Mark Pentleton

We’re into the final few songs in my 365 collection and today I’ve decided to play this classic song from 1940. The piano part to the song is notoriously difficult to play, so I ended up doing a few takes of this and decided to do a full backing track with strings, kit and bass. [...]

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This is one of my all-time favourite Christmas songs, and it has to be the original Nat King Cole version from 1946! It was written by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells in the heat of the 1944 summer: the idea was that Tormé and Wells would “stay cool by thinking cool” about Jack Frost biting [...]

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Today’s song was written in 1931 by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt with lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was first recorded by Ozzie Nelson and his orchestra, but has been covered many times since by artists including Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Dean Martin. In 1968 the song was recorded [...]

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Today’s song was requested by my mum who celebrates her birthday today. I’ve been warned not to say too much or mention her age, so I’ll simply say “happy birthday, Mum!” Fly me to the moon was written in 1954 by Bart Howard and has been recorded by many artists from Nat King Cole to [...]

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A lovely romantic song today, first recorded in 1946 by Nat King Cole. Since then it has been covered by many different artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin and in 1986 by Linda Ronstadt.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 6:23 — 8.8MB)

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I’ve played this song hundreds, if not thousands of times, but it wasn’t until this morning when I was doing my ‘research’ to write today’s blurb that I found out that the song was actually originally written as the theme tune for the 1956 film Around the World in Eighty Days! The vocal version wasn’t [...]

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I had been thinking long and hard about what would be the best song to play for the UK General Election, but I was saved by Jenny O who asked me to play the Nat King Cole song Unforgettable. This song was No. 1 in the UK charts on the day Jenny was born – [...]

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This song was written by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch and was originally called Mutterlein. However, in 1952, David Whitfield and Frankie Lane recorded an English version, written by Carl Sigman. I have to be honest – I had no idea about the history of this song, and I’ve been playing it for years. It [...]

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Bit late today – sorry! Today’s song is the classic When I fall in love. I’ve always associated this song with Nat King Cole, but it turns out that his was not the original. Doris Day recorded it in 1952 and Nat King Cole’s recording dates from 1956. I hope you enjoy it, even if [...]

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This one’s for my mum! I wonder if she’ll post a comment now…
Mona Lisa was first recorded by Nat King Cole in 1950 and since then has been covered by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson and … Shakin’ Stevens!
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:06 — 4.3MB)

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