Page 3 Profile: Nick Mulvey, folk singer

Nick Mulvey, folk singer (Rex)

If music be the food of love, play on…

Unless you are one David Cameron, in which case, turn your iPod off and come out with your hands up. The Prime Minister has given his seal of approval (read: kiss of death) to yet another innocent musician, and the artist in question, Nick Mulvey is far from flattered.

The feeling’s not mutual?

Mr Cameron told an interviewer he enjoyed listening to the folk singer while he cooks. “It’s a bit grungy, I admit,” he told The Mail on Sunday. When word got back to Mr Mulvey, 32, the musician he said the prospect of the Prime Minister listening to his music made him feel “a bit sick”.

Mr Cameron appears to be a step ahead of me – I don’t think I’ve heard of him…

Born in Cambridge, Mr Mulvey moved to Havana to study guitar at the age of 19. He later returned to the UK to attend the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he formed a band, Portico Quartet. Their debut album Knee-deep in the North Sea, was nominated for the 2008 Mercury Prize. Mr Mulvey left the band in 2011 to establish himself as a solo artist. His single “Cucurucu” reached Number 26 in the UK singles charts last year.

A rising star?

Hopefully Mr Cameron hasn’t put paid to that. Nothing ruins an artist’s credibility quite like a party leader declaring their admiration for his or her work.

It’s not the first time the PM has fallen flat in a bid to align himself with a musician…

Last year he was criticised for heaping praise onto the “brilliant” minimalist pop trio London Grammar in an apparent attempt to attract younger voters. In 2010 Morrissey and Johnny Marr “banned” him listening to the Smiths, and back in 2008 Paul Weller expressed his disgust that the Conservative leader had selected The Jam’s 1979 hit “The Eton Rifles”, which protests against the political elite’s anti-working class agenda, as his favourite song.