About once a month or so I have a long chat on RNZ about a particular musical artist or genre or a theme – for their regular Tuesday music features. For my final time at the wheel this year I chose to talk about Billie Holiday. She’s never far from my mind, that voice. And the trauma and addiction in her life is part of why that voice sounds the way it does. She’s simply one of the architects of vocal jazz, one of the best, most influential and constantly surprising voices in jazz. In music, period.

It was a great joy for me to finally get to talk about her on the radio and play some of her songs.

If you want to hear the feature, Click HERE.

There’s also a Spotify playlist of the tunes played which you can access here

https://linktr.ee/Simonsweetman

And click here to check out any of the past features I’ve done for RNZ.

You can support Off The Tracks via PressPatron

Want more? Check out my Substack