I can't sleep…
Michael Cameron Anderson, 27, known professionally as Anderson East, is a rhythm and blues/pop musician from Athens, Alabama, later based in Nashville, Tennessee. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher, his father sang in the church choir, and his mother played the piano in church when he was young.
Kaleo is an Icelandic indie pop / rock / folk band established in 2012 and their first major public appearance Iceland. Firmly a phenomenon in their home country of Iceland, the four-piece band Kaleo is set to descend upon foreign shores in 2015, bringing their gorgeous blend of folk, blues, country, and rock to a wider mainstream audience in America. Best friends since attending elementary school in the small town outside of Reykjavik, the band began playing together at the age of 17. They named the band Kaleo, which means “the sound” in Hawaiian. Kaleo has since moved to Austin, TX. (Source: officialkaleo.com)
[…]You and me together riding into the sun
Live without care, with the wind in my hair
Driving through the desert, yeah I’ll go anywhere
Take me where the wheels take me, far away
Wheels take me, I can’t stay
Wheels take, any place today
Imagine myself in an automobile
a hundred miles an hour if you know how I feel.
Alone with my mind, leave my worries behind
I might even reach the border, it’s just a matter of time
I said take me where the wheels take me, far away.
Wheels take me, can’t stay.
Wheels take me, any place today.
Ohh I’m going to San Diego, here I come.
San Fransisco, it won’t be long.
Sacramento, yeah in the sun. I just might go
I said I’m going to San Diego and San Jose
San Francisco and hang by the bay
Sacramento, yeah all the way I just might go
all the way to Mexico oho
I just might go all the way down to Mexico.
From Suzannahespie.com:
Suzannah Espie is a Melbourne, Australia based singer songwriter who has been casting spells over audiences ever since she first took to the stage with her alt-country pop band, GIT, in 1997. A woman of compelling beauty — statuesque, with piercing blue eyes framed by golden curls — she has a voice to match, an intoxicating mix of country, soul, blues and pop. A gentle, sweet trill that can move grown men to tears one moment, or an Aretha-esque hellcat belt that can raise the roof the next; however she sings it though, it’s still unmistakeably Suzannah Espie. It is as a solo artist Espie has truly come into her own…
It’s hard to believe now that, despite her prodigious talent, Espie was beset by self-doubt and shyness early on in her career, which she moved to Melbourne from Fremantle at aged 18 to pursue in earnest. She tells of forcing herself to get up at Fitzroy’s Rainbow Hotel to sing once a week. “Then I’d go and have a cry in the toilets afterwards because I thought it was so horrible.”
Collard recalls the first time he went over to Suzannah’s house to play some music together. “Absolutely nothing happened,” he says with a laugh. “She was too nervous to sing a note.”
While Espie’s confidence and profile have grown over the years, she remains as earthy and honest as the music she writes and performs. “I still don’t think I’m a good songwriter. Occasionally I’ll pull a good one out of my arse,” she says in typically straight-talking Suzannah fashion.
Find her album on iTunes: Sea of Lights
José James, 36, is a singer songwriter from Minneapolis, and is best known for performing and blending modern jazz and hip-hop. James joined the Blue Note roster in 2013 when he released his breakout album No Beginning No End to wide acclaim. With its irrepressible lead single “Trouble,” the album release found José making national TV appearances on Conan, Late Show With David Letterman, andTonight Show With Jay Leno.
The New York Times praised his “cool and confident” album, adding that it “sounds like the result of the black-pop continuum, jazz and soul and hip-hop and R&B, slow-cooked for more than 50 years.” NPR Music raved that “James makes utterly contemporary music,” noting that he “skirts categories with ease, fitting in with current R&B innovators like Frank Ocean or Miguel, yet maintaining a strong awareness of a lineage that stretches from Ray Charles to Marvin Gaye to Lou Rawls to Maxwell.”
Find this tune on his 2013 Album titled: No Beginning No End
José James official site and his full bio can be found at: josejamesmusic.com
George Ezra (born George Ezra Barnett), 21, is a British singer songwriter. His debut studio album Wanted on Voyage will be released on 30 June 2014. Ezra was longlisted for the BBC Sound of…2014, where he eventually finished in fifth place.
Ezra is the he son of an art teacher and a deputy head. Music trickled down to him via an elder sister, a regular at local venue the Marquee (“She was going out with the promoter”). He made his stage debut at the Marquee as a 13-year-old in a covers band, “singing the female part of Teenage Dirtbag, wearing eyeliner and my sister’s skinny jeans”. When he left school at 16 he took a job in a local sweet factory – “two jellybeans for the box, one for me, all the way.” Ezra dropped out of college and embarked on a year of support slots, criss-crossing the country by train. Within a year he had a record deal with Columbia. (Source: The Guardian: George Ezra)
Find this song on iTunes on his EP titled Did You Hear The Rain.
His website can be found here: The Official George Ezra website