"Come Spy with Me" croon Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, and we can only assume they mean a secret mission to score soul state secrets from the Motown vaults. We're after classified material - undergro …

The marriage between jazz and vocals hasn't always been a happy one, as many jazz compositions don't really lend themselves to lyrics, while other songs tailor-made for voice aren't considered "true ja …

"Go Away Little Boy" (in its opposite-sex guise of "Go Away Little Girl") hit the top of the pop charts twice - once by Steve Lawrence and again by Donny Osmond. Marlena Shaw takes the song in a …

A time for bad hair, baggy shirts, and drug abuse, the Romantic period (1820-1910) saw composition become increasingly introspective and self-indulgent. Berlioz kicked off with a prodigious opium habit …

The beauty of '60s rock is the fact it was all over the map, an aural "Magic Carpet Ride" emanating from the tiny transistor radio under your pillow. Emerging from the innocent Brill Building girl grou …

The great axemen of rock get the girls, the glory, and the ten-stories-tall amp stacks. But the maestros of the classical guitar, armed with little more than a footrest and a wardrobe of cardigans, hav …

Whether it's the '50s-style "cool school" that flips your wig or Dixieland that sets your toes a-tapping, somewhere there's a trumpeter blowing notes you need to hear. Not to blow our own horn too much …

Politics, be damned! Here's your passport to the Middle East through its exotic and stunningly diverse pop heritage. Acquaint yourselves with the Farid El Atrache - composer of Egyptian music, singer,  …

Sad but true: rock 'n' roll has always been something of a boys' club. How wrong is that? Wrong enough that, in the early '90s, a group of women latched onto punk's D.I.Y. ethic, strapped on guitars, a …