Now a staple of Alfie’s live set (so far!) in a different form, I love this video as I can see so many lovely friends in it!
Keep Me In Your Heart is from Alfie’s 2013 album, Trust (one of my favourites). Judging my the results of this poll (only once has the song dropped out of the top ten since it’s introduction in 2014) everyone else feels the same…I worry for the safety of everyone’s buttons!
The song was written by US musician and songwriter, Warren Zevon in response to receiving a terminal diagnosis of asbestos related cancer and was the last song to be recorded for 2003’s The Wind, Zevon’s final album. Zevon survived the album release by only a few weeks although he did manage to see it achieve a top 20 chart position, his highest position since his critically acclaimed earlier album, Excitable Boy. Click here to read more about Zevon’s music.
Trust is available here:
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
September is here – and nearly over – and I nearly forgot my 2018 New Year Resolution of listening to more, new music (new to me)! So, looking again to Alfie for inspiration, I decided on an artist who both recorded a song that Alfie went on to record and who has worked with someone who Alfie has also worked with.
I am talking about bluegrass, country singer Alison Krauss who wrote Onward’s A Living Prayer, much loved by Alfie fans and featured at number ten in this year’s best ever song poll. The artist that both Krauss and Alfie have worked with is Robert Plant; Alfie on the track Song to the Siren and Krauss on a collaborative album, Raising Sand. In both cases, the pairing was somewhat surprising but wonderful.
Krauss and Union Station have released numerous albums, both solo and together so I chose a few albums to listen to, including Raising Sand as the partnership with Robert Plant was intriguing to say the least. I wasn’t disappointed. The vocals are in perfect harmony and it seems incredible to the listener that this was not a long term collaboration when recorded. When it’s right, it’s right. Killing The Blues is my favourite track:
The melody and vocals wrap the listener in a warm blanket of harmony and bluegrass – loved it. Straight after Killing The Blues comes the uptempo Gone, Gone, Gone:
Both artists seem to be having so much fun here and the catchy lyrics and beat have danceability in spades – I dare you to sit still whilst listening! Other stand out tracks were Stick With Me Baby and Please Read The Letter. Can you tell, I really liked this album?
Moving onto an earlier album for Krauss and Union Station, 2004’s Lonely Runs Both Ways has A Living Prayer on (click here to see this) but that’s not the song I enjoyed most. That honour goes to Goodbye Is All We Have:
Perfectly suited to Krauss’s pure vocals, the song plays to her strengths – many of her songs are ballads and the emotion she portrays in song shines out here. Restless, the opening track and Gravity are the best of the rest.
Finally, the last album I looked at was Krauss’s first solo album for a while, Windy City, released in 2017. The stand out track here is Goodbye and So Long To You:
Out and out country, it’s a song that screams joy and is in the best tradition of country women standing up for themselves. Another one I couldn’t sit still for. In contrast, the ballad, River in the Rain is just beautiful, showing the range of Krauss’s voice:
All in all, this was one of the more enjoyable aspects of my New Year Resolution – I’ll be delving more deeply into Krauss’s back catalogue from now on.
Three weeks into our countdown to find the fans favourite Alfie Boe song 2019 and we arrive at the first new entry to the top ten:
The first song from 2017’s Together Again, this is the roaring cover of John Farnham’s iconic eighties anthem, You’re The Voice. This video from the 02 features students from Mountview theatre school and makes the song even more powerful.
Written by Andy Qunta, Keith Reid, Maggie Ryder and Chris Thompson as a protest song, it was a massive hit for Farnham in 1986 – I remember this being everywhere at the time.
Together Again is available here:
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
The song at number nine in the 5th annual Best Ever Alfie Boe Song is one that last year came in at number two, having been in and out of the top ten several times before that. The only representative from Storyteller for the second year running, it is Rank Strangers:
Alfie has performed this song many times over the years but never quite like this, at Joe’s Pub in 2013. To me, the closest to the recorded song.
Rank Strangers was written by Albert Brumley, a musician and singer born in Oklahoma in 1905. After studying at the Hartford Musical Institute, Arkansas, Brumley toured with the Hartford Quartet and went on to write / copyright an astonishing 800 songs. The most famous of these is I’ll Fly Away from 1932. In 1970 he was inducted into the Country Song Writer’s Hall of Fame and his songs have been covered by amongst others, Bob Dylan, who I’m sure introduced Alfie to the song. Here are the Stanley Brothers:
Storyteller is available here:
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
This week, we’re looking at Sue Line’s Six Sensational Songs – this is what Sue says about how she found Alfie: ” I found Alfie through the 25th anniversary Les Mis concert. I heard this voice and was spell bound. The fact that he’s drop dead gorgeous helps! Through Alfie I met Greta and Graham and the three of us will always be thankful for that. We’re more like family than friends.”
Here are Sue’s choices:
Run, chosen by Sue because “it says so much that’s like my life. Also, it was during Run that Alfie came into the audience at Nottingham and sought me out for a hug.”
Bring Him Home, because “Les Mis is my favourite music theatre and I found Alfie through that. It also reminds me of my Dad. Dad died whilst I was on a train to meet up with Greta and Graham for the first time, to go and see Les Mis. I cried my way through BHH. I’ve got a tattoo that says Alfie with BHH under his name.”
The Prayer because ” it’s a beautiful song and hearing Alfie sing it in Italian is wonderful.”
In My Daughter’s Eyes. Sue says that this is a very personal choice as “I had a daughter who passed away as a baby but her eyes were beautiful and shone when she looked at me.”
Glory, Glory. Sue chose this because “he sang it when I first saw him live in Newcastle and he kept making me laugh by just waving his wrist. My arm was in a cast and that was the only way I could wave at him.”
A Thousand Years. Sue’s son sings it to her; “He has autism and many physical and psychological problems but has a beautiful baritone voice and always makes me cry when he sings it.”
Thank you Sue for sharing your stories with us.
If you would like to see your choices featured, please fill in the form:
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
Last week saw the news that Alfie Boe’s new album, As Time Goes By (click here to order), will be released on 23 November and I’m sure there will be plenty of fans very much looking forward to hearing all the tracks. Before then, however, we have the question that all fans are desperate to have answered:
What is the fans favourite Alfie Boe song 2018???
I’m happy to say that the vote is now closed, the votes have been counted and the results will be revealed over the next ten weeks, which will take us almost up to the week of the new album. Anyone would think it was planned!
Without further ado, the song in at number ten is a song that featured in the first three charts but dropped out of the top ten last year. From Onward, it’s A Living Prayer:
A Living Prayer shows off Alfie’s soaring vocals to perfection and is probably the reason why a song from one of Alfie’s lesser known albums has been eternally popular with fans, also being chosen several times as part of the Six Sensational Songs series.
A Living Prayer was written by bluegrass / country singer Alison Krauss and released on the Union Station album Lonely Runs Both Ways in 2004. The bluegrass roots are evident in this video of Krauss:
As evidenced from Alfie’s autobiography, he wasn’t too thrilled with the choice of songs for Onward, with the exception of A Living Prayer – hope he sings it again one day.
Onward is available here:
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
Alfie Boe fans have been waiting not so patiently since he announced he was recording a new solo album earlier this year – his first for four years. Titled As Time Goes By, the album is currently scheduled for release on 23 November 2018.
Track list:
La Vie En Rose
Moonlight Serenade
Sing Sing Sing
Stompin at the Savoy feat. Kara Tointon
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square feat. Brennyn Lark
The Way You Look Tonight
Minnie The Moocher feat. Kelsey Grammar
As Time Goes By
My Funny Valentine
Ain’t Misbehavin’
Mood Indigo
I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance
As we know, Alfie recorded this album at Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, here Frank Sinatra made so many of his vintage albums. Alfie had a specific sound in mind for his new album: “I kept saying to the players in the studio, ‘Please don’t play clean, please make it dirty. You had Louis Armstrong blasting out songs, Gene Krupa hammering on the skins. Cab Calloway was as wild a performer as you could possibly get. There were all these musicians who know how to play with emotion. What we’re also trying to do is to show how it all came together and how it influenced the music scene in the UK. You could say it was like a revolution.”
The record boasts a full band, led by Grammy award winner Gordon Goodwin and his Big Phat Band. It journeys through the defining songs of the era – from the full force of Sing Sing Sing – a song strongly identified with big band and swing, through to slower, smoother numbers such as The Way You Look Tonight (I’m still not over this song on Britain’s Got Talent) and As Time Goes By. The trend for singers to feature duets on albums (Alfie guests on Bryn Terfel’s new album) continues here – I’m most looking forward to hearing Kelsey Grammer on Minnie the Moocher.
All Alfie’s albums have some personal significance, that one song inspired by Sarah or his children, but it seems that this whole album is a nod to his parents love of big band music. Alfie says “They were really into the big bands – Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, I remember a story my mother told me. When she was pregnant with me she was watching a TV show and Gene Krupa came on and started the drum solo from Sing Sing Sing. She had a cup of tea on her tummy, and immediately she felt me kick and the tea went up in the air. She always told this story and it made me realise I was connected with music even before I was born.” Those who have read Alfie’s auobiography will remember this story!
As Time Goes By is available now for pre-order. Click here.
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
Fans of both ITV’s The Voice and Alfie Boe were thrilled when they found out that one of the finalists from this year’s series, Belle Voci, were confirmed to support Alfie at his Scarborough show in June. With just a couple of days notice, Emily Burnett and Sophie Rohan, who form the operatic duo, were just as thrilled, if not more so, to be supporting one of their musical inspirations. They were even more delighted when Alfie popped into their dressing room on the day of the show and asked if they would share the stage with him on a couple of songs. Here they are on You’re The Voice, appropriately enough:
I spoke to Emily recently and asked how Belle Voci got the opportunity to sing with Alfie. It turns out that it’s all down to Jennifer Hudson turning for them on The Voice. Deciding to audition for the show as a way to get footage for their website, neither Emily or Sophie expected anyone’s chair to turn and were “absolutely amazed. It’s opened so many doors for us, we would never have sung with Alfie without it.”
As a result of getting to the final three, Emily and Sophie were signed by an agent and thus found themselves performing with one of their musical idols. They say never meet your idols, but Emily was relieved to find that Alfie was “such a nice guy, loved working with him.”
Emily and Sophie met and formed Belle Voci a few years ago when they were both working in a pub (chef and waitress). Both trained as singers, at Durham University / Royal College of Music and London School of Musical Theatre respectively and were looking for a way to forge a career in music. Opera evenings, weddings and corporate events followed before the chance to do The Voice came along. Just prior to appearing on the show, the duo decided to record and release their eponymous first album, showcasing seven operatic arias and Over The Rainbow, using the arrangement by Roderick Williams. As the album concentrates on opera, I wanted to know why Rainbow was included – it turns out that it’s just because Emily and Sophie love to sing it. Emily then said that “we hope that someone might like Over the Rainbow and then discover some of the other, operatic tracks and like them as well…it’s almost like drip feeding opera, introducing people to it who might not have had much before.” Sounds remarkably similar to something Alfie would say – “there’s only two types of music: good and bad.”
I earlier mentioned that Alfie is one of Belle Voci’s musical inspirations, one reason being that they are “inspired by the musical choices he makes…we want to be like him, he’s so bang on trend with everything.” Emily and Sophie were at the Classic BRITs this year and thought it was awesome that Alfie and Michael won two awards. Il Divo also gain a mention for their harmonies, as well as Katherine Jenkins (“she’s built an insane career for herself”), Laura Wright and Beyonce -Emily “loves her sass!”
After the nominations closed for the 5th annual Best Ever Alfie Boe song (recorded) last week, I’m pleased to say that the poll is now open for votes once more!
Thanks to those who sent in their nominations – we have five new additions this year!
Bridge Over Troubled Water – nominated by Brenda Licence
You’re The Voice – Gill Jansingh
You’ll Be Back – Pauline Merrick
A Thousand Years – Karen Blower
He Lives In You – Ann Quelch
I originally started this poll to highlight the depth of Alfie’s repertoire and we have songs from all his albums to date, so we have more than accomplished this. Whenever I talk about Alfie to non fans (yes, there are such people!), the song they always mention is Bring Him Home, twice the winner of this poll. While it is the song for which he is always known, wouldn’t it be great for something new to top this year’s vote?
Voting will remain open until the end of this week and then the first song of the top ten will be revealed the week after – get voting!
thanks for reading – please share
if you like what you see, why not subscribe?
all your Alfie news straight to your inbox
plus four exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
Alfie Boe’s Summer concerts are over and as we head into Autumn, fans are keen to know when they can next see Alfie perform live. The wait is over, at least for fans who can get to the Isle of Man as Alfie is today announcing a show at the Villa Marina, Isle of Man.
The show is on 6 November and will feature Lauren Samuels as a guest artist; those fans who were at Kenwood House will remember Lauren was one of the support artists on that day.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am on Friday 31 August – click here.
Alfie has performed a couple of times before on the Isle of Man, on the first leg of his Bring Him Home tour and again at a fundraiser for the island’s hospice in 2014, so he obviously likes it there!
Alfie is currently preparing for the release of his new album so I expect many of the songs from that will feature – let me know if you end up going!
thanks for reading – please share
to get all Alfie info straight to your inbox, make sure you’re subscribed
you also get 4 exclusive photos and a welcome message from Alfie
