New Music: George Ezra - Hold My Girl (Video)

Breaking More Waves raison d'être is primarily new music and discovery – the idea being that every now and then you’ll find something here that you haven’t heard before and fall in love. However, this is also very much a personal blog; it’s just me. I’ve always been very clear that I don’t want a team of writers or other contributors. It's just my voice (to the point that, like this one, some of the posts are spoken and dictated rather than written) and nobody else. Which is why sometimes I can feature a song or artist that pretty much every single one of you will have already heard or at least know of, because there’s nobody telling me I can’t. Or I can write waffling personal pieces about myself like this that ‘proper’ music websites wouldn’t allow as it wouldn't be deemed the correct way to do things.

Maybe then the real underlying raison d'être for Breaking More Waves is not discovery - but that it gives me the opportunity just to write about music I like, rather than bore my friends and family with an ongoing commentary on what I’m listening to (although to be honest I still do this as well). It's the classic 'if anyone reads it, that's a bonus'.

Today is one of those days. George Ezra featured a lot on Breaking More Waves when he was just a nipper in shorts up to 2014. Since that time he’s become a huge popstar in the UK and I haven’t really felt the need to post about him. However, Shotgun was one of the songs of my summer 2018 and it seemed a good proportion of the nation agreed, making it number 1 in the charts.

Today I’m featuring him again. Simply because I love this song. It's called Hold My Girl. If sweetly (some may say sickly) sentimental tunes with a message of faith and hope in someone are not your thing then turn off now, but for me there’s something beautifully touching about Hold My Girl. It’s going to be one of those mobile phone lights in the air moments on his arena tour next spring isn’t it?

This is a new video for the song, released today (so I'm still hitting the 'new' button to a certain extent) and for those who dislike George you might be hoping that this film is a reality – the ending doesn’t look good for him - as he gets in a bit of a deep water problem. 

George Ezra - Hold My Girl

George Ezra - Leaving It Up To You (Video)

Remember at the end of last year / beginning of this when everyone was posting their Ones to Watch / Sound of lists? One name that cropped up on quite a few of those lists (including our very own Ones to Watch 2014, The BBC Sound of 2014 and The UK Blog Sound of 2014) was George Ezra. Fact fans may be interested to know that his real name is George Ezra Barnett but he had to drop the Barnett because we already have a singer called George Barnett – personally we think he should have just gone for George Barnett the 2nd, which would have made him sound more like royalty than a singer songwriter with a guitar - after all it's good enough for Prince, Queen etc.

Since all those lists George Barnett the 2nd is doing rather well, with plenty of sold out gigs and an album Wanted On Voyage due on the 30th June. As a little enticement to pre-order the album George has put this song Leaving It Up To You on line and is giving it away as a free download if you part with your cash early for the record. If you’ve seen George Barnett the 2nd play live it’s a song you’ll be familiar with, the chorus finds him singing falsetto, which isn’t something particularly easy for someone with a relatively deep voice to achieve on stage. It’s a sweet, understated and gentle song with just a tiny touch of a gospel chorus at the end and bodes well for the album. Now come on George, next up re-release Budapest this summer and with some radio support potentially bag yourself a hit.

George Ezra - Leaving It Up To You (Video)

George Ezra - Cassy O'

Unfortunately Cassy O’ isn’t a tribute to the multinational Japanese electronics giant. If it was we’d have had to reprimand George Ezra for his poor spelling, but let’s face it in the age of search engine optimisation everyone, particularly musicians, are throwing the dictionary out of the window. Bad spelling is the thing these days for any ambitious youths with a band to sell.

Despite being one of those youths, much has been made of the fact that Ezra doesn’t sing like one. He certainly doesn’t on this new single, which we suspect following his placement on all the predictions lists, including our own, is going to give the likes of Radio 1 producers some problems. We can imagine the discussion in the playlisting meeting now:

“But it sounds like the kind of music a whiskey loaded old man stomping around the pub, would listen to.” 

“Yeah but Zane Lowe’s already made it his hottest record in the world, so you know, old man’s music is cool again."

"But isn't Zane Lowe an old man?" 

"Yeah, that's why he's cool."

Irrespective of cool or not, we’re liking this and a word of warning; if you find us in a pub, throw us a couple of whiskeys and we’ll be up dancing like a loon with that old man. We might even be him. We also expect this one to be a big festival sing-a-long this summer. If the idea of that rowdy scenario makes you shudder, crawl back into your hole and try and remember how to enjoy life. Thanks.

The Cassy O' EP is released on 16th March in digital and 7" vinyl format and will feature three further songs: Get Lonely With Me, Over The Creek and Coat Of Armour. He's out on tour over the next few months, but you'll have to be quick if you want to go as most of the dates are sold out.

George Ezra - Cassy O'

Ones To Watch 2014 - #7 George Ezra

George Ezra could probably sing about sitting on the toilet or doing the washing up and it would sound fantastic. The phrase that crops up time and time again is that classic cliché “a vocal beyond his years,” and really, whilst it is a cliché it’s fully justified in the case of Ezra. His crooning, weather-beaten, warm soulful tones are show stopping and seem even more stunning when you see what Ezra looks like – just a regular looking guy with almost boyish looks.

Ezra first came to our attention with the hushed and melancholy It’s Just My Skin uploaded to Soundcloud about a year ago and since then has busked his way round Europe, played to a packed BBC Introducing tent at Glastonbury and supported the likes of Stornoway and Tom Odell. His debut EP Did You Hear The Rain? released this autumn picked up plenty of evening radio play on BBC Radio 1 (as well as blog support, including of course from Breaking More Waves) and with a London show next January already sold out, Ezra’s star is undoubtedly rising – and deservedly so.

George Ezra - Did You Hear The Rain? (Video)

George Ezra - Did You Hear The Rain?

Up until now we’ve been mightily impressed with George Ezra; a quite ordinary looking young man with a quite extraordinary voice. However, a question remained unanswered; could his sound, as warm and deeply affecting as it is, go beyond the whiskey and gravel coated voice backed by a simple guitar and still work? Would his unique tones find themselves lost amongst the bass and drums of rock n roll? 

The answer is that we needn't have worried.

Did You Hear The Rain, the title track from George’s debut EP is furiously good. Riffs from the dessert, bluesy vocals, clattering percussion and a gritty sense of self confidence are all present and correct showing that Ezra can do diversity as well as impressive singing. Not at all wet and positively thunderous.

The EP will be released on October 28th and will feature the previously streamed Budapest, this song, Benjamin Twine and Angry Hill. Catch him in London at Notting Hill Arts Club this Sunday, Norwich Sound & Vision Festival and on tour with Tom Odell very soon.

Final thought of the day: Remember when everyone got their knickers in a twist about authenticity and Lana Del Rey’s lips? Look at George Ezra’s. Yet nobody is accusing him of having work done are they? 

George Ezra - Did You Hear The Rain?

George Ezra - Budapest

Right now we're at our final outdoor summer festival of 2013; Bestival on the Isle of Wight.

In fact we've been on the white isle since Wednesday. Don't you just love the facility to pre-write posts and schedule them? What you think we do this daily? If only you knew....

So this is our final post on Breaking More Waves till next Tuesday.

As a blog we can sometimes go on a bit, but this is probably one of our shortest posts - we're letting the music speak for itself for once.

The singer is George Ezra. The song is Budapest. He's from Bristol and may even be a secret S Club 7 fan. The music is bloody marvellous. We expect to hear a lot more from him in 2014. Put him in that Ones to Watch / Sound Of club if you want.

Just press play. Download for free from here.

Bloody marvellous we tell you.

George Ezra - Budapest