Following his death, I’ve been listening to Don Covay. He was the epitome of party soul, typified by his biggest hit, See Saw. His backing band was aptly named The Goodtimers. Suddenly, he teamed up with The Jefferson Lemon Blues Band and released a full-on throaty blues album, The House Of Blue Lights. It was a completely unexpected musical diversion quite different to the rest of his catalogue. It was a musical hand-brake turn.

All the best groups develop their sound and some, such as Bowie, wilfully defy expectations but there aren’t many that do something out of character and then immediately go back to their usual delivery. I thought of Talk Talk and Spirit Of Eden. However, looking back, I can hear some of Spirit in their previous album and Mark Hollis continued to explore the Spirit style in his solo albums.

I’m convinced The Afterword can come up with more examples of the musical handbrake turn.

In the meantime, compare and contrast But I Forgive You Blues with See Saw. (The link to See Saw is in red underneath But I Forgive You Blues. I can’t seem to embed it).