smooth6

Despite being a Brit I grew up in the good ole USA so my musical taste is heavily influenced by American music of that era, e.g. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Doors, Santana, Hendrix, Mountain, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, ZZ Top (pre-commercial days), Taj Mahal, Robert Cray etc. I love blues, blues-jazz, southern/swamp rock (e.g. Voodoo Cadillac by Southern Culture on the Skids, Delta Moon etc), soul/r n' b (that means James Brown, not Snoop Dogg), and blues-rock such as Jeff Healey Band (Stop Breakin’ Down), John Hiatt (Lincoln Town), John Fogerty (Blueboy), Bonnie Raitt, Rory Block, Carolyn Wonderland (Misunderstood), Jimmie Vaughan etc.

For Americans out there, God bless Austin, TX for giving us Carolyn Wonderland, Jimmie Vaughan etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsVMfARmqaI

If you like rockin', funky, low down blues, check this out (Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes from Greenville, Mississippi. Get some cold beers, turn up the volume, click FULL SCREEN and enjoy!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy2U5Ivdeps&feature=related

and:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCRU84DQxm8

Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes

To learn about this flamboyant, gravel-voiced but little-known late blues musician see::

http://www.cascadeblues.org/History/RooseveltBarnes.htm

Taj Mahal

Johnny Winter

Pauline Henry, The Chimes (she's Scottish!)

For British/Irish bands I like Led Zeppelin (2nd album & BBC Sessions), the Stones (Prodigal Son, Saint of Me), Family (Burlesque), Juicy Lucy (Who Do You Love/ Pretty Woman/ Midnight Rider), Taste/Rory Gallagher, Peter Green Splinter Group, The Chimes (Pauline Henry has an incredible voice), Roxy Music (Avalon album is brilliant) etc. But as an incurable romantic there's some soft/slow stuff in my library, anything from Tony Bennett to Elvis to Faith Hill, Basia, Bobby Caldwell etc (don’t knock ‘em, they have/had great voices).

Contemporary music (with a few exceptions) leaves me cold and if I hear rap or hip-hop played in a store I’ll walk out, and I can't stand techno, house, acid, trance, Ibiza-chill crap, X-factor, Cheryl Cole, Sue Boyle, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Justin Bieber/Timberlake, boy bands, etc. For me, real music died with the end of the last century.

Top 25:

1. The Lemon Song/Traveling Riverside Blues- Led Zeppelin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyhu2ysqKGk&feature=related (3.00 - 5.09 great bass) and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV8IEd1AJEY

2. Statesboro Blues - Taj Mahal (delicious slide guitar by Jesse Ed Davis)
3. Rough Boy - ZZ Top
4. Red House - Jimi Hendrix
5. Taboo/Put Your Lights On - Santana
6. Prodigal Son/Saint of Me - Rolling Stones
7. Celebrated Walking Blues/Leaving Trunk - Taj Mahal
8. Phone Booth - Robert Cray Band
9. Love, Life and Money - Johnny Winter
10. Misunderstood/Trouble in the City - Carolyn Wonderland
11. The Road's My Middle Name - Bonnie Raitt
12. Stop Breakin' Down - Jeff Healey Band
13. Midnight Rider/Pretty Woman - Juicy Lucy
14. Roadhouse Blues - Doors
15. Statesboro Blues - Alice Stuart & The Formerlys (from Live at the Triple Door)
16. Avalon - Roxy Music (one of the best British non-RnB/blues albums ever made)
17. Joliet Bound/Canned Heat/Gone Woman Blues - Rory Block
18. Real World - Peter Green Splinter Group
19. Railway and Gun - Taste
20. Should've Learned My Lesson/Used To Be - Rory Gallagher
21. Hey Yeah/Boom Bapa Boom - Jimmie Vaughan (try to keep still listening to this!) :
22. Who Do You Love/Midnight Rider/Pretty Woman - Juicy Lucy
23. This Woman - KT Osliln
24. More Than This - Roxy Music
25. True to Life - Roxy Music

http://www.we7.com/#/album/Jimmie-Vaughan/Strange-Pleasure

I also dig African music. Try these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOXq2nUNA2g (Umanji - Moruti Sumba, South Africa)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQZvIxZyAU&ob=av2n (Magic System, Bouger Bouger, Cote d'Ivoire) - great dance music and so tight beat

Favourite musicians? Tough call, but in addition to all of the above and also as characters Chuck Berry (if you've seen him live playing "Beer Drinking Woman" or "Mean Old World" you'll know what I mean) and Keith Richards (living testimony to how much self-abuse the human body can withstand).

Legend

A premature farewell to another British icon ... our defense-slashing PM's head should roll overboard