Shapiro's at his strongest in his brilliant early chapters detailing disco’s genesis in Parisian speakeasies and New York bacchanals; and then later, in an extended audience with Nile Rodgers. He weaves compelling socio-cultural theories while still conveying the excitement of the music and clubs he undresses. A genre history that lovingly redresses Mama Disco’s much-maligned reputation.

It’s not widely known but the seventies were nearly cancelled due to a lack of drugs. This was because Danny Sugerman had taken them all. Classic rock craziness by the one-time manager of the Doors – groupies, overdoses and cars in swimming pools. Whenever you get used to the excess, a stripling Iggy Pop arrives with three girls and a family pack of angel dust to warm things up a bit.

Written by a pair of truly devoted enthusiasts (they set up their own company to publish the book), this is the nearest the northern soul scene has come to producing a definitive tome. Written with the zeal of a trainspotter with an eye on a wider market – sadly all too rare on the northern scene – this is a beautifully presented document of its halcyon era.

Deservedly sympathetic rendition of the Alan Freed story, the DJ more than any other who turned the wider world on to rhythm and blues and rock'n'roll. Although his career was all-but destroyed in 1962 after being convicted of payola charges, he not only coined the term 'rock’n’roll' but was instrumental in helping disseminate black music to a wider (white) audience through his radio shows.

First published in 1971 and never out of print, veteran broadcaster Gillett's history was one of the first British books to document black music with any degree of passion or authority, following the trajectory of rhythm & blues and rock'n'roll from its earliest roots up to Cream and Hendrix. Now in its third revised edition, it's a must for anyone with even a vague interest in the story.

One of the most important queer novels of its time, an elegaic and beautifully written love story, documenting the demi-monde of Manhattan's gay nightlife in the early 1970s, filled with accurate detail on the clubs, the records and the fashions of seminal New York clubs like 10th Floor and 12 West. Post-AIDS it now reads like a love poem to a long-gone era.

Now more known as a sci-fi novelist, Farren was once vocalist with the notorious Deviants and an integral part of the 60s counterculture in London. An angry punk let loose at the heart of London’s sixties psychedelic love-in, his jaundiced view of the Summer of Love is a welcome antidote to the usual media-friendly cheerleaders. Tune in, turn on, drop out.

THE classic tale of the music industry's movers, shakers and corrupters, recently re-published by Helter Skelter. All the larger than life characters are present: Walter Yetnikoff, Tommy Mottola, David Geffen, Clive Davis and Irving Azoff, as well as the rise and glorious fall of Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records, suffocating under an EEC mountain of coke consumption. Tawdry and magnificent.

Hirshey's book, first published nearly 25 years ago, is still one of the classics of the genre. It's all there: Screaming Jay Hawkins, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha, Atlantic, Tamla Motown, Stax and Philly. Nowhere to run, baby! Scores of original interviews, beautifully written and with rare passion, like any good music book, it will make you want to own all the songs it documents.