What is it with the British and soul music? Why did we fall so truly, madly, deeply in love with it, worship even it’s most obscure artists and form so many cults and lifestyles around its every permutation? I doubt if there’s another country in world with such an obsession.

The most obvious expression of this love affair was the huge popularity of Tamla Motown which seemed to be adored by everyone in England from sharp-dressed Mods to mums and dad. Growing up, Motown songs always seemed to be coming out of a transistor radio somewhere — usually introduced by the chirpy voice of Tony Blackburn — and I don’t think I entered a house that didn’t have a copy of “Motown Chartbusters” on the shelf, Volume 6 with it’s bizarre Roger Dean cover was especially popular.

So it was only natural that next to her Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett albums my mother should have a copy of the 1968 compilation “The Motown Sound: A Collection Of 16 Original Big Hits Vol.6″. I’ve no idea what was on the other albums in this series (I can’t find any of them online and the American version has a completely different track listing) but the thing I love about it (especially now) is that only about three tracks on it were big hits while the rest is made up of more obscure numbers which gives it the feel of a from-the-vaults rarities collection rather than a package of chart smashes. Little did I know when I was a kid jumping around our living room to the fabulous, rousing “I Got A Feeling” by Barbara Randolph that I was enjoying a cult tune that was filling the floors of Northern Soul clubs. It wasn’t until the Mod revival in the late 70s when I “rediscovered” the album, dusty and half-forgotten in our sideboard, that I realized it was probably the hippest record my mother owned.

Download: I Got A Feeling – Barbara Randolph (mp3)

My other favourite track was the ballad “I Can’t Give Back The Love I Feel For You” by Rita Wright which even as a kid I thought was heartbreaking (I was a softy even then). Though I didn’t know then that “Rita Wright” was better known by her real name Syreeta (and for a while as Mrs. Stevie Wonder), how this was never a hit either is beyond me as it’s utterly gorgeous.

Download: I Can’t Give Back The Love I Feel For You – Rita Wright (mp3)

While I try and find the time to do some new writing I hope you’ll find this little diversion as interesting as I did. James Cargill of Broadcast talking about English children’s TV shows of the 1970s and how disturbing they often were. I like what he says at the end about preferring to half-remember them rather than knowing the whole thing, I’m not sure I’d really want to see The Owl Service or Children of The Stones again as I might be disappointed and I’d rather remember the effect they had on me as a kid and keep the creepy sights and sounds from them I still have in my head, they’re much more powerful as dream-like fragments.

Another icon from my childhood has passed away: the great Ray Alan.

You might think that this picture of my daughter is merely cute but that’s my retirement plan right there. I’m relying on her becoming a rich and famous rock star to support me in my old age.

Download: So You Want to Be (A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star) – Patti Smith (mp3)

I loved this single when it came out in 1979 and it still sounds thumpingly good now, though I think I might have been the only person who bought a copy of it at the time.

PS: In case you’re thinking that I’m turning into some old bore who keeps showing you pictures of his kids don’t worry, my paternity leave ends and I go back to work next week so it won’t be long before the clouds of miserablist gloom descend upon this blog once more.