Tag Archives: Freddie Mercury

On This Day, 4 October 2013, Alfie Boe Sang…

The Sun Always Shines on TV on Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 breakfast show:

That final note – wow! He then went on to perform Queen’s Radio GaGa – much to the delight of Take That’s Gary Barlow, who even joined in on backing vocals:

We know how much Alfie loves the music of Queen and Freddie Mercury but I loved hearing him sing such an iconic eighties tune as The Sun Always Shines on TV – I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a soft spot for A-ha and Morten Harket!

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Alfie Boe’s Best Live Song 2019: Number Three

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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On This Day, 11 May 2012, Alfie Boe Sang…

One Vision at the Team GB celebration at the Royal Albert Hall – rock Alfie is well and truly to the fore: (Alfie starts at 2m55)

Alfie recorded this with Kimberley Walsh as the official song for Team GB and the 2012 Olympics, here’s what they had to say about the song:

One Vision was of course originally written and recorded by Queen and as we’ve subsequently learnt, Freddie Mercury was a big influence on Alfie’s life and music.  Click here for Alfie’s Freddie Documentary.

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Alfie Boe’s Best Live Song 2018: No. 9

The song to come in at number nine in the Alfie Boe Best Live Song poll 2018 is a very apt choice, since it is a duet with fan favourite Laura Wright and Alfie and Laura were both announced as part of the line up for the By The River Festival last week.

Which song am I talking about?  It is of course, Barcelona, performed at the Freddie for a Day celebrations in September 2013:

Barcelona featured in the very first poll but then disappeared until now.  Perhaps it is because Laura and Alfie’s voices work so well together, as the audience clearly thought so.  Although this is the only footage we have of Alfie and Laura singing this together, Alfie did appear as a guest on Katherine Jenkins’s Home Sweet Home album singing Barcelona and they performed together at the 2014 pre Commonwealth Games concert in Edinburgh:

Barcelona was originally written by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran and recorded by Mercury (one of Alfie’s favourites) and the Spanish soprano, Montserrat Caballe in 1987. Memorably, it featured heavily during coverage of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Home Sweet Home, featuring Barcelona is available here:

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Alfie Boe’s Best Live Song 2016: 6 to 5

Following on from last week’s installment of Alfie Boe’s Best Live Song poll 2016, we have now arrived at the half way stage, with two songs that tied for second place in 2014.

Number six in the countdown is a song that hasn’t appeared in Alfie’s set list since the Bring Him Home tour and is quite tricky to find on YouTube (although it does feature on the Alfie: Live DVD) but luckily, we have Nikki Lewis to thank for recording Jacob’s Ladder in Birmingham, 2011:

Jacob’s Ladder is a spiritual, gospel tinged song that has been recorded by a variety of artists including Bruce Springsteen and Paul Robeson – click here to see these two completely different versions of the song.

As mentioned earlier, the song that was voted in at number five is the song that tied with Jacob’s Ladder for second spot last time and of course it’s Barcelona with Laura Wright:

Laura and Alfie’s voices work so well together and the audience here clearly thought so too.  Laura tweeted a photo the next day accompanied by “giving it some welly on the high notes last night” – well, there’s plenty of high notes Laura! Although this is the only footage we have of Alfie and Laura singing this together, Alfie did appear as a guest on Katherine Jenkins’s Home Sweet Home album singing Barcelona.

Barcelona was originally written by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran and recorded by Mercury and the Spanish soprano, Montserrat Caballe in 1987.  Memorably, it featured heavily during coverage of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.  Here is the original:

As we know, Alfie is a keen Queen and Freddie Mercury fan and during his ITV Perspectives programme on Mercury, he was seen backstage before the Barcelona song saying it was “quite a big sing”.  I also seem to remember he was messing about with his hair quite a lot as well!

Alfie: Live DVD and Home Sweet Home are available here:

Alfie BHH DBD

katherine jenkins katherine jenkins

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Friday Round Up with Alfie Boe: No. 7

With the New Year celebrations over for another year, it’s time for our first Friday Round Up in 2015 and the first since before Christmas.  Luckily for us, there was a new interview aired this week on BBC Radio Cornwall.  Alfie was interviewed way back in September by Debbie McCrory and they held the whole hour long interview back until this week – just the thing to banish the post tour blues. Thanks Marcia for sharing:

There’s a lot of chat about Les Mis as you would expect (Debbie had previously interviewed Alfie after the 25th anniversary) and amusing to hear Alfie struggling to say something good about Russell Crowe as Javert.  Damning with faint praise I think it’s called!  Also, some nice chat about Murray (he’s a Cornish lad) and the recording process of Serenata as opposed to Love Was A Dream.  Both were quick but one was considerably quicker!  A nice selection of music from Alfie’s earlier career too although it would have been nice to hear some of the Lehar as it was referenced in the interview.  Radio interviewers do tend to play a varied choice of music from Alfie’s career but Love Was A Dream never seems to get a look in – wonder why?  Slippers story gets another airing too!

In addition, Alfie was a guest on Bruce’s Hall of Fame on 27 December.  He sang Volare in tribute to Dean Martin which was lovely and had us all singing along at home I’m sure (two words at least, just like the tour!).  Alfie was first on which was great as it meant we didn’t have to watch the whole programme if we didn’t want to, although that would have meant missing a cracking turn from Alfie’s mate Jason Manford in tribute to Les Dawson.  Volare was Alfie’s only song but it was on the whole well received (I’m discounting the audience reaction here as they gave every performer a standing ovation) on social media.  Incidentally, interesting to see Alfie respond to people’s rude tweets; even with provocation he is always polite to trolls.  That doesn’t stop him putting them in their place though!  Again, thanks to Marcia for sharing the clip:

Volare is of course from Alfie’s new album, Serenata (available below) which is in the classical top ten for a sixth straight week!

serenata

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Barcelona!

Alfie Boe fans are truly blessed at the moment – on 5th September Alfie performed at the Freddie for a Day event in London, organized by the Mercury Phoenix Trust. We knew next to nothing about what Alfie would sing at this event and were not particularly hopeful that we would find out anytime soon.  After all, Alfie performed at this event last year and no videos have emerged yet. The event came and went and a couple of details were tweeted; namely, that Alfie sang the Freddie Mercury / Montserrat Caballe duet “Barcelona” with soprano Laura Wright.  Again, we all wished for a video to appear from somewhere but didn’t really think it would happen.

Imagine our surprise and delight then when someone (whoever you are, a huge thank you from all Alfie fans everywhere) posted the following video on youtube.  I defy anyone to watch this and not be swept off their feet by Alfie and Laura!  Oh, and if anyone feels like sharing Alfie’s solo song (Love of my Life) please don’t be shy!!!