Guardian Music — Our writers are picking their favourite albums. Here, Andy Capper gets spellbound by a song that breaks his heartIf the last album I paid tribute to in the Guardian was the sound of my life running away from a small North West town, then this is the ... more info

Totally Fuzzy — The music and mythology of a golden era in the culture of California is explored in this feature-length documentary. At the start of the 1960s Los Angeles was a kooky backwater, barely visible on the musical map. By the end of the 1970s it was the ... more info

Guardian Music — Sometimes you think you know a song – only to hear a version that makes you reconsider everything you previously feltIf you had asked me, just a couple of months ago, what was the definitive version of Carole King's song I Wasn't Born to Follow, I ... more info

Guardian Music — Some will say that REM's breakup is long overdue – but we should remember the great contributions they made to rock musicThere were, predictably, those who observed that REM's split had come a decade and a half too late, that the US rock band shoul... more info

Guardian Music — (Decca)More than the sum of their parts? That's the Jayhawks. Separately, the voices of Mark Olson and Gary Louris tend to be thin; together, their harmonies are as richly American, in their way, as the Beach Boys. Writing together melds Olson's coun... more info

Guardian Music — A study of 1970, filtered through the music of the timeWe live in turbulent times, our distrust of institutions seemingly at a peak. Yet between January 1969 and the spring of 1970, according to the author of Fire and Rain, borrowing figures quoted ... more info

Guardian Music — Academy, ManchesterThe Jayhawks have never had great timing. They honed their country-rock sound just as grunge went global. They released their second album, 1992's Blue Earth, on a major label just as the US media attacked the huge sums of money s... more info

L.A. Times - Entertainment — The group's music evokes the best of the classic canyon rock era of the 1960s and '70s. The band members even have a place in Laurel Canyon.It's a hot, bone-dry, blue-skied day in the hills above Los Angeles — the kind of crystalline morning one mi... more info

Guardian Music — Producer and manager behind the ByrdsJim Dickson, who has died aged 80, played a significant role in the American folk-rock boom of the 1960s. He was responsible for bringing together the Los Angeles quartet the Byrds, building a buzz about the group... more info

Guardian Music — High heels, whips, even a chocolate Jesus. You got down and dirty with kinky songsSome of your suggestions were brilliantly clever and witty: Duke Ellington's Rubber Bottom; Olivia Newton John's Hopelessly Devoted to You; the Ronettes' I Saw Mommy Ki... more info