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  Entertainment

  The Independent

  Matt Berninger review, Serpentine Prison: Solo album is more aligned to The National’s earlier folk-rock ballads

  There’s a looseness in the musician’s downbeat tempos and half-spoken vocals

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  Entertainment

  The Independent

  Bill Withers: Singer whose biggest hits became eternal pop standards

  Bill Withers, who has died in Los Angeles of heart disease aged 81, was a singer and songwriter who managed to break the rules of popular music while creating an exceptional body of work. Four of his songs quickly became standards – “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Lean on Me”, “Lovely Day” and the strikingly direct “Use Me” – but all the music he made over what would prove to be a surprisingly brief career as an artist (1971-85) is of a very high quality.Withers was born in Slab Fork, West Virginia, the y

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  Entertainment

  The Guardian

  Bill Withers obituary

  Bill Withers obituary. American soul singer who enjoyed huge success with hits such as Lean on Me and Ain’t No Sunshine

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  Entertainment

  The Independent

  Bill Withers – the singer who poured his heart and soul into his music

  “The closest thing black people have to a Bruce Springsteen, the last African-American Everyman,” is how The Roots’ frontman Questlove described Bill Withers after the soul singer’s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. His classic 1970s hits – “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Lean on Me”, “Lovely Day” and “Use Me” – have an unfiltered sucker-punch simplicity that has given them rare and equal placing on drive-time radio and music snobs’ playlists.The youngest of six children raised in the i

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  Celebrity

  The Independent

  Bill Withers death: ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ and ‘Lean on Me’ singer dies aged 81

  US singer-songwriter Bill Withers, whose hits included “Lean On Me”, “Lovely Day” and “Ain’t No Sunshine”, has died aged 81.The Grammy Award-winning artist, who released a number of soulful songs during the Seventies that went on to become classics, died from heart complications.

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  Entertainment

  Evening Standard

  Albums of the week: Hozier, Tom Walker and Little Simz

  Andrew Hozier-Byrne experienced a meteoric rise to fame in 2013. A college dropout and struggling musician performing at open-mic nights, Hozier’s life changed when he released the arresting Take Me To Church — a song supporting gay marriage in his native Ireland. The pressure of following such a debut can’t be easy, but if Hozier is nervous, it certainly doesn’t show on his confident second album.

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  News

  Evening Standard

  Soul prom was a 'back-slapping event for the old boys' club', says Gregg Kofi Brown

  A top musician has criticised the BBC for a lack of diversity at an event that he says should have been a “celebration of black music”. Gregg Kofi Brown, who has worked with Sting, Gorillaz and Craig David, said the organisers of Prom 65, Stax Records: 50 Years of Soul made it a “back-slapping event for the old boys club” with few non-white performers. The concert, at the Royal Albert Hall on September 1, was held to celebrate Stax Records — the US label that looked after artists including Oti

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  News

  The Telegraph

  Prom 65 review: Tom Jones and Jools Holland enjoy some sweet soul music with the masters of Stax Records

  Prom 65 review: Tom Jones and Jools Holland enjoy some sweet soul music with the masters of Stax Records

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  News

  The Guardian

  Tom Jones set for Proms debut singing soul to celebrate Stax records

  Sir Tom Jones will make his first Proms appearance at a concert celebrating Stax records. Sir Tom Jones is to make his Proms debut on the Royal Albert Hall stage singing soul to celebrate Stax Records with two surviving artists from the label, Booker T Jones and Sam Moore. In something of a musical coup, BBC Proms organisers announced that the trio will join a summer season which already features some of the biggest names in classical music, including Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle and Nicola

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  News

  The Telegraph

  Cheltenham Jazz Festival: Mica Paris - playful reinterpretations show how to stir the soul, review

  Jazz was sleeping and now it’s waking up!” That was soul singer Mica Paris’s defiant assertion, before her Ella Fitzgerald-inspired set at this year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival. As the festival proved, the art form is in rude health, but the events I attended were a reminder that creation is a surer route to the true jazz spirit than pious recreation. Paris’s set was a case in point.

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