Corinne Bailey Rae: ‘If you weren’t tits-out-for-the-lads, they called you middle of the road’

Her first album was a huge hit – then she faced the sudden tragedy of her husband’s early death. She describes the rupture of grief, her return to music and the harsh reality of fame as a woman in the 00s

From David Bowie to Fleetwood Mac and Eric Clapton, Mike Vernon’s ear was invaluable to British pop and blues

The musician, producer and label head, who has died aged 81, turned his boyhood passion for blues into a hugely impactful career

‘Do what you really want to do while you’re still alive’: Masayoshi Takanaka, the Japanese guitar hero surfing a second wave in his 70s

Playing a surfboard-shaped axe, Takanaka was a stadium-level artist at home but little known in the west – until YouTube brought him a huge new audience

My guitar was mangled

I’m grateful to Taylor Swift, and others who have covered it, for introducing the song to a new generation. Three billion streams on Spotify is astonishing!

Bruno Mars: The Romantic review

(Atlantic)Harking back to Oye Como Va, Move On Up and other 20th-century classics, Mars’s homages are beautifully performed but bereft of new ideas

‘I never had those deep chats in the smoking area’: Arlo Parks on embracing late night life with her hedonistic new album

In her teens, the Mercury prize-winning musician was stuck on tour buses when she should have been on the dancefloor. Now she is throwing herself into club culture – and living on her own terms