3652011 Track of the Day : John Legend - Rolling in the Deep (Adele cover)

John Stephens (born December 28, 1978), better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American recording artist, musician and actor. He is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career gained momentum through a series of successful collaborations with multiple established artists. Stephens added his voice to those of other artists, assisting in them reaching chart-topper hits. He lent his voice to that of Kanye West, on Slum Village's "Selfish" and Dilated Peoples' "This Way". Other artists included Jay-Z's "Encore", and he sang backing vocals on Alicia Keys' 2003 song "You Don't Know My Name" and Fort Minor's "High Road." Stephens played piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything."

3652011 Track of the Day : Bjork - Unravel

Björk Guðmundsdóttir [ˈpjœr̥k ˈkvʏðmʏntsˌtoʊhtɪr]  ( listen) (born 21 November 1965), known as Björk (pronounced /ˈbjɜrk/ byurk in English), is an Icelandic Polar Music Prize-winning singer-songwriter, occasional actress, music composer and music producer, whose solo work includes seven solo albums and two original film soundtracks.
Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres such as, rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk. Her voice has been acclaimed for its distinctive qualities.
Björk's 1990s singles "It's Oh So Quiet", "Army of Me" and "Hyperballad" charted in the UK Top 10. Her record label, One Little Indian, reported that by 2003 she had sold more than 15 million albums worldwide^. She has acquired a high level of critical acclaim. She has won four BRIT Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, one MOJO Award, three UK Music Video Awards and in particular, she received, in 2010, the Polar Music Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, in recognition for her "deeply personal music and lyrics, her precise arrangements and her unique voice".
Additionally, Björk has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, one Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. For her performance in Dancer in the Dark, Björk won the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. She was ranked #36 on VH1's "The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll" and #8 on MTV's "22 Greatest Voices in Music"

3652011 Track of the Day : Beach House - Silver Soul

Beach House is an indie rock duo formed in 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland, consisting of French-born Victoria Legrand and Baltimore native Alex Scally. Their self-titled debut, Beach House, released in 2006, was critically acclaimed. This was followed by their second release, Devotion, in 2008. The band released their third studio album, Teen Dream in January 2010, also to positive critical and commercial reaction.

3652011 Track of the Day : Talking Heads - Heaven

Talking Heads was an American rock band formed in 1974 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison. Auxiliary musicians also regularly made appearances in concert and on the group's albums.
The New Wave musical style of Talking Heads combined elements of punk rock, avant-garde, pop, funk, world music and art rock. Frontman and songwriter David Byrne contributed whimsical, esoteric lyrics to the band's songs, and emphasized their showmanship through various multimedia projects and performances. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes Talking Heads as being "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s, while managing to earn several pop hits."
In 2002, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of the band's albums appeared on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and the Channel 4 100 Greatest Albums poll listed one album (Fear of Music) at number seventy-six.

3652011 Track of the Day : PJ Harvey - England

3652011 Track of the Day : Meshell Ndegeocello - You've Really Got A Hold On Me

Meshell Ndegeocello (born Michelle Lynn Johnson, August 29, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, bassist, and multi-instrumentalist. Her music incorporates funk, soul, hip hop, reggae, R&B, rock, and jazz. She has received significant critical acclaim throughout her career, and has had ten career Grammy Award nominations. She is often credited for having "sparked the neo-soul movement."
One of my all time favourite songs unfortunately Meshell version is not available via the usual sources so enjoy version here by Elvis Costello & Smokey Robinson

3652011 Track of the Day : Ella Fitzgerald - Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist. With a vocal range spanning three octaves (Db3 to Db6), she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
She is considered to be a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook. Over a recording career that lasted 59 years, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Art by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.

3652011 Track of the Day : Caetano Veloso - Cucurrucucu Paloma

Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso (Portuguese pronunciation: [kaeˈtɐ̃nu emanuˈɛw viˈɐ̃nɐ ˈtɛlis veˈlozu]; born August 7, 1942), better known as Caetano Veloso, is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. Veloso is most known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo which encompassed theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s, at the beginning of the Brazilian military dictatorship.
Veloso was born in the city of Santo Amaro da Purificação, in Bahia, a state in the northeastern area of Brazil, but moved to Salvador, the state capital, as a college student in the mid-1960s. Soon after the move, Veloso won a music contest and was signed to his first label. He became one of the founders of Tropicalismo with a group of several other musicians and artists—including his sister Maria Bethânia—in the same period. However the Brazilian government at the time viewed Veloso's music and political action as threatening, and he was arrested, along with fellow musician Gilberto Gil, in 1969. The two eventually were exiled from Brazil, and went to London, where they lived for two years. After he moved back to his home country, in 1972, Veloso once again began recording and performing, becoming popular outside of Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s.

3652011 Track of the Day - Scritti Politti - The Sweetest Girl

"The “Sweetest Girl”" is a song by British band Scritti Politti, released in 1981 as a single. The single peaked at #64 in the UK Singles Chart. The piano is played by Robert Wyatt.

3652011 Track of the Day : James Yuill - Left-Handed Girl

James Yuill (born c.1981) is an English folktronica musician from London, currently signed to the Moshi Moshi record label.
Yuill released his first album, The Vanilla Disc, on his own Happy Biscuit Club label in 2005. He was then signed by Moshi Moshi, who issued his next album, Turning Down Water for Air, in 2008, described by Clash as "a startling piece of work". He has been described as "a one-man band armed with a laptop, mixing decks and an acoustic guitar". His popularity grew internationally and he was signed by the Nettwerk Music Group in the United States in 2008.
Yuill also works as a remixer, sometimes under the pseudonym Hunger/Thirst, also the name used for a collaboration with Charlie Westropp, and has provided remixes for Tilly & the Wall, The Answering Machine, Au Revoir Simone, and David Holmes.

3652011 Track of the Day : Jim White - Bluebird

Jim White (born March 10, 1957) is a Southern American singer-songwriter and guitarist. White's music can be loosely described as alternative country, but veers off in different, sometimes experimental directions with occasional nods to Tom Waits and the literary narratives of Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, and Harry Crews.

3652011 Track of the Day : Toots and the Maytals with Bonnie Rait - True Love is Hard to Find

Toots and the Maytals, originally called simply The Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group and one of the best known ska and reggae vocal groups. According to Sandra Brennan at Allmusic, "The Maytals were key figures in reggae music. Formed in the early 1960s when ska was hot, the Maytals had a reputation for having strong, well-blended voices and a seldom-rivaled passion for their music. Hibbert's soulful style led him to be compared to Otis Redding".
Bonnie Lynn Raitt (born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer-songwriter, born in Burbank, California. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including "Nick of Time", "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneakin' Up on You", and the slow ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me". Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist

3652011 Track of the Day : M.Ward - Carolina

Matthew Stephen Ward, known by his stage name M. Ward, is a singer-songwriter and guitarist who rose to prominence in the Portland, Oregon music scene. In the summer of 2006, Ward relocated to New Hampshire and in the fall of 2007 subsequently returned to Portland. In addition to his solo work he is known as a member of She & Him and Monsters of Folk.

3652011 Track of the Day : Javis Cocker - The Lion & Albert

3652011 Track of the Day : Josh T. Pearson - Country Dumb

Josh T. Pearson is a musician from Texas. In 1996 he formed the short-lived but now critically acclaimed band Lift to Experience, who released one double album, 2001's The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, before splitting up soon after.
Pearson is currently pursuing a solo career, which so far has consisted of a number of tours, both headlining and supporting. Pearson no longer plays any Lift to Experience songs live.
Pearson has not released an album or much else in the way of recorded material since the demise of Lift to Experience. In the meantime Pearson has been selling a variety of self-produced live recordings at recent gigs, including a bootleg album To Hull And Back and a DVD single Live In Paris. He featured on a guitar and backing vocals on two songs, "Seal Jubilee" and "Trophy" on the Bat for Lashes album Fur and Gold.
The only solo studio-recorded song to be released for almost ten years is a cover of Hank Williams' song "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", which was released as one half of a split 7" single also featuring Dirty Three. Pearson has notably performed at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival several times over the last few years.
Pearson's current solo output falls into two categories - rock songs performed on electric guitar, more reminiscent of his output with Lift to Experience and quiet, acoustic country songs. He has performed the former material live with Robert B. Weaver III of The Paper Chase on bass, and former Lift To Experience drummer Andy Young on drums, most notably when supporting the reformed My Bloody Valentine in Austin and Dallas, Texas in April 2009. In June 2009, Pearson moved to Paris where he joined a group of musicians, including Bosque Brown and H-Burns, in playing regular gigs at Paris crêperie West Country Girl with his final appearance in June 2010. An album of sessions performed there will be released in 2011.
In January 2010, Pearson recorded an album of epic acoustic ballads in Berlin. He has also recorded two songs with pianist Dustin O'Halloran while in Berlin, "Sweetheart I Ain't Your Christ" and "Country Dumb". "Sweetheart I Ain't Your Christ" can currently be exclusively heard on his SoundCloud page . In August 2010, Pearson signed a worldwide record deal with Mute Records. In November 2010, Mute announced the signing of Josh T. Pearson and details of his debut solo album release. Last Of The Country Gentlemen will be released in the Spring of 2011.

3652011 Track of the Day : Elbow - Open Arms

Brilliant version sung last night on the record breaking Comic Relief

3652011 Track of the Day : Misty in Roots - Man Kind (Live)

Misty in Roots began life as a Southall-based British roots reggae band in the early 1970s. Their first album was 1979's Live at the Counter Eurovision, a record full of Biblical Rastafarian songs. It was championed by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, helping to bring roots reggae to a white audience. At this early stage, the band was a collective with five lead singers and various musicians, though by the time of the second album the band had slimmed down to just three members. Along with Steel Pulse and Aswad, Misty in Roots were one of the most popular English reggae bands in the late 1970s.
In 1979 Clarence Baker, a member of the collective, was severely beaten and injured by the SPG during the protest in Southall against the National Front provocation. The punk band The Ruts who were partners of the People Unite cooperative honoured him in their song "Jah War" which appeared on their album The Crack.
After a break from recording in the 1990s, they returned, releasing a new album in 2002 and continuing to play concerts as of 2008^[update].

3652011 Track of the Day : Keren Ann - Chelsea Burns

Keren Ann Zeidel (Hebrew: קרן אן זיידל‎ born March 10, 1974) is a singer-songwriter-composer-producer and engineer based largely in Paris, Tel Aviv and New York City. She plays guitar, piano and clarinet, engineers and writes choir and musical arrangements.

3652011 Track of the Day : Randy Newman - Losing You

Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer/songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.
Newman often writes lyrics from the perspective of a character far removed from Newman's own experiences. For example, the 1972 song "Sail Away" is written as a slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of "Political Science" is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution. One of his biggest hits, "Short People" was written from the perspective of "a lunatic" who hates short people. Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog. He has scored six Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars and most recently Toy Story 3.
He has been awarded two Academy Awards, three Emmys, five Grammy Awards, and the Governor's Award from the Recording Academy. Newman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2007, Newman was inducted as a Disney Legend. In 2011, Newman won his second Oscar, for the song "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 at the 83rd Academy Awards.

3652011 Track of the Day : The Ethopians - Train to Skaville

The Ethiopians is a ska, rocksteady, and reggae vocal group, founded by Leonard Dillon (born 9 December 1942, Port Antonio, Jamaica), Stephen Taylor and Aston Morris. The group started out recording for Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd in 1966.
Dillon had previously released some mento songs under the name Jack Sparrow. Around late 1966, Morris left the Ethiopians. Having left Dodd, the Ethiopians started recording at Dynamic Studios for the W.I.R.L. label, releasing the ska classic song "Train to Skaville", which was their first success. In 1968 they recorded the song "Everything Crash", their first big hit. The song criticised the political situation in Jamaica at the time, such as water rationing and power cuts that led to unrest; such as an incident in which 31 people were shot by police. "Everything Crash" was later covered by Prince Buster. "The Whip" is another of their enduring songs from that period.
In 1969 they released the album, Reggae Power, and in 1970 the album Woman a Capture Man. Between 1970 and 1975. The Ethiopians switched from producer to producer, releasing songs such as "No Baptism", "Pirate", and "Good Ambition". Reid left the group in 1974. In September 1975, Taylor was killed by a van while he was crossing a road. In 1977 Dillon fellow Ethiopians member Bro fatty,Bro Ewing,Bro T, Mello and Hychi Dread released the album "Slave Call" under The Ethiopians name. In 1991, he recorded the solo album On the Road Again. Toward the end of the 1990s, Dillon formed a new Ethiopians lineup with female backing vocalists Jennifer Lara and Merlene Webber, who appeared on the 1999 album, Tuffer Than Stone.[