Only three songs left in this year’s chart to find your favourite Alfie Boe Live Song and we have the second song in a row to feature a Freddie Mercury song:
Barcelona, with Laura Wright, was performed at the Freddie for a Day party in 2013 and has been a firm fan favourite ever since. Alfie went on to record this with Katherine Jenkins but has not performed it live for a while. The first best live song poll featured this version, fell out of favour with voters and returned to the chart in 2018 at number nine. It’s obviously more popular now!
Barcelona was originally written by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran and recorded by Mercury and the Spanish soprano, Montserrat Caballe in 1987.
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Although 2019 had a quiet start for Alfie, it’s about to get a whole lot busier, with An Evening with Alfie Boe starting in just a few weeks time. And then of course we have the excitement of Les Mis to look forward to. Before we get bowled over with new events, let’s pay a visit to our series of Six Sensational Songs, this time from Emma Cropper and her son, Jamie. Emma hails from Fleetwood and, as she says, “when I heard about this singer from the wood I just had to listen!” These are their songs.
If I can Dream is Emma’s favourite song – the lyrics get Emma every time – and “Alfie sings it better than anyone.”
Emma says that the Storyteller album is one of her favourites and that Bridge Over Troubled Water really helped her at a difficult time.
Blood Brothers is one of Emma’s favourite musicals, so Tell Me It’s Not True has to be in her top six. “It always provokes such memories of the stage show and a great way to escape.”
Emma’s son Jamie also loves Alfie’s music so when Emma asked him which songs he wanted to nominate, he instantly said You’ll Never Walk Alone. Being Liverpool fans, as is Alfie, they know how powerful and important this song is to so many people.
The Willy Wonka song, otherwise known as Pure Imagination, is Jamie’s other choice of song, because it reminds him of chocolate!
Finally, Emma and Jamie’s joint choice is He Lives In You from The Lion King, because “that was the soundtrack to our Christmas past!”
Another two new songs to add to our list of Six Sensational Songs!
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Number four in our poll to find your favourite Alfie Boe Live Song 2019 is a new entry and a totally new song – I haven’t written anything about it before! Queen’s We Are The Champions was nominated by Roberta Kappus and is from Alfie Boe Rocks the Boston Pops in 2018:
We already knew what the music of Queen and Freddie Mercury means to Alfie, following his moving exploration of the music in the Perspectives documentary of 2014 and this orchestral reworking sounds just beautiful. No wonder it’s entered the charts at number four.
We Are The Champions first appeared on Queen’s 1977 album, News of the World (written by Freddie Mercury) and has gone on to be one of their most loved anthems – and there’s a lot of competition! In addition to this, it’s an obvious choice for sporting occasions and can be heard accompanying numerous triumphs in sport. Here is the original, with Queen at Live Aid:
Apparently, a 2011 scientific study concluded that this is the catchiest song ever – you try listening without singing along loudly. It’s impossible!
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Exciting times for Les Mis fans as not only will Alfie Boe be starring in the West End concert version later this year, but John Owen-Jones will be sharing the role with him! John remains the youngest actor to play Jean Valjean and most recently, took over from Alfie on Broadway. Speaking since the announcement, John said “It’s been nearly ten years since the last time I played Jean Valjean in Les Miserables in London. I’m really excited to be going back to the role in what will be such a special version of the show. I am also delighted to note that when I appear in this production at the Gielgud Theatre, I shall have appeared as Jean Valjean in every London theatre in which the show has played!” John also featured as part of Club 24601, which took place to mark the thirtieth birthday of Les Mis.
Aptly, John has today released his fifth studio album, Spotlight. The songs are mostly from the world of musical theatre and have clearly been chosen to form a coherent narrative throughout, beginning with From Now On and ending with Goodbye from the Broadway musical Catch Me If You Can and Rocky Horror Show’s I’m Going Home. Choosing some classic songs that join together with newer tracks, the result is sheer class.
Beauty and the Beast’s Evermore is a song that has begun to be recorded by several artists and no wonder; the beautiful melody perfectly suit the range and strength of John’s voice. The last note alone is worth the album price – John says it might be the longest note he’s ever recorded and it surely must be!
The Prayer is a duet made famous by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli but has been sung and recorded by many artists since it’s first appearance. On Spotlight, John duets with fellow Welsh singer, Lucie Jones and the result is magical. Lucie’s lovely voice blends exquisitely with John’s and leaves the listener wanting to hear from them both. Other highlights from the album include I Dreamed a Dream, a version which has been specially arranged to incorporate musical motifs reminiscent of Jean Valjean, rather than Fantine, for whom the Les Mis song is written. It is a very restrained performance and brought to mind the eloquence of John’s Bring Him Home.
Climb Every Mountain has a very dramatic opening, whilst I defy anyone to listen to Raise Me Up without standing up and singing along at the top of their voice! The inclusion of Spandau Ballet’s Through the Barricades is a surprise but a happy one – the track is nicely understated and as John says, would work in a musical. Ending with a toned down version of I’m Going Home, John first shows us Goodbye, from the short lived musical, Catch Me If You Can, based on the movie of the same name. Upbeat and catchy, t’s a perfect musical theatre song and good to hear something that a lot of the audience might not be familiar with.
Midway through our quest to find your favourite Alfie Boe Live Song 2019 and we come to a song that has reached number one in the past and not been out of the chart since, also being popular on the Best Recorded Song chart:
Love Reign O’er Me from Classic Quadrophenia has been a firm favourite with Alfie and The Who fans alike since we first heard it at the world premiere in 2015. Judging by it’s assured place in our chart, people still love it as much as they did four years ago.
Looking back at the many times this song has featured in song charts or Six Sensational Songs (it’s second only to Bring Him Home in number of selections), the one thing everyone says about it is that Alfie’s voice is at it’s best when he sings it. And you don’t listen to this song, along with Alfie, you experience it.
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The song at number six makes my heart sing – my favourite ever Alfie song!
Yes, it’s Keep Me In Your Heart – and this video reminds me that I’ve loved this song for five years now!
Although Keep Me In Your Heart has featured in the Best Alfie Boe Recorded Song on several occasions, this is the first time it has entered the Best Live Song chart, despite being nominated in 2018.
I’ve written about the origins of this song so many times now that you should all be able to tell me about it! It was of course written and recorded by Warren Zevon in the first place, but for me, it doesn’t come near to Alfie.
Thanks for making me so happy by voting my favourite song into the chart!
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Since it was announced that Alfie Boe would feature on a new work by composer Rachel Fuller, fans have been beside themselves with excitement. Add in conductor Robert Ziegler, who conducted the world premiere of Fuller’s Classic Quadrophenia in 2015 and excitement levels rose even more.
Animal Requiem was created by Rachel to celebrate, remember and honour all the animals we have loved and lost, as well as those animals affected by cruelty or neglect around the world. The piece was also created for animal lovers and workers wherever they may be. The audience were urged to bring photos of lost pets and the resulting board was very moving.
The evening began with a beautiful performance of Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens, along with poems from Ogden Nash, read by actor Peter Egan, himself a noted campaigner for animal rights. Both were wonderful.
After a short break, Egan again took to the stage, this time to introduce the premiere of Animal Requiem, before which he read the poem Just A Dog. The pet owners in the audience understood and agreed with the sentiments exactly. Robert Ziegler took to the stage to conduct the London Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the Chamber Choir of London who performed the first few parts of the requiem beautifully. Fuller’s music accompanied the familiar requiem words in a new way whilst always remaining true to what we might expect from a requiem. The Prayer of St. Francis was especially moving in this respect.
Alfie then took to the stage (or, being in a church, the pulpit) and sang Psalm 142 and Agnus Dei; there was a palpable frisson of anticipation when he appeared.
As Alfie mentioned afterwards, singing this type of music in this setting (St. James’ Church, Piccadilly) took him back to his Royal College of Music days, when church music was a staple of his repertoire. As expected, it was glorious to hear Alfie’s voice performing as it was trained to do, without amplification, soaring above, but not competing with the orchestra. The setting was perfect and he held the audience in the palm of his hand for the entirety. Soprano Katy Batho was also lovely – the two of them coming together for the finale were sublime. The last song of the evening was Paul McCartney’s Blackbird. As he wasn’t able to be there, Alfie sang this for him, accompanied by a guitarist and the orchestra – you could have heard a pin drop. It also demonstrated the depth of Alfie’s vocal versatility perfectly:
https://youtu.be/s0EDvZ7aQHY
It was an honour to be present at the premiere of this exciting new work and I’m sure that the entire audience felt the same, judging by the standing ovation given at the end.
Number seven in this year’s countdown to find your favourite Alfie Boe Best Live Song is a new entry, the first this year and is from Alfie’s Bring Him Home tour:
Nominated and Filmed by Chelley, In My Daughter’s Eyes was a fixture in Alfie’s live set for a few years and is from his second Decca album, Alfie. Although this is a new addition to the live song poll, the song has featured in the top ten for best recorded song on a couple of occasions.
In some of the many interviews Alfie gave around the release of Alfie in 2011, he said that he chose the song for his daughter, Grace, as he had already chosen Song to the Siren for his son, also Alfie and for whom the album is named (Alfred Robert was born on New Year’s Day the following year). Besides being a beautiful song, I think it holds a special resonance to anyone who is or has a daughter. In My Daughter’s Eyes was written by James T Slater for Martina McBride’s 2003 Martina album:
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