leave your sleep natalie merchant

I saw her last night

The first time she has performed in the UK for 7 years

she sang poetry for the first two hours - but her voice

a capacity crowd - three quarters men. She is not glamorous but ultra sexy, wonderful voice, melancholy, vulnerable - sings just for me!

What Does It Take - Nell Bryden

BBC
A woman who not only packs a vocal punch, but knows how to write a killer tune as well.

Sunday Mercury

Devendra Banhart – What will be

Guardian

Your chance to hear the freaky folkie's weird and wonderful new album before it's released.
What Will We Be is your typical Devendra Banhart record. Although by "typical", we do of course mean a stark raving bonkers serving of freaky folk.

Ted: Natalie Merchant

Superior Jazz

James Brown - "Get Up Offa That Thing"

Get up Offa That Thing

Click link for info


James Brown @ KK&R Music Blog

Elio Pace

In November 2009, at the request of Sir Terry Wogan, Pace featured on the Bandaged Together CD in aid of BBC Children In Need with his version of a long-forgotten Elvis Presley movie song, Confidence.

December 2009 not only saw Pace’s Christmas single, What A Day playlisted by BBC Radio 2 and the whole of the BBC Local Radio Network, it also brought the announcement that Pace is to be Musical Director and house band for Sir Terry Wogan's new live Radio 2 show, Weekend Wogan.

In January 2010 Pace completed an eleven date UK tour with his eleven-piece band to promote his new album.

OK - not my usual source of inspiration - but I saw this

Bebe Cece Winans

In 2007, CeCe Winans' website confirmed a reunion album scheduled for a late 2009 release. The album's lead single "Close To You," released June 2009, remained at #1 on gospel radio charts for several weeks. The album reached #1 on the Gospel Album Charts, #2 on the R&B Charts and #14 at the Billboard Pop Albums.

Ojos de Brujo

Originally more of a collective than a band, the Barcelona-based flamenco fusion group Ojos de Brujo, which translates to Eyes of the Wizard, came together in the mid-'90s when guitarist Ramon Giménez began playing with likeminded experimental musicians like singer Marina "La Canillas" Abad and percussionist Xavi Turull, trying to find out what kind of sound they could create.

Lively and inventive - highly recommended





Ojos de Brujo Amazon Store

Roll Away the Stone - Mumford and Sons

I saw this the other night - so good - just felt like sharing

Dave Stapleton - Between the Lines

Guardian

Regular jazz lineups are hard to sustain in the choppy waters of the jazz economy. Worthy successors to head-turning first albums are just as tough a proposition. And running an influential jazz record label is probably harder than both. The Wales-based pianist and composer Dave Stapleton has done all three:

BBC Review

"Articulate and thoughtfully detailed, this is a smart application of core jazz values."

allaboutjazz

Carefully arranged, well-crafted albums such as this often fall short on fire and heat, but Between The Lines has plenty of both, and Stapleton's arrangements play to the individual strengths of his colleagues. Highly recommended.

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Getting marvellous reviews - so I guess another for the wish list

Guardian

The scope and depth of Plastic Beach is staggering.

BBC Music called Plastic Beach "not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole."

Josh Ritter - So Runs the World Away

Guardian

The centrepiece of Josh Ritter's fifth album is a piece of folkloric daring. Under the title of Folk Bloodbath, he gathers together the key figures of American murder ballads into one song and interweaves their stories, using a refrain from Mississippi John Hurt as the glue

PopMatters - eloquent review this

The fifth LP from neo-folk master craftsman Josh Ritter has been conceived as a voyage of discovery. A shimmering aural and lyrical paean to humanity’s essential questing impulse,

Lorez Alexandria

Lorez Alexandria was an American jazz and gospel singer.

Jazzhouse

Lorez Alexandria never made the anticipated breakthrough to a wider audience, but she was highly regarded as a jazz singer by those who knew her work

I'll let you decide - but I like her voice a lot - a very pleasant discovery.

Odean's List - Odean Pope

Guardian

Philadelphia saxophonist and one-time Max Roach sideman Odean Pope might be in his 70s, but remove anything flammable within range of the speakers when this incandescent record gets going.

1. Minor Infractions
2. To the Roach
3. Phrygian Love Theme
4. Say It (Over and Over Again)
5. Little Miss Lady
6. Blues for Eight
7. Collections
8. Odean's List
9. You and Me
10. CIS

Flamenco Virtuoso (Jazz Club)

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Bo Diddley Who Do You Love

Known as "The Originator" because of his key role in the transition from the blues to rock & roll, influencing a host of legendary acts including Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton. His songs (for example, "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love?") often have no chord changes; that is, the musicians play the same chord throughout the piece, so that the rhythms create the excitement, rather than having the excitement generated by harmonic tension and release.

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of a human skull,
Now come on take a walk with me, arlene,
And tell me, who do you love?