This post is dedicated to one of our readers who called my attention to this very special lady's wonderful music.

I guess you can say that Judee Sill is the tragic american counterpart to Britain's Shelagh McDonald. Both released only two albums in their lifetime, both dabbled dangerously with drugs, both were extremely promising singer/songwriters in their own right, both ended their careers due to poor support from the part of their record companies who didn't believe enough in them and both are now revered, respected and reappraised and their music has suffered a long overdue reassessment that will never do them enough justice.

For me, what really stands apart Sill's music from McDonald's is that she was able to create a niche for her right from the start and the way she fuses folk with classic and rock is so effortless, it leaves you quite disarmed. On top of that, the deeply felt and often times spiritual/religious lyrics she infuses the songs with are the stuff only great dreamers are capable of. She really believed in salvation and redemption in the hollistic sense of those words and her music truly benefits from this aspect of her songwriting. For proof, I leave you with one of her most pure moments in song ever: The Kiss.

This small incursion that I'm making into some seriously vintage music would not be complete without a mention to perhaps the maddest, quirkiest, most whimsical british band of all time: the Bonzo Dog Dooh-Dah Band, a.k.a. the Bonzo Dog Band.

Led by eccentric extraordinaire Vivian Stanshall, a major force in the post-modern whimsical world (if such thing even exists), they are to the music world what the Monty Python are to the movie world. This obviously means that they possess that rare gift of making people laugh whilst creating great art at the same time. This compilation is essential to understanding and comprehending just what made them tick and exactly why they are revered in Britain as belonging to a sort of music nobility, such was their legacy.

Part of their charm are the reinventions they made around old vintage classics of the popular sort and how they somehow successfully achieved grand notoriety with such material in a time when everyone was looking into the future for inspiration. Perhaps anachronism was the key, after all. If you've never heard them before and are curious to know how they sounded like, here's your chance now. I leave you with one of their all time classics: Hunting Tigers Out In India. Toodle-oo.

I planned to post this video on last Halloween but that did not come through. I soon came to the conclusion that Nina Simone's spells are welcome any time of the year. I somehow know you feel the same way too. See you soon.

If you lived in the 20's, this is the kind of music you'd be dancing: the Charleston. All flappers and It girls danced their little feet away to the infectious rhythm of these lively numbers. To be honest, they still possess a kind of timeless charm to them and that's one of the main reasons why I'm recommending this compilation.

As I said before, compilations are mostly hit and miss affairs and this one in particular is not the exception but when it hits the mark, it's a bull's eye. Besides, there's always one or two songs by an artist you've never heard of or paid any attention to that stands out from the rest like a sore thumb and makes you want to know more from those particular artists. And that's always a good thing in my book.

In this one, you get Fred Astaire, Josephine Baker, Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson, as well as some entirely lovable instrumentals courtesy of the more high-profile big bands of the time, so it's all good as you can see. And it also serves as a kind of testimony of the high-speed times they were living in, with new dance crazes and new stars popping up almost every week. It's no wonder this decade was named The Roaring Twenties! Take a listen to Al Jolson belting out Swanee.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you singer/songwriter extraordinaire, Neil Hannon, also known to the public buying masses as the frontman and leading figure of posh british combo, The Divine Comedy.

Whenever I think of him I also think of Noel Coward, thus the reason behind this post right after the one about the author behind the anthemic Mad Dogs and Englishmen (by the way, they should really consider adopting that song as their national anthem. Seriously). Anyway, this post is about the album that got me started with my Divine Comedy obsession of a few years back. As I said, CASANOVA was my introduction to the many talents of Neil Hannon and I got hooked very fast. In it, Hannon paints a picture of the adventures and misadventures of a bon-vivant, in love with life, women and, most of all, himself. But he does this in such an hilarious and light-hearted way that it never feels mysoginous or offensive. Plus, all the songs are killers and his voice soars to such intensity and heights that you could not help but feel enraptured by his particular magic all the way.

So, if you haven't yet succumbed to the very melodic and funny world The Divine Comedy inhabit, what are you waiting for? Here's a taster: A Woman of the World. Go ahead, push that button. You know you want to.

Make way for the brightest star of them all, Mr. Noel Coward. I like to view him as a sort of Oscar Wilde of the music world, going about his way regardless of everyone and marking his passage with sometimes hilariously ingenious sayings, sometimes scathingly ironic words but always with a panaché that only the best english breed possess.

Mixing vaudeville with british whimsy at its best, his knack for a catchy melody is always on display on every song he composed. But songs were not the only thing he did. Add to his CV the jobs of playwright, director, actor and singer and you have before you a sort of Renaissance Man of sorts for the 20th Century. His influence is still far reaching and numerous compilations and tribute albums have been produced so this one I'm recommending is just one of many, so just take a pick.

I leave you with his most iconic song ever - Mad Dogs and Englishmen - an hilarious and extremely assertive song about what it means to be british among other things. Praise be due to the original master of the ironic song.

Of course, a crash course on american popular music from the 30's would not be complete without a mention to the girl that still steals all our hearts when she goes 'Boop-Boop-A-Doop'. I speak of the gal that inspired the most famous Fleischer creation of all time, Betty Boop: Miss Helen Kane.

Her quirky voice and child-like pitch are still able to hold us into a sort of trance, as if caught unaware by something otherworldly or at least, very far away from the sounds of everyday life. As I write this, I hear myself asking: "aren't you going a little too far?", but the answer in my heart and mind is a firm "no", because if you play the track below (her classic I Wanna Be Loved By You), you might find yourself slipping away to a faraway world of your own private imagination in a matter of seconds. And there aren't a lot of voices, let alone things, that can do that nowadays, are there?