Soundtrack Of My Life: Jay Sean

The first song I remember hearing Tony Orlando and Dawn – ‘Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree’ “I distinctly remember my mum and dad singing this song on road trips when I was a kid. Me and my brother would try and sing along from the back of the car, even though we didn’t know the words, so it’s quite a nice childhood memory.” The first album I bought Lionel Richie – ‘Back To Front’ “Back in the day, you could walk into HMV and listen to an album in-store. I remember being about nine and putting those headphones on so I could listen to this Lionel Richie album. It’s not the kind of thing you’d think a nine-year-old would gravitate to, but something in his songs really spoke to me. And I’m not lying when I say that I think it really shaped my songwriting. Because even though he’s a soul singer, there’s a lot of country in his melodies. People say I have, too.” The song that reminds me of home Alfonzo Hunter – ‘Just The Way’ “When I was growing up, R&B and hip-hop became my love, so anything from [those genres in] the mid-’90s reminds me of listening to cassettes in the car with my mates. We’d press record when a song we liked came on the radio, because that was the only...