Tuesday, December 05, 2006

I just wanted to send you a little msg as so much has been happening of late, and my life has been racing along at a million miles a second!

I’ll drop you a separate msg about my time in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Holland and France very soon.

Thanks to anyone who came to see me perform with Chris Martin, Newton Faulkner, Lily Allen and The Automatic for the MENCAP charity last Monday. It was pretty nerve-wracking headlining after that lot of talent, but I really enjoyed the night and giving just a little back to such a great cause. Jo Whiley did a brilliant job in putting it all together.

I’ve read on MySpace lots of you asking what my next single will be, well it’s going to be ‘THE PIECES DON’T FIT ANYMORE’ out on December 18th. As you probably know, all my songs are written from my experiences. This is a really personal song for me about how I was feeling at a very difficult point in my life, I’ll say no more…

The B-side on the CD is a great live take we did in the studio, with a kind of rare groove feel to it. It’s called ‘DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES’. Somebody told me they thought the instrumental was like a Bond Theme. I don’t know about that, but coincidentally I was on Michael Parkinson’s show last Saturday night and Daniel Craig (the new James Bond) was one of the guests. I’ll also be putting a live version of ‘PIECES’ on iTunes in a week or so, I recorded this live at a Capital Radio gig we did in a little club in London called The Pigalle Club. Another great night was had by all, so hope you enjoy the results…

My other bit of news is I did the Rod Stewart induction recently on the Hall Of Fame programme. That was just an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. The man is indeed a legend! I did a cover of a great Cat Stevens song which Rod made very famous ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’.
Last night was the most surreal of all as I recorded the Royal Variety Show. I did ‘You Give Me Something’ and we recreated a part of the video on stage. It goes out in UK on 12th (next Tues), if you fancy tuning in to see a bit of me sandwiched between Spamalot, Rod (again), Jonathan Ross and a whole bunch of artists I seem to have been seeing since I was a kid!
Oh, and Prince Charles came up and asked me about the song… as I said, totally surreal!
Have to dash now as I’m doing a live version of You Give Me Something for the Music of 2006 show, which I think goes out on 8th. Then I’m off to Japan till Sunday when the December gigs start.

Hope to see lots of you there, I can’t wait…
I’ll send you another msg very soon though, I promise.

Love & Peace,
James x