Mark Pentleton

This is the final song in my accordion collection for this week! Tico Tico, or to give it its original title, Tico Tico no Fubá is a piece of Brazilian choro music dating from 1917. The word choro means “lament”, or “cry” and the song was performed by Carmen Miranda and later by Ray Conniff. [...]

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This is a lovely little waltz written by Benny Andersson for his wife, Swedish TV presenter Mona Nörklit on her birthday. I’ve seen the Benny Anderssons Orkester play this live, and it’s one of those songs which the performers obviously enjoy performing.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:07 — 3.0MB)

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If I didn’t know much about yesterday’s song, I know even less about today’s! I believe it’s a Neapolitan song and at one point it was recorded by Enrico Caruso. I think this is a song my mum likes, so I hope you enjoy this, mum!
Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:23 — 3.3MB)

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Today would have been my gran’s birthday and so I thought it would only be right to play an Italian tune. I don’t really know much about this song, but I think she liked it! This recording is a piano / accordion “duo” so I hope it works, and there are a few more accordion [...]

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The accordion is back! When I was listening to the Ronan Keating version of today’s song I heard an accordion in the arrangement and thought perhaps it was time to resurrect my own accordion! I’ll need to get practising before my forthcoming trip to Strasbourg when I’ll have to play the accordion for various Swedish [...]

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It’s time for something a bit special on my 365songs project today: my friend and colleague Pierre Benoît Hériaud was over at the weekend and we decided to record a song we performed live a few years back at the Partners in Excellence Film Festival. It’s Francis Cabrel’s La Corrida, a very powerful song told [...]

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This final entry in January’s 365song collection is the beautiful Dougie MacLean song, Caledonia, and it’s dedicated to Andy Murray who will take on Roger Federer in the Australian Open starting at 8:30 GMT tomorrow morning. I’m publishing this a few hours early to help inspire Andy, although I guess he’ll have other things on [...]

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It had to happen sooner or later… today marks the debut of my accordion on 365 Songs! I bought myself an accordion last April and have been enjoying teaching myself to play it. When I was recording some Scottish songs for this week I decided that it may be nice to do an arrangement of [...]

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