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Music history comes alive. Forgotten favourites & undiscovered gems from the rock, soul & reggae archive and a few of the stories behind them. Your host is Simon Tesler, former publisher and editor of 1980s music, media and pop culture magazine BLITZ.
It's New Year's Eve! Hello, this is Simon Tesler with more great sounds from the Music Archive. I'm ending the year with another In Memoriam edition, celebrating a few of the musicians who left us over the past three months to join that Great Gig In The Sky, including Chris Rea, Jimmy Cliff, Mani Mounfield and many more. In a few minutes we'll say hello and wave goodbye to Soft Cell's Dave Ball, but first Antone Chubby Tavares, lead singer of American R&B group Tavares. Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel!
That was Soft Cell's synth-pop update of the old Gloria Jones Northern Soul classic Tainted Love. Dave Ball, who passed away in October, was of course the reclusive musical mastermind behind the duo, a foil to flamboyant frontman Marc Almond. Tainted Love was their astonishingly successful breakthrough hit, only their second single, and one of the two best-selling singles in the UK in 1981 -- the other one being Human League's Don't You Want Me -- and it was followed by a string of other Soft Cell songs that were almost as successful. Yet Ball and Almond were, as Almond remarked recently, like chalk and cheese. Ball himself once said he looked more like Almond's minder than his musical collaborator, and he was quite content to work quietly in the shadows behind his outrageous partner. In fact, on several occasions he sent a friend who looked vaguely like him to mime playing the keyboards behind Almond for TV appearances, so he could just stay in the studio tinkering with the latest recordings.
Before Tainted Love, that was Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel by Tavares, five brothers who started performing as a group in the late 1950s as Chubby and the Turnpikes, before finding success in the mid-70s under their surname Tavares with a cover of Hall & Oates' She's Gone, and then Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel among others. Antone Tavares, nicknamed Chubby, was the vocalist for most of their songs, and he passed away in November.
Three fabulous instrumentals now, all featuring musicians who were among the best in their class. In a few minutes we'll honour Gilson Lavis, perhaps best known as the drummer in Squeeze in the 70s and 80s, and as Jools Holland's longtime musical partner ever since, a fixture on every episode of Later With Jools Holland ever since. I imagine he will be especially missed tonight on Jools Holland's End-of-Year Hootenanny TV special. I'm playing not a Squeeze song, but Honey Dripper, a track from Holland's 1990 solo album World Of His Own, which demonstrates Lavis's incredible skill as a swing drummer. After that, the work of legendary Stax session guitarist Steve Cropper on Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs.
But before that, let's celebrate Dave Burgess, a rockabilly artist from California who passed away in October. Towards the end of 1957, he and his band were messing around in the studio to create a b-side for Burgess's new single Train To Nowhere. Sax player Danny Flores came up with a catchy little instrumental tune, and the band cut it in the final hour of their recording session. Unfortunately, Train To Nowhere did not enjoy much success, or at least not until one radio DJ flipped the disc and played the b-side instead. Suddenly the record became a massive success, a number one hit in the US and Canada, and the band quickly adopted a new name, The Champs. You probably don't know their name, but you certainly know the song. This is Tequila.
Actually the backstory behind Green Onions is very similar to that of Tequila. Steve Cropper, who died earlier this month, was the guitarist in the house band at Stax Records, who did backing for all of the label's featured singers, including Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and scores of others.
One day in the summer of 1962 they'd been booked to provide backing for another featured singer, but he never showed up, so they filled the time by jamming some blues together. Keyboard player Booker T Jones came up with that great organ riff, and they all just jumped in.
They knew it was good, so Cropper took the tapes along to a friend who was a local radio DJ. He played it on air four times in a row, and apparently the station's phone lines just lit up with listeners asking where they could buy the record. But it wasn't a record yet, and the song didn't even have a title, but Stax put it out as a single soon afterwards, and it led to the creation of Booker T & The MGs as a band in their own right, as a sideline to their main gig still backing other Stax artists.
Two harder rocking tracks now from the 70s. Tetsu Yamauchi was a Japanese-born rock guitarist who ended up in London in 1970 following a European tour by his original band Samurai. He didn't speak very much English at all, but even so he got plenty of session work, and he earned a reputation as not just a great guitarist, but a hard-living party boy as well. In 1972 he was asked to join British rock band Free after their original bass player quit, and he performed on Free's final studio album Heartbreaker.
Later he took over from bass player Ronnie Lane in The Faces, but his lifestyle was a bit too wild even for them, and he eventually ended up returning to Japan at the end of the 70s. I'm going to play the Free track Wishing Well, which Yamauchi also co-wrote.
After that we'll honour Ace Frehley, lead guitarist in Kiss, a massive act in the US throughout the 70s as a result of their crazy face paint, wild costumes and on-stage pyrotechnics. Didn't do so well in in the UK or Europe, but they were huge in the US. I'm going to play Deuce from their debut album, but first Free and Wishing Well.
Two more bass players to mourn now, and then one of Britain's best-loved singer-songwriters. It's always a bit of a shock when someone younger than you passes away, and Gary Mounfield, known professionally as Mani, was a year younger than me. He was of course the bassist for Stone Roses from 1987 until 1996, and later for Primal Scream. I'm going to play their anthem, Fools Gold -- the short version! Sorry, haven't got time for the long one.
After that, Sam Rivers, bass player for American alt-rockers Limp Bizkit. Even younger, aged just 49 when he passed away. Their track Rearranged is a great showcase for his lovely bass lines. And then Chris Rea, one of the great British blues musicians of the 80s and 90s. I think we've heard enough of Driving Home for Christmas over the past few weeks, so I'm going to play The Road to Hell. But first, Fools Gold.
Two reggae greats now. In a few minutes, Vivian Jones, a Jamaican-born singer who came to the UK in the 1960s and worked with numerous lesser-known reggae bands throughout the 70s, before recording as a solo artist in the 1980s. He was never a star, but he left behind several crucial tracks, not least Red Eyes. Fabulous lyrics too. Don't mistake those red eyes for misery because his girl left him. It's because "I've been burnin', burnin' in a Rizla, burnin', burnin' Sensamilla."
But first, a man who was indeed a star, in fact one of the first and most important in the reggae music industry, Jimmy Cliff. He was arguably reggae's first international superstar, although his career was later eclipsed by that of Bob Marley. There are numerous tracks I could play, not least the classic protest song Vietnam, the anthem The Harder They Come, or the beautiful Many Rivers to Cross. But I've chosen my personal favourite, the lovely Let Your Yeah Be Yeah.
Okay, 2026 beckons, so it's time to ramp up the tempo, put on those party shoes, and let's get some drinks in. To close the show this week, and to finish off 2025, a fabulous track from that other great Minneapolis funk band. No, it's not Prince, but his friends and sometimes rivals The Time, led by Morris Day. We're paying tribute to drummer, guitarist, and producer Jellybean Johnson, who left us in November. This is the standout track from the final Time album Pandemonium, from 2008, Jerk Out.
That's all for 2025. I'm Simon Tesler, thank you for joining me for another deep dive into the music archive. Join me again in a week's time for another great selection. See you next year!