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Writer Danny Robins talks about the music featured in episode 1 of Rudy's Rare Records

Series 3 ended with Rudy and Doreen heading off to get married in Jamaica and the first episode of this series starts a couple weeks after everyone’s got back from the wedding, with Adam starting to realise that the flat above the shop that he shares with the newlyweds has now become a geriatric love-nest.

When I was choosing the tunes for this episode I wanted to find some tracks that felt like they chimed with Adam’s feelings – like Hortense Ellis’s I Can’t Stand the Rain, an oddly but nicely upbeat version of an often haunting song. I absolutely love I’ve Got to Get Away by the brilliant John Holt, it sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it. Holt is of course the man who penned The Tide is High, later made even more famous by Blondie.

We like to make sure we feature artists from different periods and genres to reflect the music Rudy sells in his shop and we have the worlds of hip hop and RnB represented by De La Soul and R Kelly, respectively. R Kelly, a man whose ego is nearly as big as Rudy’s, sums up the noises that Adam really doesn’t want to hear emanating from Rudy and Doreen’s bedroom with the hilariously steamy Bump n Grind; a song I can’t hear without both laughing and shaking my booty.

We’ve got some of our old favourite artists in here with Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley, James Brown and, appropriately, Birmingham’s finest, The Beat. We don’t feature that much Bob Marley this series, but Iron Lion Zion, a song recorded in 1973 but only released posthumously in 1992, seemed to fit so well here with Tasha’s suggestion that Adam should be more lion-like in how he approaches life and the ladies in particular.

I hope you enjoy the music in the episode. If you want to hear the songs in full click on the links below to head to their respective videos on You Tube, or .

Episode 1 playlist