Here's to the heroes --- The Ten Tenors --- 2006 (Rhino)
Those of you who have read my review of Josh Groban's “Closer” will know I'm partial to the odd male vocal album, as long as it's sung well. The Ten Tenors (or, as I prefer to call them, the Twenty Fivers!) hail from Australia, and as you might expect, there are ten of them. They specialise in a mixture of classic rock and operatic singing, and this album, released in 2006, has a good mixture of both. It's the sort of album you put on to relax, or when you need a good emotional fix. The voices are without exception strong and powerful, clear and distinct, as you would expect, and like the aforementioned Mr. Groban, you can listen happily to a song written in Spanish or Italian without having more than a few words of the language, and still enjoy it. Hey, people do it all the time in opera!
This album, their fifth studio release, is based almost entirely on the works of one of my favourite film composers, the late John Barry. Kicking off with “Just to see each other again”, a lovely little ballad, you immediately get a sense of the power of these guys' voices. Just to get it out of the way, let's name them off: they are Benjamin Clark, Graham Foote, Keane Fletcher, Stuart “Sancho” Morris, Boyd Owen, Dion Molinas, Dominic “Panda” Smith, Jordan Pollard, Thomas Birch and Ben Stephens. Don't ask me who sings what! They're also backed by a great symphony orchestra, but again, there seems to be little hard information on who they are.
It's not really though until you get to the title track that you get a real sense of the kind of emotions these guys can evoke. “Here's to the heroes” is a slow, powerful ballad, arranged to the theme from John Barry's score to the film “Dances with wolves”, and it works extremely effectively. The lyric has a power of its own too:
”Here's to the heroes/ Who change our lives/ Thanks to the heroes/ Freedom survives/ Here's to the heroes/ Who never rest/ They are the chosen/ We are the blessed.” Stirring stuff!
Other standout tracks include two reworking of Bond themes, the instantly recognisable “You only live twice”, also penned by Barry, and “We have all the time in the world”, which, though it featured in the 1969 “On her Majesty's secret service”, will possibly be better known, at least to those of my generation, as the music to one of those great Guinness ads, sung by the legendary Louis Armstrong. But yes, it was also composed by John Barry. Didn't know that. The non-English songs are really nice too, like “Buongiorno princepessa “ and “Les choristes”, but it's their sublime cover of Queen's “Who wants to live forever” that really lifts this album into the realms of the truly special. A great reworking, sung with passion and emotion, and different enough to make it stand out from the original.
“Somewhere in time (words without meaning)” is another reworking of one of the themes from “Dances with wolves”, and the album closes with a glorious piece called “Gladiatore suite”, featuring music from, you guessed it, the film “Gladiator”, this time composed by another great artiste, Hans Zimmer.
“Here's to the heroes” may not be the sort of record a self-respecting rock fan would expect to have in their collection, but we all need a bit of easy listening from time to time, and you really can't go wrong with this sitting on your CD shelf. Listen to it with the lights out and the music loud, and preferably with your arm around your Significant Other. Bliss.
TRACKLISTING
1. Just to see each other again
2. Here's to the heroes
3. Buongiorno principessa
4. There'll come a day
5. We have all the time in the world
6. Places
7. Les choristes
8. You only live twice
9. Tick all the days off one by one
10. Somewhere in time
11. Who wants to live forever?
12. Gladiatore suite: Now we are free/Il gladiatore
Suggested further listening “Closer” and “Awake” by Josh Groban, “Siempre” and “The promise” by Il Divo, “Sentimente”, “Amore” and “Incanto” by Andrea Bocelli.[/i]