Monday music

Singer Corinne Bailey Rae doesn't really need my stamp of approval. Her new album 'The Sea' is being featured absolutely everywhere just now but still...I'm going to mention it too (as much as anything because I'm sure that kind of blanket coverage sometimes puts people off a new release – it makes it seem too pop for some...too easy...too common...).

So, I got the album last week...because I'm a fan...because she's from Leeds (my home for years)... because I LOVE her voice...because I think she's a really good songwriter...because I've always liked rock and soul and so does she (and they get mixed up in her songs). For anyone who doesn't know anything about her there's a good recent interview here and it does cover (as you might expect) how she coped with being widowed at the age of what...29. That's not a reason to buy her album, of course, but coming from a long line of early widows it is something that's likely to make me love her even more than I already do.

Here she is live on Jools Holland's TV show singing 'I'd do it all again':





And here's a rockier one ('The Blackest Lily') - a song with some quite unusual lyrics ('the blackest lily/the blackest pony/won't protect my heart from you'). Well, she did study Eng Lit you know.





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