Radio LBB: Steve Davies' Favourite Hits

I started picking favourites at Paul Cooper’s kind invitation- it was great fun but impossibly hard!

I have chosen 27 songs but still left out The Beatles, Prince and Elvis for example, which is really musical heresy given how much I love them.

I tried to cover a lot of different music I like, and not just choose obvious classics- though many of them are.

I tried too to not to wallow too much in nostalgia- actually not hard because I find being fixated on one particular era- usually the music that was out when you were 18 a little dull.

What I like has changed and broadened over the years anyway- I imagine that is true for many people, so new music doesn't just mean FKA twigs or Dave or J Hus but also going back earlier to Ella Fitzgerald (always a favourite though, named my daughter who was born the year Ella Fitzgerald died after her) and Glen Campbell and Phil Phillips who’s Sea of Love is a the atmospheric soundtrack to one of my favourite films- of the same name.

There is nod to punk but more reggae- all those Trojan tracks where any good song was turned into a reggae version are great and Ken Boothe singing Everything I Own is possibly the finest.

There is some Philly sound, disco and soul and country - another genre I have got to love. I plan to get to Nashville one day and go to as many performances as possible.

Then there is The Pogues, the best live band ever for me and the mercurial Shane MacGowan is simply a genius. Stevie Wonder is in there too, speaking of geniuses and a I think the most perfect cover of a Dylan song ever from Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer - sisters with a real country music life - they saw their Dad murder their Mum - and another singer who had a tragic life but whose voice can make your hair stand on end - Roy Orbison.

At the end I realised I could have found 27 more songs or 54 more songs or 108 more songs I loved just as much!

I hope you enjoy listening to them.