Album Review: Ball & Boe Show Why Are Headliners With Their New CD - MICHAEL BALL & ALFIE BOE - TOGETHER IN VEGAS

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, Bobby Patrick, your rainbow reviewer is back in CD-Land to offer another broken-down breakdown of a new music release. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

Well, here's a teaming about which (until this week, when their latest album landed on Bobby's desk) we were totally unaware. Did you know that Michael Ball and Alfie Boe were a singing team, my darlings? This is news that had escaped little Bobby's ears completely... and are we ever sad about the time it has taken us to make this discography discovery. Let us begin where Bobby has begun, with Michael Ball & Alfie Boe TOGETHER IN VEGAS, a studio album (their FIFTH!) of classics from legendary artists such as Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin & Frankie Valli - all Vegas Icons who made legendary concert appearances and recordings in Sin City. On the face of it, one would not think that Boe (with his fully, heavy-lifting, trained operatic va-voom) would be a logical match to Ball's more pop-ish va-va-Broadway, but together they are really va-va-va-voom.

Kicking off with the magnum Elvis VIVA LAS VEGAS, Broadway and L'opera show they can rock it out with as much fun as one could ask for, on this grand jewel from The King's crown. It's a great way to start their Vegas exploration, but it is their second cut where they show that the marriage of their two voices is a saucy mix of light and dark. LUCK BE A LADY, from Broadway's GUYS & DOLLS, has plenty of room to allow Ball's more languidly sexy baritone to lead into Alfie's operatic uber-trained tenor that actually fits with his pal's voice, so well. Both singers make adjustments for each other and the studio mic, demonstrating their almost athletic musicality. Splitting this solo into a duet, taking each verse in turn, you hear Alfie's pointed production outside of the strenuous trappings of "OPERA," as it takes on a more casual (albeit powerful) trumpet tone, similar to that of a Sammy Davis Jr. (another Vegas legend), which finds the gentlemen working within these adjustments to be complementary in their differences.

Though hailing from the UK, both of the gentlemen have real Broadway credits, with Alfie being a Tony honoree for Baz Lurhman's La Boheme, and Michael being an original cast member in two Andrew Lloyd Webber outings - THE WOMAN IN WHITE & ASPECTS OF LOVE. So, what is more natural in the course of a Broadway and concert career than hitting the strip in that sleepy little down in the desert? Listening to these two on this studio-recorded album, one really does begin to picture them on one of those huge stages at Ceasars or the Bellagio, and why not? They are a terrific act and there is gold in that there desert. As Noel Coward once wrote, "Let us hope we have no more to plague us than three shows a night in Las Vegas." - and Bobby would buy that ticket for sure. A heartwarming stand-out on this album is their duet on Kenny Rogers's THE GAMBLER - originally a solo, the lyrics tell the story of a chance meeting between two men on a train. Making it a duet allowed these actors to... ya know... act, and bring a new perspective to this old chestnut. Taking on the character of the story happening between the two men made for a really nice renovation, using their two voices made some magic in the storytelling.

Having enjoyed this record a lot, Bobby is almost loathe to let some raindrops fall from our rainbow review, but it does bear mentioning that their next to last cut, AMERICAN TRILOGY, is a medley that does begin with the socially passé DIXIE (as in, "I wish I was In the Land Of Cotton..." and so on), and while this does tribute Elvis & Vegas, and is in line with the theme of the album, perhaps these two Brits missed the memo that we don't Do Da Dixie any more. Their final song, Neil Diamond's (Coming To) AMERICA, while a good song performed very well by both, doesn't really offer the punch one would hope for, to close out an otherwise exciting musical journey.

All in All, my lambs, Michael Ball & Alfie Boe - TOGETHER IN VEGAS was a fine listening feast and is an album to return to over and over again, as the years go by. Along with just great earworms, it would be AWESOME housework music, so we give this one a really nice...

3 ¾ Rainbows Out Of 5

You Can See And Hear Everything About Michael Ball & Alfie Boe - TOGETHER IN VEGAS On The Boy's Webbysite: HERE

Photos By Chelsea Dufresne - Instagram HERE.

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