It's St Valentine's Day, so let's have some Romance! Chris de Burgh seems to be best known for 'Lady in Red', allegedly the song most sung by drunken maudlin men of a certain age(NSFW) but I prefer this one - "Missing you"
The really romantic voice for my generation is I suppose Nat King Cole. Also a great pianist of course, but his rich velvety voice gave him an audience way beyond his jazz roots and in the process did a great deal to damage racial prejudice as he captured women's hearts everywhere.Here he is with "When I fall in love."
For later generations there was a different voice and on the face of it an unlikely heart-throb - Barry White of course, here with "My first, my last, my everything
For one lady of my acquaintance though, despite the lack of a great voice this is the ultimate - Bob Dylan with "Lay Lady Lay"
Later still we have the more poppy sound of Police and "Every breath you take."
I'm not a great country music fan I have to confess, but there are a few singers I could listen to all the time. The wonderful Patsy Cline is one of these, in her own way I think comparable to the great Billie Holiday for the way in which she could pack such emotion into relatively simple songs. Here she is with "I fall to pieces."
I've got a post coming up on Latin music, but for the time being here is Ibrahim Ferrer, from the Buena Vista Social Club and "Dos Gardenias." It was Ry Cooder's great album of the same name that brought mne back to Latin music in fact.
Another great and sadly neglected voice is Julie London. Here she is in a clip from a film with "Cry me a river"
Not much commentary this time, just let the music wash over you.