The King Cole Trio issued their second 78rpm single of the year in late March 1948. The three, who were already well-known for crossover pop hits like (I Love You) for Sentimental Reasons, decided to try something new for their upcoming album. Nature Boy, which was originally buried on a B-side, was unlike anything else […]

Jana Horn had no idea what her song Jordan was about when she penned it. She’d been brooding over two chords for two days at her brother’s place after a breakup when a lyric occurred to her: “They called me to Jordan.” She followed the trail of the thread. “I had no idea what I […]

Melanie vividly recalls the day she busked in London. It was 1983, and the performance she was supposed to perform had been canceled owing to low ticket sales. So she was dining with friends, sipping Pimm’s, when she got a phone from someone informing her that admirers had gathered outside the Royal Albert Hall. “I […]

KeiyaA didn’t have internet connectivity on her phone when she released her first album Forever, Ya Girl on Bandcamp in March 2020, so she had to walk downstairs to connect to the local video store’s wifi to post about the release on her Instagram. ” All I remember is letting hours pass and then returning […]

Before his death in 1997, Jeff Buckley had released two live EPs (Live at Sin-é in 1993 and Live from the Bataclan in 1995) as well as one full studio album (Grace in 1994). Eight live albums and numerous compilation albums have been published after his death, covering music recorded when he was contracted to […]

Some people may be surprised to hear this, but many hit songs from artists here in the United States were actually written by Swedish songwriters, and this isn’t exactly a recent trend.   Some of the biggest hits of the last 20 years or so were produced and written (or co-written) by Swedish songwriters and producers.  […]