THE CRUNCH - Unknown Musicians

To be successful in the music industry today requires minimal skill and maximum luck. This has created a very commercial environment; music is written to please the masses, and not to push boundaries and celebrate talent. As a result of this, alot of exciting and promising musicians are left at the back to support cobwebs and eventually fade away, when they should be the fresh headliners that everyone aspires to be like.
So, today in this edition of The Crunch, I'm going to share with you my three favourite unknowns; the artists that should be respected, but haven't hit the big time because of commercialism.

Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews
Trombone Shorty is a native of the jazz capital New Orleans, but he is no traditional standard-churner. Shorty takes the best bits of funk and jazz, and blends them in an exciting way with modern hip-hop and pop music. He has released seven studio records to date, but only made the big time in 2010 with the album Backatown, which was nominated for a Grammy. Shorty followed this success up the next year with the album For True, which featured guest musicians Kid Rock, Ledisi and Jeff Beck.
Suggested listening? It has to be "Do To Me" from For True.

To visit Trombone Shorty's website, click here.

Seth Lakeman
While being a very big name on the British folk scene, it can hardly be said that Seth Lakeman is getting all the credit he deserves. The singer/songwriter/guitarist/violinist started out very much grounded in traditional folk music, but has more recently incorporated elements of rock into his work that add a new grit to his celtic sound. So far he has released six records, my favourite of which is Poor Man's Heaven from 2008. For this album, Lakeman worked around a coastal theme, reinventing Cornish and Devonshire legends in a "rock-shanty" style.
Suggested listening? I'm going to go with the opening track from this album, "The Hurlers".

To visit Seth Lakeman's website, click here.

Jamie N Commons
And finally, the least famous of them all. I first heard of Jamie N Commons by reading a very short article on him in Q magazine, which highlighted a number of rising stars. To pin a genre on him, he is a blues artist, but his music is a lot more complex than what this style is normally associated with. Commons is yet to release an album, but his recent singles are very exciting and show a lot of promise.
Suggested listening? It's a tough choice, but I'm going with his most recent single, "Devil In Me".

To visit Jamie N Common's website, click here.

And that's this weeks Crunch, and your Crash Hub fill for this week. Be sure to pay us a visit again on Monday when I'll have music news from the last week and a review of the soundtrack from Harry Potter 7 part 1.
Tom :)