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The Animals may have done the best-known cover version, but there are arguably others than better it
To some it’s a masterpiece, to others a dirge, but from 17th century England to 20th century New Orleans, with artists that include Woody Guthrie, Nina Simone, The Animals and alt-J it’s a song that keeps evolving
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Blind Boy Fuller
Song of the Day: After Lucille Bogan screaming with laughter at the dirtiest of lyrics, let's move on to only slightly more subtle material from the voice of the Piedmont blues singer from Wadsboro, North Carolina, who who also had a clever line in ragtime
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Clara Smith
Song of the Day: After yesterday's sprinkling of tragic and dirty songs by Bessie Smith, let's get a little filthier courtesy of the so-called Queen of the Moaners from South Carolina who actually had a chirpy, perky, high voice
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Bessie Smith, carrying more than weight on her famous shoulders
Song of the Day: After a series of early bluesmen, it's time to sprinkle some attention on the first true star of of the blues crossing into jazz, who not only mixed a little dirt into her powerful voice, but also into her lyrics
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Ray Chalres
Song of the Day: After Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing in rainy Manchester in 1964, another great's rendition of a another wet weather number written by Tony Joe White in 1967 from his 1972 album Through The Eyes Of Love
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Chilean band Newen Afrobeat
Song of the Day: After yesterday's international collaboration, another African and Latin jazz groove but this time all played in the same location, putting some heavier brass meat on the bones and a Fela Kuti classic
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Kora Jazz Trio
Song of the Day: A Saturday special as we compare three versions of a song made famous by the Cuban ensemble, but here with an African and jazz twist, featuring the kora, piano and more with other musicians
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Fatoumata Diawara
Song of the Day: After a series of longer established African stars, a more contemporary one – the Ivory Coast born singer songwriter, from her 2018 album, Fenfo (Something To Say), with a song about mass migration
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Salif Keita
Song of the Day: After Senegal's Youssou N'Dour, let's hand over to yet another giant of African music, again from Mali, the royal 'Golden Voice', from his 2002 album Moffou
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Youssou N'Dour
Song of the Day: Moving from Morocco, and another huge figure in African music and the style of mbalax, which mixes jazz, soul, Latin, and rock blended with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of Senegal
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That's the Fela
Song of the Day: As the heatwave continues let's enjoy a double from Nigeria's prolific genius, one about our most precious resource, the other in relation to a police confrontation involving a planted cannabis joint
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The single cover of Double Dutch
Song of the Day: From yesterday's song about whooping and clapping by Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens, a nimble act of skipping – and controversial sampling – by the Sex Pistols impresario from 1983
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Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013
Song of the Day: At a time when true statesmen are very much needed, and to mark the centenary of the great South African's birth, two great 1980s songs that helped bring his incarceration, and apartheid, to worldwide attention
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Tom Waits – always in business
Song of the Day: After some sleep and dream songs, a lugubrious song by the inimitable raspy-voiced one is somewhere between surreal dream and nightmare, except it matches the chaos of recent events
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Suicide's Alan Vega and Martin Rev in 1979
Song of the Day: The dream goes on, but where might it lead next? Reaching into the power of nightmares and fantasies, an original by the US electro-punk duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev from 1979 and two contrasting covers
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From the album cover of The Soft Machine (1968), featuring Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers and Mike Ratledge
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Ray Davies soaring sleep song performed by Marion, a more psychedelic take on different levels of consciousness by those Canterbury pioneers from their first album of 1968
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Pub mates and song collaborators Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Malcolm Middleton songs, let's dip into two by his old Arab Strap friend Aidan Moffat, here joining with Bill Wells, fellow songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with two dark and humorous numbers
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One of several sheet music versions of this popular song
Song of the Day: To mark the mixed weather of spring, let's turn back the clocks to offer out a bouquet, nay a spray, of various versions of this popular song written in 1921 by Louis Silvers with words by BG "Buddy" DeSylva
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Eartha Kitt in Las Vegas in the 1950s
Song of the Day: One flower-based song, three great voices doing their versions, all intense, intimate and intoxicating. Let's drink all of them in, interpreting this song written by James Shelton in 1950
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Minnie Riperton in 1971
Song of the Day: After our previous Manchester late-80s dance tracks, when flower power returned with a new chemical twist, we hark back to another petal-infused and influential song by the vocalist linked to our previous Rotary Connection selection
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