Ordinary Joe

Craig Charles is one of the UK’s best-loved Funk & Soul DJs. Broadcasting for over 10 years Craig Charles is spearheading the Funk & Soul revolution with his shows on BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 2. Funk & Soul Classics is his roots and heritage.

Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. When his ex-wife and her new husband drop off his teenage son Robbie and young daughter Rachel for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm suddenly touches down. What follows is the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it in this contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells seminal classic sci-fi thriller.

Saxophonist Kirsten Edkins delivers a delightful and charming batch of mainstream jazz with her engaging and exuberant debut Art & Soul. The tracks alternate between soulful, smoky burners and cooler, airier ones with relaxed tempos and intricate arrangements.

Craig Charles is one of the UK’s best-loved Funk & Soul DJs. Broadcasting for over 10 years Craig Charles is spearheading the Funk & Soul revolution with his shows on BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 2. Funk & Soul Classics is his roots and heritage. This three-disc Set displays the rich routes and sultry rhythms of a genre that has touched and influenced many. The sixty tracks collectively represent some of the finest pieces of genre-defining music spanning across six decades, Craig Charles added “Having the chance to put together a collection featuring my personal favourites from the golden age of American soul & funk music, alongside some absolute funky nuggets from the contemporary bands keeping that raw soul sound alive in the 21st Century is a dream come true!” This definitive collection includes some of the heavy weight classics alongside some outstanding modern hidden gems. Funk & Soul Classics features some of the most celebrated vocalists and musicians, collectively earning multiple Grammy and Soul Train Awards.

The last decade or so has seen a flood of compilations from the funky end of jazz so another one, and a double one at that, hardly seems to be something to get too excited about. But it is. Funky End is a superlative collection of familiar and not so familiar funk tunes from a diverse range of artists. It not only includes such funkmeisters as James Brown, Parliament and the Average White Band but also giants from the jazz world like Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Donald Byrd and Roy Ayers. Stand-out tracks are far too many to mention, although a personal favourite is the jaw-dropping cover by Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth". With such variety Funky End could easily have become a patchwork, but it manages to avoid the pitfall of many compilations and retain a sense of unity. And unity is what the funk is all about.

After nearly 10 years as Argo, the name of Chess Records’ jazz imprint was supposed to be the only thing about it that changed. But as Cadet Records assumed its new identity in the mid-’60s, the influence of the dawning psychedelic era, a boom of recording technology advances and, crucially, the arrival of a cadre of eager artists and brilliant producers put the label on a new, bewildering course to greatness. Tragic circumstances would bring about the label’s unraveling almost as rapidly as its meteoric rise, but not before Cadet released some of most audacious, boundary-pushing jazz, soul, blues and rock albums of the ’60s and ’70s — music that’s inspired generations of superstars, DJs and cratediggers ever since.