Missing Friday nights at the Southgate Club listening to the great bands playing at St Harmonica's? Well, we can't do anything about the lockdown, but we can do our best to recreate St Harmonica's in the comfort of your own home. So pour yourself a glass of beer, move the furniture aside to make yourself a dance floor, click on the first of the music videos below and start a text conversation with some of the people you usually meet up with at the club.Lightnin' Hopkins - A Woman Called Mary
Let's start with the very essence of the Blues, captured by filmmaker Les Blank. Listening to Lightnin' Hopkins records is an intimate experience, it's almost as if he was sitting next to you on the bus, whispering into your ear, telling stories and expounding his eccentric philosophy, and the way this is filmed close up takes you straight into his world. You can watch the whole film here for a mere £2.43.
Albert King - Blues Power
A big contrast with Lightnin' Hopkins, but equally intense. Playing here in front of a "hippie" audience, a big change from his career up till then. I saw him at the Hammersmith Odeon, also around 1970 - the loudest music I had ever heard (at the time anyway).
Ike & Tina Turner - Motherless Child
Probably not what people associate Tina Turner with these days. A track from Outta Season, a great album of blues by the husband and wife team (Ike taught her all she knows about suffering) that came out around 1969, with this rather striking cover art.
Boubacar Traoré & Ali Farka Touré - Duna Ma Yelema
Now for some African Blues! Two of Mali's most renowned musicians playing together.
Sona Jobarteh - Musow
More African music, this time Guinean kora player Sona Jobahteh with her band.
Orchestra Baobab - Soldadi
A song in Portuguese from a celebrated Senegalese band. A great example of the unique guitar style of Barthelemy Attisso, sadly no longer with the band. Read this article about them.
Orchestra Baobab - Utru Horas
Can't listen to one Baobab song without listening to a second! This is their most famous song, in a rare live recording for Senegalese TV. Please note the band's attire and try to attain the same standards when St Harmonica's reopens!
Kirpiğin Kaşına Değdiği Zaman - İbrahim Tatlıses - Arif Sağ - Belkıs Akkale - Erdal Erzincanlı Düet
Moving further east, to Turkey, but maintaining the same sartorial standard.
Erkan Oğur i Hakkı Demircioğlu, Şevval Sam, Tuncel Kurtiz - Oy Benum Sevduceğum
Celebrated Turkish musicians get together.
Jimmy Witherspoon with Robben Ford - Nothin's Changed
Meanwhile, back in the States... An amazing combination of seasoned blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon (born 1920) and much younger Robben Ford (1951).
Howlin' Wilf & The Vee-Jays - Wilf's Wobble
A quick jump over the Atlantic to London in the 1980s and a chance to lighten up after all this passion and moodiness. Howlin' Wilf (not to be confused with Howlin' Wolf - though I don't think anyone would confuse them!) was what James Hunter called himself when he was a stalwart of the pub rock scene. James now lives in the US, turning out excellent albums of music inspired by 1950s R&B. His singing has improved no end from how it was in the 1980s (which is why I chose an instrumental!), but I think some of the freshness and cheekiness of the young Wilf has been lost.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Didn't It Rain!
Yes, of course, it always rained in Manchester in the 1960s. The one and only Sister Rosetta live on a British Railways station platform. Follow that!