Here is my annual effort to do a broadly holiday based playlist without getting involved with any overtly Christmas music - a genre I generally don't like all that much. As ever, I get around this thorny issue by picking some more generally winter themed tunes. However, on this occasion I have failed somewhat, with one or two such songs managing to sneak their way in. 1. Aztec Camera: Walk Out To Winter Roddy Frame brought his latest venture to roaring, jangly post-punk life

I know have a reputation for not bringing much of the festive joy to the table at this time of year, but here is my vague effort at overcoming that. This latest in our collection of interesting stories and anecdotes surrounding musicians we know and (sometimes) love, takes on a few that have a Christmas theme. Christmas in the Summer! Mel Tormé and Bob Wells wrote the classic seasonal tune, The Christmas Song - you know, the one about "chestnuts roasting" . The Nat King Co

This edition of The Essential 10 , our quickfire introduction to a wide range of my favourite artists, features 10,000 Maniacs ; an act that managed 5 albums over a career that spanned 1981 to 1993 (this is point of Natalie Merchant 's departure - they have been going since then with various line-ups and released 4 more albums). I have trawled the entire catalogue to come up with ten of my favourite tracks by them, including a few surprises (although, if you don’t know much a

I have often spoken about how Uncle Tupelo and Steve Earle pretty much invented the genre of Alt-Country in the late 1980s, blending together outlaw country with hints of punk. But that, of course, is not really the full story – like claiming the Pistols and The Clash invented punk and omitting The Stooges and The Ramones from the narrative. And that is the case here; Joe Ely , who sadly died yesterday aged 78, was doing all of that a decade before the rest. Don’t believe me?

Last week the world lost one of its most celebrated and important musicians, when Steve Cropper died aged 84 on 3 December. The 1960s was the era of the session band; the US was stacked full of them, pretty much every major label had them - there was the Muscle Shoals crew, the Memphis Horns, the Wrecking Crew and of course, Booker T. and The MG's at Stax. Photo: Don Paulsen / Michael Ochs Archive / Getty Images Cropper was a core member of that last lot, through much of the

There are myriad Texas musicians who have become household names over the last six or seven decades; Buddy Holly, Willie Nelson, ZZ Top, Janis Joplin, Waylon Jennings, Stevie Ray Vaughan, not to mention Kelly Clarkson and Beyonce. But for all those, there are many more who probably deserve much more acknowledgement and credit for their part in music history; there was the much troubled Roky Erickson (13th Floor Elevators), the taken far too soon Selena, and the subject of tod