The week of Alfie Boe’s new album release has arrived and there seems no better time to look at another set of Six Sensational Songs, this time from Carole Naden. Carole’s first choice is:
Of course, Bring Him Home, ‘the’ song that we all associate with Alfie.
Another eternally popular song, and the winner of the Best Live Song poll for the past two years, Run.
Angie, from Storyteller. This beautiful cover of the Rolling Stones is making it’s first appearance in six sensational songs.
Dimming of the Day, first heard with Emilia Mitiku on the Storyteller tour but recorded for Trust with Shawn Colvin.
Another new song for our list of sensational songs, this is Wagon Wheel from Cardiff 2017, the first time we heard Wagon Wheel and the second time we saw Alfie play guitar. The last time was five years on the Storyteller tour!
Carole’s sixth choice is Islands in the Stream, another song that debuted at Alfie’s summer concerts this year but I couldn’t find a video with just that, so you get a freebie this time around!
I say this every time sensational songs is published but the depth and breadth of Alfie’s repertoire is such that we have added another three new songs to the Six Sensational Songs playlist! Bring on the next tour!
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As the weather grows ever more Autumnal, it’s another great excuse to stay indoors and watch Alfie on YouTube. To aid you in this, here is another instalment of Six Sensational Songs and this time, they are from Marie Blair, who first got to know Alfie when he did the Les Mis 25th Anniversary Concert at the O2.
Some Enchanted Evening, chosen by Marie because “…it was the song he sang at STV when I met him for the first time on 28 January 2011. It is from the musical South Pacific. In a recent documentary to celebrate his 70th birthday, Andrew Lloyd Webber said that it is the greatest song ever written for a musical.”
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Marie says “I met Alfie for the second time in September 2011 in Dundee at the Last Night of the Proms. He sang The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. It was and remains the best live performance he has done of that song in my opinion. I think it is mesmerising. It is such a beautiful love song.” Sorry I couldn’t find video of the right performance Marie!
Run, by now needing no introduction. Marie’s reasons for choosing this are that “I think the performance at VE Day was just wonderful. I often watch it on YouTube and I love the way he acknowledges Murray on stage. I loved Leona Lewis’s version of this song but prefer Alfie’s. I really hope he records it.” And so say all of us, regarding the recording Marie!
The official video for If You Go Away, from Trust. Marie loves this song and also the video, having watched it loads of times – I’m sure you’re not alone in that!
Billy Joel’s Always a Woman to Me was a bonus track on Storyteller – and is kindly shared here by Marcia, along with photos of Alfie and Sarah.*
Marie says “My sixth choice, Parlami D’Amore Mariu, was written in 1932 for the singer Vittorio de Sica and means Tell Me About Love Mariu. It is exquisitely sung by Alfie and remains one of my favourites. I do wish Alfie would sing more Italian songs and opera arias in particular.” Knowing Alfie’s views on music and his wide ranging repertoire, I wouldn’t be surprised if this again happens in the future.
Thanks Marie for sharing your songs with us – two new ones added to the list!
If you would like to choose and share your six songs with us, please fill in the form:
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We’ve made it! The top place in the fifth annual Alfie Boe Best Ever Song poll is shortly to be revealed, but before we do that, let’s run down the top ten so far:
10 – A Living Prayer
9 – Rank Strangers
8 – You’re The Voice
7 – Keep Me In Your Heart
6 – A Thousand Years
5 – The Prayer
4 – Love Reign O’er Me
3 – Bring Him Home
2 – First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
And so, the song voted in at number ten is:
Anthem, recorded for Alfie’s 2016 album with Michael Ball, Together, is this year’s top song, the last of four songs from Together and Together Again. Last year, Anthem was a new entry to the chart, ending up at number six.
Anthem is one of the most famous songs (although for me, I have more of an affection for the Elaine Paige / Barbara Dickson song I Know Him So Well) from the Tim Rice, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus musical, Chess, which opened in London in 1986 before closing three years later. A subsequent Broadway production was much less successful. Prior to either show, a concept album was released, from which Paige and Dickson’s recording derives as Dickson was unable to open in the London production.
Thanks for all your votes – always interesting to see what comes up trumps – and as Alfie has now announced his 2019 tour, it’ll soon be time to vote for our favourite live song again!
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Almost time for the new album – who’s getting excited about As Time Goes By? I imagine one or two of the songs will feature in the list of Alfie Boe’s Best Ever Song 2019 but before we get to that, here is another one in the occasional series of our Six Sensational Songs. This time it’s the turn of Betty May to tell us her choices.
Dimming of the Day, from Trust – with a great Tom Jones anecdote at the beginning of this clip from Cardiff.
Bring Him Home, this time from Fleetwood, bringing the number of times this song has featured in this series to ten.
The ever popular live song, Run.
A throwback to La Passione with Parlami D’Amore Mariu at Leeds 2015 – note the short hair in preparation for Les Mis on Broadway!
Come What May with West End star Kerry Ellis.
Tell Me It’s Not True, from Blood Brothers – all the way back in 2012!
Thanks Betty for sharing your six songs with us.
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Just three more weeks of the poll to find out your favourite Alfie Boe recorded song – and we come to his signature tune, Bring Him Home:
Bring Him Home is of course a constant in Alfie’s live performances and in this annual poll; twice being voted number one and never being lower than number four. So much has been written about Alfie and this song (quote a lot of it by me!) and it’s always a challenge to come up with something new to say about it, so this time, I’ll let Alfie do the talking with an extract from his autobiography, My Story. Alfie is talking about his life changing appearance at the Les Mis 25th anniversary concert:
I knew that Bring Him Home would be my moment, the golden key. I knew that was it. ‘Boy needs a song!’ It’s incredible, how that song came to me again, after our false alarm with the Festival of Remembrance. We knew that was the one, but it disappeared, and we didn’t think of it again until Cameron Mackintosh knocked on the door. And it is such a spiritual song, it’s so special. When Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil write it they must have been excited. They must have known they had something special…Herbert Kretzmer was really stumped with the lyrics, he didn’t know what words would fit to these three syllable lines. The John Caird, the co-director, said the melody sounded like a prayer, and Herbert wrote it overnight. It is a prayer, it’s acutally called The Prayer, it’s not officially called Bring Him Home, and I treat it as such every time I sing it. I pray. That’s what makes it work.
Beautiful words from Alfie – and for those who don’t know, Alfie sang Bring Him Home at the Festival of Remembrance in 2007 and Harvey Goldsmith said, “boy needs a song” after the performance. It just took a few more years to really get hold of it!
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Thoughtsofjustafan favourite John Owen-Jones has been recording his fifth album this year, to be released in 2019 and this is the first release from Spotlight:
From Beauty and the Beast, Evermore is perfectly suited to John’s beautiful voice, the soaring vocals are just sublime and really give the listener a taste of what’s to come with the album. Alfie Boe fans will of course know that Alfie recorded Evermore as a bonus track on Together Again (with Michael Ball) and listening to the two versions one after the other, I found myself wishing for a recorded duet from Alfie and John. After all, the impromptu duet of Bring Him Home at the Royal Albert Hall five years ago was absolutely sensational!
Spotlight will feature John’s unique take on tracks from musicals and more, with music performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of John’s long time musical collaborator, John Quirk.
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.
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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!
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Ball and Boe were back together this weekend at Carfest South, first time for Michael but a return for Alfie – he last played this festival for Children in Need in 2013. Regular reviewer Claire Shorter was there for us, as well as fellow fan Caroline Old:
Do you think they will like us? That is the question Michael asked Chris Evans before they went on stage……fast forward to the end of their set and the rapturous applause and cheers suggests the crowd didn’t just like the boys, they absolutely loved them. This was echoed by the number of backstage guests who flowed to the front of the stage (including Chris Evans).
Michael and Alfie’s set was after Reef and Miles Kane and before Razorlight and although their style is different to those bands, the audience was just about to find out Ball and Boe can turn their hands to any genre they choose and the set list at CarFest showed their diversity, talent, humour and all round awesomeness.
Michael and Alfie came out singing Tonight, they were beaming and appeared so happy to be back on stage together. Then it was For Once in My Life and You’ll Be Back; the way they interact during these songs is nothing but cute and Alfie also came down to the barriers for a singalong with the crowd. Next were great songs to get the audience involved – He Lives in You and You’re the Voice. For the last chorus Alfie got Chris Evans and some others on to the stage to join in and they were loving every minute.
When the Queen medley commenced, we were treated to A Kind of Magic, Radio Gaga, We Will, We Will Rock You and We are the Champions. They put so much energy into this medley and the audience were loving it as much as Ball and Boe were, on stage. This was a high point for seven year old Dan (Caroline’s son) who said that “I loved We Will Rock You, I was on Daddy’s shoulders.”
We then heard the boys do their brilliant Les Mis medley: Bring Him Home,Empty Chairs, I Dreamed a Dream and One Day More. We have never heard an audience sing along to Les Mis as much as they did that day and standing in a field it felt like an appropriate place to do it. The whole audience singing One Day More was incredible, a proper goosebumps moment.
Then it was time for the encore, Michael making sure Alfie had left the stage made a start with A Different Corner. Alfie then appeared on the adjoining stage saying “Oi Bally, get off the stage…”, he then stripped down to his ‘Choose Life’ T-shirt, gave Michael his and then the party time started with a Wham medley including Freedom, I’m Your Man and Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Chris Evans and a group backstage crew, family and friends returned to the stage having a great sing along and pulling out some cracking dance moves. Alfie was having a high kick contest with a couple of kids. It was great fun to watch them all having a blast.
Although we also love the boys performing solo this is a reminder that we need another combined tour, they are a perfect match and their talent, friendship and humour is a beautiful thing to witness. They love being on stage together and we love seeing them there.
Thanks for a fabulous review Claire, Caroline and Dan, who gets the last word: “It was so funny when Alfie told Michael to get off the stage!”
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Although the summer is drawing to a close, don’t worry, because that means that it’s a little bit closer to the release of Alfie Boe’s eagerly anticipated solo album. Set to be released in November, it’s something that Alfie fans have been looking forward to for a while now.
Before then, there’s the small matter of the now annual Best Ever Alfie Boe song poll, now in it’s fifth year. We have another album, Together Again, to include in our favourites so let’s see if anything can knock Bring Him Home off it’s pedestal – newer fans, it’s not always been at the top of the poll! How about this one for example – it was very popular at the Oxford Street HMV album signing last year!
The time has come for your nominations please – the longlist can be found on Spotify so click here to listen. If you don’t find your favourite here, please fill in the form below:
Nominations will close on 30 August and voting will open the following week.
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