The best peace, love and harmony anthem of 1985 didn’t come from the composing pen of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, wasn’t produced by Quincy Jones and not sung by hordes of rock music’s biggest stars.

The last recordings of an early rock legend had none of the crunchy grit of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” Instead, Larry Williams reimagined his sound (and with “Bony Moronie,” one of his most famous songs) as ass-shaking 1970s funk bombs.

If your complaint about Michael McDonald’s brand of city-slicker soul, dating all the way back to the Doobie Brothers, was that it lacked a certain grease-popping earthiness, “Judgement Day” certainly bolsters the argument.

Long a shadowy figure, Shuggie Otis had become known more for his absence than for psychedelic soul successes like 1974′s Inspiration Information and writing songs like Brothers Johnson’s No. 5 1977 hit “Strawberry Letter 23″

Sounding something like reggae dub, Paris, New York, Port-au-Prince blends Bob Marley-style political sentiments and thunking music hall beats — with Karlex’s spoken-more-than-sung vocals as the centering point.

Get the weekend off to a rollicking good start with a stream of this classic Allen Toussaint gem, as reimagined by Robben Ford for his current Mascot Label Group release Bringing It Back Home.

Always a proud individualist, the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, has a message on his new song: Be your own damned self.

You may think you’ve never heard of the McCrary Sisters, but you probably have anyway: The quartet was featured, for instance, on Dr. John’s Grammy-winning 2012 Dan Auerbach-produced triumph Locked Down.

Playing an upside down Gibson Flying V, Albert King set about turning everything you thought you knew about the blues, about rock, and certainly about the left-handed guitarist himself on its head with this stunning Stax release.

This song, a new live interpolation of a Miles Davis cut from 1961′s Someday My Prince Will Come, might be the best argument Nicholas Payton has ever made for the use of the term Black American Music (or #BAM) instead of jazz.