JOHN LEGEND AND ROOTS TO RECORD SOUL AND BLUES ALBUM.

R&B star JOHN LEGEND is teaming up with critically acclaimed hip-hop group THE ROOTS to record an album of soul and blues covers. The artists will present their own "unique interpretations" of protest songs from singing icons including Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack and Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes on the forthcoming disc Wake Up.

Legend tells Rolling Stone, "Everything is certainly inspired by the original but we took our own creative licence with it." And The Roots drummer Ahmir '?Questlove' Thompson insists the new rendit ions of old classics will be so original, they won't immediately sound like covers. He adds, "I wanted to choose cover songs that were so under the radar, so uniquely interpreted, that it would take you a second to realise that these are cover songs (at all)." Wake Up is expected to be released this summer (10).