Paul Rodgers

Some people would say that I'm too young to know who Paul Rodgers is, and yet here we are! Most people of my generation will know him without realising they know him, as he is the lead singer of a band called 'Free' whose most famous song is probably "All Right Now".

I must admit, Paul Rodgers is a very recent edition to my music knowledge and taste because  I won tickets to see him live in Blackpool (courtesy of Planet Rock's VIP section on their website) and then actually looked him up, listened to a few tracks, and found out he was known for having one of the best voices in rock. Then I went to see him and have been completely hooked ever since!

His voice is bluesy and is always at the perfect pitch, he didn't put a note wrong singing live! Which just shows that he is in a different league vocally compared to other musicians of the era (for example Joe Elliot - who was the support act at this gig - lead singer of Def Leppard, who cannot recreate the sound from their records live)

If anything, in fact, since the gig I have continued to listen to the various studio albums featuring Paul Rodgers and he is actually better live, which is almost unheard of in the music industry!

Isn't it funny how someone you've only just discovered seems to then end up popping up everywhere? Well, being also a relatively new fan of the band 'Queen' (thanks to 'We Will Rock You' the musical) I discovered that within the last few years Paul Rodgers went on tour with Queen because he was the only person who could possibly come close to filling the role of the late Freddie Mercury.

Paul is also very skilled with the microphone stand, throwing it in the air then catching it and such, which adds to his great charisma on stage.

I recommend that you listen to some Paul Rodgers music, both his 'Free' music and his new band of a few years 'Bad Company', my particular favourites being:

'Feel Like Makin' Love'

'Shooting Star'

'Bad Company'

'Mr. Midnight'

'Wishing Well'

'My Brother Jake'

Pink

Pink is one of my favourite artists and her music has continually featured in the charts over the past decade. She has won many awards for her music including 3 Grammy Awards, 5 MTV Video Awards and 2 Brit Awards. She continually campaigns for various charities and has an amazing sense of morality, which often comes across in the lyrics of her songs.

Pink has one of the most distinctive voices in the music industry which has lead to an impressive collection of hits including:

"Just Like A Pill"

"Don't Let Me Get Me"

"Trouble"

"Family Portrait"

"Who Knew"

"U + UR Hand"

"Dear Mr. President"

"So What"

"Please Don't Leave Me" 

"Funhouse"

"Raise Your Glass"

There is a great emphasis in her lyrics on being true to yourself and your beliefs, rather than just following the trends and lifestyles that the media projects. 
In particular the song "Dear Mr. President" is a great example of how Pink expresses her feelings and views on a situation. She asks in her words for the President (who at the time of release was George Bush) to take a walk with her and actually look at how some people in America are living, and questions his personal views and morals. This is an acoustic song, which allows you to really listen to the words and respect the message.

Pink is my favourite artist and listening to her music always manages to make me feel better if I'm down. As a musician/songwriter myself one of my greatest ambitions is to meet Pink and hopefully write a song worthy of her singing it.
I use twitter a lot and have found that Pink is a really entertaining tweeter so if you want to follow her she is '@Pink' and is a verified user.
Finally I'd like to report that Pink and her husband Carey Hart have recently welcomed their new baby girl into the world, 'Willow Sage Hart'. 

Book - 'Hard Time' by Shaun Attwood

Shaun Attwood was born and raised in the North West of England. He was the first in his family to go to University and he gained a Degree in Business. Having been interested greatly in the stock market since he was a teenager, Shaun made a decision to go to Phoenix, Arizona where he became a stock broker and eventually a millionaire. So how did Shaun end up serving time in America's toughest jail?

Shaun Attwood

Before Shaun left for Arizona he was a fan of the Manchester Rave scene, and he brought the trend over with him to America. The Rave scene is famous mainly for being a platform for people to trade a take drugs. While in Phoenix Shaun headed an organisation that threw raves and distributed club drugs. 

On May 16th 2002 , a SWAT team knocked down the door of his mansion and arrested him.

What followed was to change Shaun's life forever...

Shaun was facing potentially a life sentence for being the leader of a drugs organisation. He entered a lengthy legal  battle and was held in the prison system for 2 years before he was finally sentenced to 9 and half years of which served almost 6.

In prison Shaun was forced to adapt to the harsh gang culture and obey the rules and etiquette of living there. Inmates had to attend meetings with their race (Whites, Mexicans, Blacks etc) and each race would have a leader or head. Failure to attend meetings or hanging around with members of another race would result in the 'offender' being beaten up or 'smashed' by the other members of their race. If someone challenged you or disrespected you then you were expected to stand up for yourself or you would also get smashed by your race for being a coward. 

Negotiating these unspoken rules proved hard work for Shaun especially in his first few months in jail. 

From very early on, he started documenting stories of some of the inmates he'd spoken to and wrote of the harsh conditions faced in some of the places he'd stayed in while in the system. The stories and letters to his family were smuggled out of the jail by Shaun's aunt and she then posted them on a special blog code named 'Jon's Jail Journal' so as not to be linked back to Shaun while he was still in the system.

http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.com/

The Sheriff in charge of the way the prison system is run is Joe Arpaio, and he has come under great scrutiny for the living conditions within his system, yet nobody within the law can touch him or change this and he remains with a tight grip on the system.

Now he is out of prison and back in the UK Shaun continues his campaign against Arpaio and continues to tell the stories of the inmates and friends he served time with. He is also touring schools and universities giving presentations about his life and raising awareness of prison and warning people about what using and/or distributing drugs can lead to.

Shaun came to my school and gave his presentation, I became so fascinated by his story that I bought his book 'Hard Time' which is the story of Shaun's first 2 years in the system.

Eurovision Song Contest 14th May 2011

Once again I tuned in this year to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. I had an even greater sense of optimism this year with the United Kingdom entry being Blue who have a respectable following of loyal fans in both the UK and Europe. I must admit, when I first heard the song 'I Can' in their publicity drive before the contest I was a little disappointed, as I was used to the classic sound of blue. However the more I heard the song, the more it grew on me and I soon found myself singing it round the house. When Blue's entry achieved good results in the pre-contest polls I was actually beginning to think this could be the year when we finally reclaimed the Eurovision crown, and soon enough the big day arrived.

As the contest is only once a year my family and I get into the spirit of things and download the BBC score sheets and mark each act, then we narrow down our top 5 results to see if we get anything like the actual results. I found the first half of the show relatively dull with the worst acts being Bosnia & Herzegovina, Greece and Russia. There were a few highlights of the first 12, I quite liked the Denmark entry and even found a soft spot for Jedward of Ireland, but for me the hands down best song of the night was the 12th entry Italy whose song was called "Madness of Love". It had a swing/jazz feel to it and despite being sung in another language, really connected with the audience.

I found the second half of the show provided a much better quality of music, with the exception of Azerbaijan (the eventual winners), Moldova and Slovenia. I thought our Blue Boys did us proud and performed their song very well. My other highlights from this half were Romania, Austria and Iceland.

When the voting commenced the UK received a steady stream of points before receiving the big '12' from Bulgaria! We were even at the very top of the leaderboard briefly, something I have never witnessed during my lifetime. Graham Norton kept us thoroughly entertained throughout voting urging the public to 'take a picture' when we were sat at the top...I wish I had now! 
As voting continued I found that I also had great support for Ireland's Jedward and cheered whenever Ireland got points as well. They were soon overtaking the UK with points and racing towards the top and I thought wouldn't it be hilarious if they won?

Based on my scoring my top 5 were:

1. Italy
2. Austria
3. United Kingdom
4. Romania
5. Iceland

The actual winner was one of the worst songs of the night entered by Azerbaijan.

Italy had a late surge in votes and finished 2nd.

The UK finished 11th, a drastic improvement on the previous year's last place and

 Ireland finished even higher in 8th place.

Eva Cassidy

As some of the more musical among you may have noticed, I got the inspiration for the title of my blog from the Eva Cassidy song 'Songbird' (originally by Fleetwood Mac) and the line from this song that says:
"And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score, and I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before"

This is one of my favourite song lyrics and this version of songbird is so mellow and chilled that when you listen to it you feel a lot better, and it is a great song to sit and watch the world go by to. I think it is a credit to Eva Cassidy's ability to take a song that someone else has created and do her own take on it to the extent that her version of the song is often more popular than the original. It is just so unfortunate that her talent was not truely appreciated until after she died.

Eva Cassidy died of Melanoma, a form of skin cancer, in 1996. At this time she was virtually unknown outside of her native Washington D.C. She didn't make it to the attention of British audiences until Terry Wogan played her version of "Over the Rainbow" on BBC Radio 2. Soon everybody was discussing this song and gradually more of the precious recordings of Eva Cassidy made it onto our radiowaves.

Click on the link to listen to 'Songbird' on youtube. 

Songbird - Eva Cassidy