New Music Interviews
Annie Lennox: The Jazz SingerSunday, 26 October 2014
Annie Lennox is a far more fascinating artist than she’s often given credit for. Perhaps because she has been around for decades (she’s now 59) and hasn’t self-destructed like her friend Amy Winehouse or gone into exile for ages like Kate Bush, or Patti Smith, she has less of a fierce mystique and feels more a familiar part of the landscape. Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Fuse ODGThursday, 23 October 2014
Anglo-Ghanaian musician Fuse ODG – born Nana Richard Abiona – is a leading exponent of the new Afrobeats movement, which combines Western pop and rap with Nigerian and Ghanaian pop, and some stylistic elements from the Fela Kuti-inspired Afrobeat scene. Unlike many of his contemporaries on the scene, Fuse spent many years of his childhood in Ghana, returning to London for secondary school, and has detailed first-hand experience of both cultures. Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Jamie CullumWednesday, 08 October 2014
Since self-releasing his debut album Heard It All Before in 1999, Jamie Cullum has gone on to become the UK's biggest selling jazz artist of all time. Since April 2010, he has also presented a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, for which he won a Sony Gold award this year. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Holly JohnsonSaturday, 04 October 2014
Holly Johnson (b 1960) is most famous for being lead singer of 1980s pop sensation Frankie Goes to Hollywood. He was born and raised in Liverpool where, as a teenager he threw himself wholeheartedly into the city’s post-punk scene centred around the club Eric’s. Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Gruff RhysSaturday, 20 September 2014
It hardly sounds like the springboard for an album, a film, a book and an app. In the 1780s a young Welsh explorer called John Evans journeyed across the unmapped North American continent in search of a tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans. His only source for the tribe’s existence – and linguistic preference – was a legend which claimed that a Welsh prince by the name of Madog ab Owain Gwynedd discovered the New World 300 years before Columbus. Read more... |
10 Questions for Singer Sarah-Jane MorrisSaturday, 13 September 2014
Sarah-Jane Morris is in every sense an original voice. One of Britain’s most distinctive and versatile singers, she has enjoyed commercial success, spending five weeks at number 1 with the Communards’ version of "Don’t Leave Me This Way" in 1986, and selling 100,000 of her self-titled solo album in 1989. She has the distinction of having “Me and Mrs Jones”, which featured on the album, banned by the BBC for suspected lesbianism. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: DJ Gilles PetersonSaturday, 12 July 2014
DJ, broadcaster and all-round musical pioneer Gilles Peterson is one of the most influential figures in contemporary music. In a career that has grown from a DIY pirate station to running a succession of record labels, global DJing appearances and his own Worldwide Awards, he’s become famous for his commitment to the most unexpected combinations of new sounds and genres, drawn from restless collaborations worldwide. Read more... |
10 Questions for Bassist Marcus MillerMonday, 07 July 2014
This year’s edition of the Gnawa Festival in the medina of the beautiful coastal town of Essaouira featured two spectacular fusions – between Bessekou Kouyate with Hamid El Kasri on the closing Sunday night, and on Saturday night – in the early hours of Sunday morning, in fact, on the main stage at Moulay Hassan – bassist, band leader and Miles Davis alumni Marcus Miller with Mustapha Bakbou, forging a dense, deeply rhythmic fusion to match the pounding Atlantic ocean on one side, and the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Chris & CoseySaturday, 21 June 2014
Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti are a living lesson in the rejuvenating power of remaining experimental in art. Their music holds its own alongside the young guns of electronica, who indeed frequently idolise them, and in person they frequently seem as excited about possibilities and open to new ideas as artists just starting out. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Guitarist Hank MarvinTuesday, 10 June 2014
Hank Marvin (b 1941) was born Brian Rankin in Newcastle. At 16 he and his school friend, fellow guitarist Bruce Welch, headed for London to seek their fortune as musicians. They quickly found work at the 2i’s Coffee Bar in Soho, a seminal British rock’n’roll haunt. The pair were soon hired as Cliff Richard’s backing group, initially known as The Drifters and, eventually, as The Shadows. Read more... |
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