The only time I saw the late Gil Scott-Heron perform was in a New York nightclub in 2001. I had huge expectations of this iconic, radical, spoken-word artist and musician whose jazz-funk syncopations and uncompromising lyrics spawned generations of imitators. But it was already too late to see the great man as he once was. He would soon be busted for the drug addiction that led to two spells in prison. That night, his crack-ravaged performance was so bad, the audience talked over him.

First time on CD for a 1976 Fantasy recording by cult trumpeter Gasca, who also played with Carlos Santana and Van Morrison (on Tupelo Honey).

1. Alice's Restaurant.

Esther Gordy Edwards, who died on 24 August at the age of 91, was known as "the Mother of Motown", writes Pierre Perrone, not only to her brother Berry Gordy Jr, the founder of the label that defined the Sixties as much as The Beatles, but also to artists like Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, whom she chaperoned on tour.

When Annie [lennox] and I meet up now, we no longer talk about the old days [with the Eurythmics]. We've been through so much, what are we going to say? "Remember that crazy time in Oklahoma?" We've both had kids, and now there are all these other experiences to talk about.

Drake has collaborated with Stevie Wonder on his new album.

There comes a certain point in mass pop culture when it ceases being primarily about the music and simply becomes a matter of numbers, whether it's how much it cost Roger Waters to stage The Wall, or how much U2's latest tour grossed, or how many YouTube hits a Lady Gaga video gets, or how many will be attending the Glastonbury Festival. In each case, the music is pretty much incidental to the experience, which has become an Event into which we now buy.

If you see their jaunty pop promos – old-fashioned, so weirdly refreshing – or ever watch them live, County Down band Two Door Cinema Club (so named when guitarist Sam Halliday mispronounced the name of the local Bangor cinema, Tudor Cinema) sort of crouch down, curling over their instruments, as though they've possibly only just learnt to play them – carefully watching their fingers crawl up and down the fretboard, not entirely sure where they're going to end up. This is engaging, and makes them appear even younger than they are, the best boys in their class, beavering away under an imaginary glass ceiling, effervescent and jangly in equal measure. In preppy jumpers, plimsoles and sports jackets, with floppy fringes and smiles, they look not unlike Haircut 100, Orange Juice, or any other floppy-fringed boy band of the past 30 years.

The move from Motor City to California gets a bad rep but this neat digest contains one masterpiece, a couple of classics and some interesting obscurities.

Poet, novelist, musician, spoken-word guru, campaigner, thorn in the side of the establishment, victim of his own weaknesses: Gil Scott-Heron, who died in New York at the weekend, was a multi-faceted figure, one of the definitive African American voices of the past 50 years, alongside James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Toni Morrison, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Prince.

Justin Bieber wants to be an actor.

Looking like a mermaid with her luscious brown locks over a cropped top and purple shorts with a netted tail that touches the floor, Camden- born 22-year-old Eliza Doolittle appears comfortable and quirky in the spotlight.