Trust In Me - Susheela Raman

Born in London, SUSHEELA RAMAN moved to Australia when she was four but her parents, who were from Tamil Nadu, wanted to keep their Tamil culture alive. They taught their daughter South Indian classical music which started Shusheela's love for music of many origins.

As a teenager she formed a rock band which later started to adopt some funk, blues and jazz. But it wasn't until she traveled to India to rediscover her roots that her music started to form what it is today.

In 1997, when she returned from India, she started working with guitarist/producer Sam Mills on music that would feature musicians from all over the world. Featured on Trust In Me off of her first album, SALT RAIN, is the Egyptian percussion virtuoso Hosam Ramzi.

Sam Mills had this to say about the making of the Jungle Book cover:

Hosam is known worldwide as the ‘King of Belly Dance’ and also played to great effect on our version of Trust in Me which is a kind of oriental cha-cha-cha. Trust in Me is of course taken from the Jungle Book. Like millions of others, we grew with these songs, but after Susheela and I met we both discovered that we had been thinking about covering this particular tune. Getting the right tone was quite tricky. The snake Kaa, who sings it in the film, is an evil seducer, so Susheela had to get into character for it. I think she’s still recovering.

All in all, this is a great cover and a real example or 'world music'.

Trust In Me Susheela Raman 2001