Mark Pentleton

Another jazz standard today: first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1934, this song has been covered by many artists including Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday and the famous Ella Fitzgerald version with the Nelson Riddle orchestra. Hope you enjoy today’s song!

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A good song for a Sunday morning! This 1977 classic was written by Lionel Richie and was also covered by Faith No More in 1992. Hope you enjoy today’s song. I’ll need to think of something appropriate for tomorrow – it’s song number 200!

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This is a complete change from the type of music I’ve been playing recently, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. The Franck setting of the prayer Panis Angelicus (Bread of Angels) dates from 1872 and has been recorded by many artists including Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli.

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This song is dedicated to my former pupil Katie who marries Callum this weekend. I was speaking to Katie’s friend Esther recently – both Katie and Esther sang in the choir I ran at Mearns Castle – and Esther is going to be singing this Leona Lewis song at Katie and Callum’s wedding, so I [...]

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Sticking with the Norwegian theme following yesterday’s National Day celebrations, I wanted to add in one other Norwegian song. This is one of my all-time favourite songs sung by Norwegian singer Sigvart Dagsland. The song is called Den Ensomme Veien, which translates roughly as “the lonely road”. I’ve done a rough translation of the lyrics [...]

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Yes, I was watching Glee last night! The song was first released back in 1983 and must have one of the strangest videos ever (which was expertly recreated in a literal version a few years back). I hope you enjoy my version of this classic “rock ballad”!

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I haven’t included many big ‘power ballads’ in my collection so far, so I thought I’d play this song from 1984 by Jennifer Rush. It was covered by Laura Branigan in 1987 and then by Céline Dion in 1993. Hope you enjoy today’s song!

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I’ve spent the last five days in Cheltenham at the Apple Teacher Institute and last night, after the Showcase of the work produced by teachers in the workshops, we kept the tradition going with a night of karaoke and general silliness. Eddie, one of our teacher-performers, sang Three times a lady (and an unforgettable Purple [...]

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Today’s song is a bit of a rarity. I don’t think it’s particularly well-known in the UK or the US – although I may be wrong! It was written by Lorenzo Barcelata in 1932 and was dedicated to the wife of the Mexican President Emilio Portes Gil. It has been used in a few films, [...]

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Recorded by such famous names as Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday, this song came to mind last night as I was getting petrol on my way home from a meeting at the school. I got completely soaked in torrential rain and howling wind and I since I was returning home to [...]

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Thanks for the nice comments this week on the songs I’ve been playing – it’s great to know that people are enjoying my music! Back to Abba today with the song I have a dream. It first appeared on the 1979 Voulez-vous album and is one of the Abba songs which everyone knows. I’ve decided [...]

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This is my version of the original song taken from the film The Prince of Egypt. The song was later reworked by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston without the “Hebrew chorus”, but it was the full version which we used to do back in the Mearns Castle Senior Choir (= “Glee Club” before Glee Clubs [...]

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If it’s Wednesday it must be Italy! (No, this has nothing to do with a certain coach trip…) I thought I’d play something Italian today – it’s been a long time coming! I hope you enjoy my version of Santa Lucia.

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Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St David’s Day to everyone. I thought I’d do a wee medley of two of the most famous Welsh songs I know for St David’s day today. The songs are Llwyn Onn – also known as Ash Grove in English, and the rousing Cwm Rhondda. It’s a bit different from [...]

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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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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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