A Certain Ratio Down, Down, Down

4 CD box set celebrating the Madchester/baggy scene and the indie dance crossover. Featuring The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans and more. With tracks presented in their extended mixes as played at clubs such as The Hacienda.

No matter where Big Daddy Wilson travels on this big, beautiful, mixed-up planet of ours, he takes the South with him. Listening to the soulful storytelling of the man born Wilson Blount in a small town in the Inner Banks region of North Carolina, it's impossible not to conjure images of dusty back roads, cypress groves, a Saturday night juke joint or Sunday morning revival meeting. It's a nostalgic and – some might say – glorified image of rural America. Yet in an age of ruthless demagogues and divisive politics, Big Daddy Wilson chooses to celebrate the simple things that bond us as human beings – a smile, a shared meal, a helping hand – along with cherished values like faith, perseverance and devotion to family. For more than two decades, he has been carrying his message of hope and unity to each and every show, whether in New York, Paris, Auckland or – in the case of his new live album Songs From The Road – the village of Rubigen in central Switzerland.

In many ways, the California Jam was the equivalent of the Woodstock festival to a burgeoning generation of hard rock and heavy metal fans. Woodstock had changed the face of music in 1969; the California Jam took place five years later down the line. During that time, flower-power had wilted and peace-and-love hippy ideals had been replaced by a culture of wildeyed excess…