Alfie Boe - Storyteller (2012)

Let Britains favorite tenor Alfie Boe be your Storyteller with his eagerly-awaited new album a personal selection of classic songs, perfectly suited to Alfies versatile voice and demonstrating his years of experience and musical passion.
Similar to Alfies recently released book, My Story an incredibly candid and emotional autobiography (which shot to No.2 in the Sunday Times Best-sellers list) in which Alfie tells the stories hed wanted to tell for years this album contains the songs he has wanted to record for years. And each one tells a story. It will not come as a surprise to those who have read Alfies book that the singer came to opera later, spending his teenage years drumming in bands. Here, he returns to his first love, while taking his listeners on a journey.
It is without a doubt the album of his career to date, and truly reflects who he is as a performer. On Storyteller Alfie strips some of his favorite songs to the heart, bringing their beauty to the surface while texturing them with both a band and a traditional orchestra, to sublime effect. The recording process was done the old-fashioned way, as in the 1960s, singing live with the band and orchestra, Alfie virtually conducting them as he sang.
Produced by the legendary Mike Hedges (U2, The Cure, Manic Street Preachers, Beautiful South) Alfie presents brand new arrangements of timeless hits such as Simon & Garfunkels emotive Bridge Over Troubled Water, Rolling Stones classics Angie and Shine A Light a nod to their 50th year in the business Presley s moving I Can t Help Falling In Love With You, here sung as a lullaby, and the beautiful Angels from Montgomery by American folk singer-songwriter John Prine.
This album, as with Alfies show-stopping performance at The Queens Jubilee this summer, not only displays his vocal power but communicates his musical philosophy: that there are no boundaries in music. On that stage, a working-class singer from Fleetwood performed for the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace. Starting by gloriously serenading The Mall with the classic Neapolitan song O Sole Mio which turned into, rather riotously, Elvis It s Now or Never: the same tune.
It is therefore appropriate that Storyteller brings a change in repertoire, each song sung with that recognizable rich tone. And Presleys hit song is, of course, represented here, in a new light.