Jamie Cullum

A big-selling Brit who plays piano and sings, Jamie Cullum is a star of an in-between sort. His jazz-tinged parlor songs sound straightforward from certain angles, but his catalog is stocked with crowd-pleasing covers of Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix, Cole Porter, and Pharrell. And though his voice may skew rough and plain like Billy Joel's, at his live shows he's fond of juicing his performances with a stomp box and vocal percussion. His most recent album, Devil May Care, feels more like an expanded reissue of 2002's Pointless Nostalgic than a proper new full-length, but the additions are tantalizing enough: a strings-and-voice arrangement of Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" and serviceable covers of "Love Won't Let Me Wait," and "Small Day Tomorrow"—which features bebop and cool jazz pianist Bob Dorough, who performed on the 1957 album from which Cullum presumably swiped his title.

Updated 02/24/2010