of the American Top 40 show on Voice of America - as a result of which I have a deep-rooted sentimental attachment to "Jackie Blue", "Afternoon Delight" and "Rose of Cimarron" (and also, less explicably, Freddy Fender's version of "Secret Love").

A year or two after all these marvellous songs were hits, the likes of Mister F came along with their punk wars and spoiled everything. The punks and the ex-hippies did not have very much in common apart, perhaps, from one thing: to quote the Only Ones, space travel was in their blood.

We start with the Starland Vocal Band's star rockets in flight. Poco then encourage you to shoot for the moon, before the Daredevils warn you that the other life form's planet is not always greener.

"Afternoon Delight" - Starland Vocal Band

"Shoot For The Moon" - Poco

"Spaceship Orion" - The Ozark Mountain Daredevils