A whisky-soaked voice that Land Rover helped the world find

Some singers announce themselves with a shout. Jon Allen did it with a rasp, a voice often described as whisky-soaked, and the songwriting to back it up. Born in Winchester and raised in South Devon, he started making music as a teenager and went on to study at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.

His break arrived through a car advert. His song “Going Home” featured in a worldwide Land Rover commercial in 2008, and that exposure brought him a much wider audience. The following year he signed with Absolute Distribution and released his debut album, Dead Man's Suit, and soon afterwards he picked up a publishing deal with Wardlaw Music. The album also took him onto Later... with Jools Holland early in his career, which opened still more doors in television, advertising, film and radio.

Those doors kept swinging. His songs have turned up in a long list of screen projects: “Loving Arms” in the film What They Had with Hilary Swank, “Joanna” in the thriller Safe Haven and in Homeland, and “Get What's Mine” in Army of One with Nicolas Cage. “In Your Light” even landed in a South Korean drama. Away from the screen he co-founded a northern soul production team, The Third Degree, and sang one of the best-known cover versions of Duffy's “Mercy”.

What shapes his sound is a mix of loves. He names Free and The Faces among his influences, along with the songwriting of Van Morrison and Elton John, and although he adores American music the result is, in the source's words, a distinctly British sound. Seven albums into the story, the latest being Seven Dials in 2025, he tours with his band The Luna Kings and has passed thirty million streams on Spotify. “Keep On Walking” suits him: this is a musician who has kept going, trusting a voice that sounds as if it has lived every line it sings.