Thanks as ever to Linda W for sharing (listen at the beginning and you can hear a few shouts of “Go on Alfie” from Linda).
Sunflower Jam was a concert at the Royal Albert Hall to raise money for a charity of the same name, raising funds for and awareness of an integrated approach to cancer treatments. Featuring an enviable line up including Brian May, Alice Cooper, Kerry Ellis, Ian Paice, Steve Balsamo and Rick Wakeman, the concert also featured a few musicians who went on to tour with Alfie on the Storyteller tour.
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There are just four songs that survived from the 2014 poll and of these four, just two have been voted into the top ten in all three polls so far.
In 2015, the top ten looked like this:
Addio Sogni Di Gloria
Keep Me In Your Heart
A Gaelic Blessing
Bring Him Home
A Living Prayer
Nessun Dorma
My Heart is Yours
Rank Strangers
Forever Young
Je Crois Entendre Encore
The first thing that jumps out is that the top two don’t even feature this time which means my favourite song isn’t there…although another favourite, Dimming of the Day has made it for the first time.
The second thing to note is that there is a distinct move away from the more classical side of Alfie’s repertoire, as Trust makes a strong return with four songs featured. The remaining six songs are one each from Storyteller, Serenata, Onward, Classic Quadrophenia, Bring Him Home and Alfie. If You Go Away is the only song to return to the top ten, having missed out in 2015 and Bring Him Home stays as the only musical theatre choice.
The top ten will start counting down from next week and will lead us right up to the start of the UK tour – anyone excited yet?
…The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore at Joe’s Pub, NYC:
Now there are many songs I could have chosen from this concert (the whole thing is available on YouTube) but I chose this one as it is the one and only song that my son has on his playlist…and you know he’s had a LOT of exposure to Alfie’s songs!
This is from Storyteller and here is Alfie to tell us about the story behind the song:
…Jimi Hendrix’s Angel at Carfest North (thanks to Jayne for sharing):
This was one of my favourite songs from the Storyteller tour earlier that year, even though I had never come across it before. Yet another example of Alfie introducing me to new genres of music. Angel was written and recorded by Hendrix in the mid sixties but not recorded with a view to release until The Cry of Love was released posthumously in 1971.
For those of us who attended those Carfest gigs, it was fabulous and so refreshing to see Alfie in his rocking out element, holding the festival audience in the palm of his hand. Hoping we get to see that side of Alfie again in the future.
Angel is available as a bonus track on the US version of Storyteller:
Just as awesome as the original, available here on The Cry of Love:
I fell in love with Alfie’s interpretation of the Rolling Stones’ song the first time I heard it and was thrilled to find it on his Storyteller album. I was less thrilled to find it was no longer part of the Storyteller repertoire by the time the tour came to its last week – but I can’t grumble, that tour was amazing from start to finish.
I’ve written before about how Alfie has introduced me to other music and Angie is another example of this. Although I’d been listening to the Stones for years, courtesy of my elder sister, Angie had somehow passed me by and I looked it up after hearing Alfie’s version. So glad I did, (Wild Horses knocks spots off it though:
We have reached numbers three and four in our search to find the fans favourite Alfie Boe Live Song 2016 and number four is a song first heard back in 2012 and recorded for the Storyteller album of that year. The version chosen here though is from the encore of the Storyteller tour of 2013, Rank Strangers (thanks Nikki for sharing):
The song, which was voted in at number eight last year’s Best Recorded Song poll, is an American folk song from the early twentieth century 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. Click here to see the version by The Stanley Brothers from the 1950’s. I have to confess though, to a liking for a different version, featuring the much loved Al Vosper, Toby Chapman and co (thanks Linda for sharing) from a meltingly hot (in more ways than one) Buxton Opera House:
Completely different to number four is a new entry to the Best Live Song top ten, Addio Sogni Di Gloria from Classic FM Live (thanks Marcia for sharing):
The song was originally recorded by Italian singer Luciano Virgili and written by Italian Carlo Innocenzi who wrote music for many Italian films from the 1940’s onward. Translated, the title means Goodbye, Dreams of Glory and the poignancy of the song sits effortlessly against the glorious soaring melody. This wonderful song is from Serenata and was the one that unseated Bring Him Home from the top spot in the Alfie Boe 2015 best ever song poll.
Next week brings us to the top two spots in this year’s countdown.
Storyteller and Serenata are available here:
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In the countdown to Scarborough, we’ve been voting to find out fans Favourite Alfie Boe Live Song and this seems an even more perfect time to be doing this now we know about the Together Tour. This is the second time we’ve run this poll and I’m sure there’ll be a third time – we’ll hopefully have some duets with Michael Ball in the running next year.
The top five last time around was:
Don’t Stop Me Now
Rank Strangers
You Are My Hearts Delight
Buona Sera
Jacobs Ladder / Barcelona
Will they all feature in the same order this time? Over the next few weeks we’ll be revealing all, starting now with numbers 9 and 10.
In at number 10, we have a new entry, the James Bond Medley from Strictly in 2011.
Alfie also sang this on his Bring Him Home Tour that year and appears on the Alfie: Live DVD in which he quips “it’s not the same without the dancers, is it?” I think Alfie’s voice is tailor made for the traditional Bond themes although perhaps it’s sacrilege to think of anyone other than Dame Shirley Bassey singing Diamonds are Forever or Goldfinger.
Number 9 is also a new entry to the top ten but like the Bond Medley, is not a new song. Indeed, both are songs that haven’t been part of Alfie’s repertoire for a while now so it’s good to see fans have long memories. O Sole Mio / Now or Never, however, may be popular not just to the song but the memory of that wonderful summer four years ago when everyone was looking at London for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympics:
O Sole Mio is a song that goes a long way back for Alfie and he has performed it many times over the years although only for a period of twelve months or so in conjunction with Now or Never. Now or Never, of course, is a version of O Sole Mio, first recorded by Elvis and went on to be his second best selling single. The song went on to feature (albeit in a completely different arrangement) on Alfie’s Storyteller album.
Numbers 7 and 8 in the countdown will be revealed next Monday!
Alfie: Live DVD and Storyteller album are available here:
Alfie Boe and Michael Ball: Together Tour information can be found here.
Alright, alright, it’s actually International Happiness Day but I got the title idea from my 9yo who looked at the 2015 Happy International Day of Happiness Alfie Boe Fans and said “it’s not really Happy Alfie Boe Day is it”? We don’t exactly see eye to eye on our musical tastes although he has been known to sing along to Alfie songs before and even uttered the immortal line (on hearing Elvis sing If I Can Dream) “this is Alfie’s song, why is Elvis singing it”.
To celebrate, these are some of my favourite Alfie tracks from each of his albums:
E Lucevan Le Stelle (Classic FM Presents) – video from first series of BBC Maestro
The song recently voted the favourite Alfie Boe recorded song, A Living Prayer (Onward) – from Songs of Praise
Funiculi Funicula (La Passione) – this was a hard choice as I could easily have chosen the whole album!
On The Street Where You Live (Bring Him Home) – from QVC, picked because my son’s choir used to sing this:
In My Daughter’s Eyes (Alfie) – for all parents and children everywhere:
Angie (Storyteller)- loved the original, this is better:
My all time favourite Alfie song (so far) is Keep Me In Your Heart (Trust) – something to do with those buttons…
Addio Sogni di Gloria (Serenata) was my favourite in the Serenata review and it hasn’t changed:
The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that Love Was A Dream is missing – as far as I’m aware we don’t have video of Alfie singing my favourite song from that album. Maybe one day…
What are your songs from all Alfie’s albums? Let us know below:
…It’s Only Love on the Storyteller tour at the Royal Albert Hall:
Filmed on the second of the two nights for release on DVD and to show on PBS in the USA, the atmosphere was absolutely electric and this song had us all up and dancing. A favourite from Alfie Boe Singing Elvis, I love it and judging by the people asking Alfie to “sing Elvis” over the summer, lots of you love it too!
It’s Only Love isn’t one of Elvis’s best known songs and upon release in 1971 barely bothered the US charts (it reached number 51) although it fared somewhat better in the UK; following it’s 1980 release it reached number 3.
So what did you think of the all new top ten in the Alfie Boe Best Ever Song poll? Any surprises? Did your favourite make the cut? Don’t worry if not – I’m already planning the third annual poll!
Now, down to business. The song in at number 10 is Je Crois Entendre Encore which made it to number 4 in 2014: click here to read more.
Number 9 is the first of our two entries from Trust, Forever Young. Written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1974 album, Planet Waves, it has been recorded and performed by countless others down the years; my favourite version is that by Joan Baez:
Alfie is a Dylan fan, so much so that he bunked off Cosi Fan Tutte rehearsals in Strasbourg in order to take Sarah to a concert. That being so, and only for Alfie would I do this, here is Bob Dylan singing:
Sorry Alfie, I know Dylan’s a genius but I just can’t listen to him sing! Much prefer your version, sung at the Royal Festival Hall in 2013. I’ll let Alfie tell you the story about the recording:
Number 8 in the top ten is another survivor from 2014 and the only representative from Storyteller, Rank Strangers. Click here to read more about this lovely song before we move swiftly on to number 7 in our countdown.
Number 7 is in fact the first song from Serenata to feature and Alfie’s first song as a lyricist. My Heart is Yours puts Alfie’s beautiful lyrics (I think we can all agree that he’s a talented lyricist which can only bode well for the future) to the music from the Italian film Il Postino and the result is this magic:
In the many interviews Alfie gave around the release of Serenata, he said that the lyrics were for his daughter, Grace but the lyrics work just as a well as a love song.
The next instalment in the countdown will be next week!
Trust (click here) and Serenata are both available here:
