Mark Pentleton

This song dates from 1935 and I’ve always enjoyed playing it. Written by Harry Link, Holt Marvell and Jack Strachley, the song has been covered by lots of performers including Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, and Bryan Ferry, but I think my favourite has always been Ella Fitzgerald’s version.
I hope you enjoy today’s performance!
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Today’s song is the beautiful Fields of Gold, written by Sting, although my performance is much more in the style of Eva Cassidy’s version. The last time I played this song was in the Café Rohan in Strasbourg when we were there in November with East Dunbartonshire. On that occasion the song was sung by [...]

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Earlier this week I asked if anyone had any requests and I’ve had loads of suggestions from friends on Twitter, Facebook and even in the real world! I’ve started recording some of these and we’ll start today with Elton John’s Your Song which was requested by Carolyn, dedicated to her dad. I had the pleasure of [...]

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Week 2 begins today – with Yesterday! Beautiful song, first released in 1965. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this song has the most cover versions of any song ever written. Here’s another one to throw into the mix!
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I’m in London today for an Apple meeting at Hannover St so I wanted to play something appropriate. With yesterday’s snow I wasn’t even sure I’d get here, but one cancelled flight, one late flight, one late train which broke down and another train later I finally arrived last night.
According to Google Maps I’m a [...]

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“This one’s going out to Sorcha and Paul in Northern Ireland…” If you’re interested, you can find out more about the song on Wikipedia.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:25 — 7.5MB)

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Sticking with the musicals theme from yesterday, Guldet Blev till Sand is one of many beautiful songs from the Swedish musical Kristina från Duvemåla, written by (my musical hero) Benny Andersson and with lyrics by Björn Ulvæus. The musical is based on the novels of Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg which tell of a Swedish family’s [...]

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There’s no particular reason for this one today. It’s the song On My Own from Les Misérables, sung by the character Éponine. The musical Les Misérables, based on the novel by Victor Hugo, was written in French by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil in 1980, but wasn’t staged in London until 1985 with English lyrics [...]

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I’ve always loved this song. It was originally written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1926 for the musical Oh Kay! and has been sung by many performers including Ella Fitzgerald, Barbara Streisand and Linda Ronstadt. The song has also featured on Battlestar Galactica and in Star Trek: Voyager and in the movie Mr Holland’s [...]

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In this morning’s Herald “Review of the Decade”, I was reading about 9/11 and I was thinking back to one of my lasting memories from the time after the horrific events. Billy Joel performed the brilliant New York State of Mind at the benefit Concert for New York City and along with the other brilliant performances [...]

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Yesterday my new piano arrived – the Roland RD-700GX and I’ve been playing it pretty much non-stop since. As we entered the new year I was thinking back ten years to the Millennium and to the fact that at the time I was playing much more regularly – on New Year’s Day 2000 I was [...]

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