Hoots Mon

The XI were a mixed-race, mixed-gender jazz outfit put together as the house band on pioneering pop show Oh Boy! By some accounts they weren't happy with the material they were handed, in which case Hoots Mon might have been a cathartic kind of revenge. It has one of the great No 1 intros – a mighty, primitive blurt of brass, a thuggish Hammond flourish and the band humming like angry monks. After that it barely calms down, swinging as hard as any rock'n'roll while sprinkling a bit of Scots business on top for a hook. Novelty dance records are a constant in the British charts – 50-plus years on, this remains the greatest.