Playlist 15.08.11

'Cross The Tracks' by Maceo And The Macks was one of the songs that welcomed me to London. I remember hearing it at The Electric Ballroom in London, when Jay Strongman would drop it in between Etta James, Gil Scott Heron and Nina Simone. It was also a favourite at warehouse parties in Wapping and in booming old buildings around Clerkenwell. You would start your Saturday night outside the Spice of Life on Charing Cross Road, waiting for some ruffian to hand you a flyer, another illegal destination, and the night was on.

Those skanky old tunes were part of the city's atmosphere in the mid-Eighties. The Face magazine had declared that hard times chic was the acceptable way and therefore your vintage Levis had to be doused in the dirt of some derelict factory. No matter, the Red Stripe cans were served cold from plastic bins, the mood was cheerfully offbeat and every other tune had a connection to James Brown. There was Bobby Byrd and Fred Wesley and Lyn Collins, but it was Maceo Parker with his wild saxophone who literally blew us away.

BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM

Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster

Blog: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/stuartbailie/

Mondays, ten - midnight

Sam Cooke - Somebody Have Mercy (RCA)

Cashier No 9 - Lost At Sea (Bella Union)

Dawes - How Far We've Come (Loose)

Nathaniel Rateliff - Lamb On A Stone (Rounder)

Little Feat - Walkin All Night (Warner)

Rams Pocket Radio - Dieter Rams Has The Pocket Radio (Reel To Reel)

Friendly Fires - Hurting (XL)

The Waterboys - Sweet Dancer (Puck)

Nathaniel Rateliff - Happy Just To Be (Rounder)

Hazmat Modine - Mocking Bird (Jaro)

Primal Scream - Screamadelica (Creation)

The Horrors - Changing The Rain (XL)

Maceo And The Macks - Cross The Tracks (Urban)

Big Audio Dynamite - The Bottom Line (Sony)

The Rifles - Tangled Up In Love (Nettwerk)

Donald Fagan - The New Frontier (Warner)

King Creosote, Jon Hopkins - Bats In The Attic (Unravelled) (Domino)

Lucy Wainwright Roche - America (Strike Back)

Peadar King - The Letting Go (PDK)

Warpaint - Billie Holiday (Rough Trade)

Booker T Jones - Progress (Anti)

Ben Howard - Keep your Head Up (Island)

Tom Russell - A Land Called Way Out There (Shout Factor)

Louise And the Pins - Melancholy (Chess Club)

The War On Drugs - Baby Missiles (Secretly Canadian)

Galliano - Skunk Funk (Weatherall mix) (Talking Loud)