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Robert Redford and Paul Newman making their last stand in the 1969 film
Song of the Day: Today’s date, 7 November, is significant in all sorts of ways - elections, revolutions, births, deaths, but it’s the day in 1908 when two of America’s most famous outlaws were reportedly killed on the run in Bolivia
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Shaft (1971) with the lead role played by Richard Roundtree, but perhaps best known for Isaac Hayes’s music
Song of the Day: Who is the man? Isaac Hayes - that is. Damn right! Today’s choice of orchestral funk, and another film theme, comes from the great Stax songwriter and singer from Tennessee, king of the deep voice
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Curtis Mayfield on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972
Song of the Day: After yesterday’s Baby Huey, whose brilliant only album was produced by Curtis Mayfield, let’s turn to the man himself with a trio classic tracks from 1972 that show the full range of his funk and orchestration prowess
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At work and play: Baby Huey, as shown on his sole album of 1971
Song of the Day: We move from Britain’s Labi Siffre to a funk-soul legend from Indiana, who died at the age of just 26 and whose album, The Baby Huey Story: Living Legend was released posthumously in 1971
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Labi Siffre
Song of the Day: After Véronique Sanson, more mid-70s soul-funk full-orchestral music, this time from the influential British artist sampled by Eminem, and two classic songs fully using fat bass and rhythmic violin and brass sections
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Véronique Sanson
Song of the Day: Following from the previous but one song, Bernardette by the Four Tops, a switch of gender, and style, with funk and soul number from the acclaimed artist from the 1970s nouvelle chanson française
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The cover of Lee Moses’s classic 1971 album
Song of the Day: After the Four Tops, two superb and passionate songs about tricky relationships from a hugely under-rated artist who worked in the same circles, and made a classic 1971 album
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The Four Tops
Song of the Day: Another helpless love song in the form of a stone-cold 1967 classic marked by superlative, heartfelt lead vocals by Levi Stubbs fronting the Motown band, and written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland
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Otis Redding, 1941-1967
Song of the Day: After yesterday’s classic blues number best known for Lead Belly, another simmering jealousy classic from one of the great soul stars whose life was tragically cut short in a 1967 plane crash aged only 26
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The Animals may have done the best-known cover version, but there are arguably others than better it
To some it’s a masterpiece, to others a dirge, but from 17th century England to 20th century New Orleans, with artists that include Woody Guthrie, Nina Simone, The Animals and alt-J it’s a song that keeps evolving
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Song of the Day: Following a series of gospel sings, let's move into a mixture of blues, soul and an even wider theme with song that brought this star back into the public eye in 2002, backed by The Blind Boys of Alabama
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The Blind Boys of Alabama in later years, including founders Clarence Fountain and Jimmy Carter
Song of the Day: From mountains with Mahalia Jackson and the rain from Rosetta Tharpe and Ray Charles, we turn to similar heights with the great gospel singing group that has been going since 1939 and a songwriter also from Alabama
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Ray Chalres
Song of the Day: After Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing in rainy Manchester in 1964, another great's rendition of a another wet weather number written by Tony Joe White in 1967 from his 1972 album Through The Eyes Of Love
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Aretha Franklin 1942-2018)
Song of the Day: A tribute to the one of the greatest of all. With the passing of Memphis-born Aretha Louise Franklin (25 March 25, 1942 – 16 August 2018), we say farewell to far more than soul singing at its best
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Fatoumata Diawara
Song of the Day: After a series of longer established African stars, a more contemporary one – the Ivory Coast born singer songwriter, from her 2018 album, Fenfo (Something To Say), with a song about mass migration
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Youssou N'Dour
Song of the Day: Moving from Morocco, and another huge figure in African music and the style of mbalax, which mixes jazz, soul, Latin, and rock blended with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of Senegal
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Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui
Song of the Day: From the deserts of Mali with Tuareg band Tinariwen to the Sahara further north, and the sublime singer Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui from her 2013 album, Soul of Morocco
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Suicide's Alan Vega and Martin Rev in 1979
Song of the Day: The dream goes on, but where might it lead next? Reaching into the power of nightmares and fantasies, an original by the US electro-punk duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev from 1979 and two contrasting covers
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Roy Orbison, a voice of majestic tragedy
Song of the Day: After Santo & Johnny's exquisite, dreamy melody, a song from the man Elvis Presley described has being the world's greatest singer, her with lovesickness that filters into the subconscious
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Marion Maerz
Song of the Day: After a recent run of German female solo artists and about seeking or not seeking solitude, a 1967 classic written by Ray Davies of the Kinks, and sung by Marion Maerz
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