The Live Lounge is a segment on the British radio stations

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

and

BBC Radio 1Xtra BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts black music and urban music, including hip hop and R&B and is a sister station to Radio 1. Launching at 18:00 on 16 August 2002, it had been ...

. It was originally hosted by

Simon Mayo Simon Andrew Hicks Mayo (born 21 September 1958) is an English radio presenter and author who worked for BBC Radio from 1982 until 2022. Mayo has presented across three BBC stations for extended periods. From 1986 to 2001 he worked for Radio ...

, and later by

Jo Whiley Johanne Whiley-Morton (born 4 July 1965), better known by her professional name Jo Whiley, is an English radio DJ and television presenter. She was the host of the long-running weekday later weekend '' Jo Whiley Show'' on BBC Radio 1. She curre ...

on her weekday mid-morning, and later weekend lunchtime radio shows, then by

Fearne Cotton Fearne Wood ( Cotton; born 3 September 1981) is an English broadcaster and author''.'' She began her career in the late 1990s presenting various children's television shows for GMTV, CITV and CBBC. In 2007, she presented '' The Xtra Factor'', ...

from 2009 until 2015, and then by

Clara Amfo Clara Amfo (born 22 May 1984) is a British radio broadcaster, television presenter, podcast host and voice-over artist. She is known for presenting her shows on BBC Radio 1. Early life and education Amfo was born in Kingston upon Thames in Lo ...

from May 2015 to August 2021. Since September 2021 the segment is now hosted by

Rickie Haywood-Williams Richard Haywood-Williams is a British Disk jockey#Radio DJs, radio DJ and television presenter best known for his work with Melvin Odoom and Charlie Hedges on Kiss (UK radio station), Kiss FM, later BBC Radio 1 and the 2016 TV series ''Bang on ...

Melvin Odoom Melvin Odoom is a British radio DJ and television presenter. He is best known for presenting on BBC Radio 1 alongside Rickie Haywood-Williams and Charlie Hedges. Education Odoom attended the University of Bedfordshire and studied a Media Perf ...

and Charlie Hedges. It exhibits well-known artists usually performing one song of their own and one by another artist, in an acoustic format. The Live Lounge itself is also a physical room in the Radio 1 studios, from where some of the performances are broadcast; however, due to its size, many are done from the BBC

Maida Vale Studios Maida Vale Studios is a complex of seven BBC sound studios, of which five are in regular use, in Delaware Road, Maida Vale, west London. It has been used to record thousands of classical music, popular music and drama sessions for BBC Radio ...

. From 2009, Trevor Nelson began hosting Live Lounges on his BBC Radio 1Xtra show, and was replaced in that slot by DJ Ace in 2017. The songs chosen as cover versions are often a completely different genre to that which the artist usually performs, and offer a new perspective on the original.

Jamie Cullum Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979) is an English jazz-pop singer, songwriter and radio presenter. Although primarily a vocalist and pianist, he also accompanies himself on other instruments, including guitar and drums. He has recorded nine st ...

's cover of

Pharrell Williams Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973) is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. Alongside close colleague Chad Hugo, he formed the hip hop and R&B production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s, with whom h ...

's " Frontin' led to Cullum being signed to Pharrell's label

Star Trak Star Trak was an American record label, founded by The Neptunes and Rob Walker in 2001. It operated as a division of Interscope Geffen A&M, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Its name is a reference to the 1960s TV program ''Star Trek''. H ...

when played to him at a later visit to ''The Jo Whiley Show'', and was added to his 2003 album '' Twentysomething''.

Performances and albums

Live Lounge Features

Over the years of Live Lounge, various Radio 1 features have involved this segment, these include: * Live Lounge Tour *

Ultimate Live Lounge ''Ultimate Live Lounge'' was a competition run by Radio 1 in 2009 to find the best Live Lounge performance to date. Over the previous 10 years there had been more than 500 Live Lounge sessions with hundreds of artists performing their single and ...

Live Lounge of 2010 Live Lounge of 2010 was a competition to find the best Live Lounge cover of 2010. After the success of the Ultimate Live Lounge ''Ultimate Live Lounge'' was a competition run by Radio 1 in 2009 to find the best Live Lounge performance to date ...

A-Z of the Live Lounge A-Z of the Live Lounge is a competition ran by BBC Radio 1, between archive live lounge performances with the same first letter of their name (e.g. Adele, Arctic Monkey, etc.). It began in January 2011 and followed on from Live Lounge of 2010 ...

List of Live Lounge cover versions This is an alphabetical list of the covers performed on the Live Lounge section of the 2021- radio show ''Rickie, Melvin and Charlie'' on BBC Radio 1 (and previously on '' The Jo Whiley Show'', Fearne Cotton's radio show and Clara Amfo's sh ...

References

External links

* {{BBC-radio-stub