And the Welcome everyone to So Dijaker on songwriting. I'm Brian, joined as always by Simon and with us today for

episode 241 is a Grammy and Ivor Novello winning British singer and songwriter possessed

of one of the most instantly identifiable voices in music.

To date he's sold over 30 million albums worldwide

as well as collaborated with the likes of Jeff Beck,

Joni Mitchell, David Foster, Wendy and Lisa, Santana, Pink and John Legend.

As this episode reaches you, a smash hit eponymous 1991 debut album,

produced by the legendary Trevor Horn, has just been reissued in a lavish new 4 CD 2 LP Deluxe set with a slew of juicy extras.

We're delighted to welcome the one and only Seal to the show.

Our guest was born Seal Henry Samuel in Paddington, London in 1963 to a Nigerian mother and

Brazilian father and fostered shortly afterwards to a family in Romford, Essex.

He returned to his biological parent in London when he was four and his first musical memory is of sitting under his mom's sewing machine listening to the Dionne Warwick and Motown records she regularly played around the house.

Though he discovered a natural affinity for singing at an early age, the young seal kept it very much

to himself.

It was aged 11 at the encouragement of one of his teachers, Mr Wren, that he performed Johnny Nash's

I can see clearly now at a school concert to the utter

astonishment of his parents who were present in the audience and until lap points had never heard

their son sing.

Having run away from home when he was 15, Seal found himself homeless by 17, but managed to take

courses in architecture and electrical engineering while living in squats or sleeping rough and

doing a variety of menial jobs. He continued to sing but only to entertain his friends until in his early

20s while working in the fashion industry a girlfriend persuaded him to invest in some musical

...