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Yes! It’s that time of the year. Dust off your favourite Xmas tracks. Take the Chrimbo albums out of those mothballs and whack up the volume.

Over the years we’ve listened to so many tracks together at Xmas, I’ve lost count. However, I’ve put a little Xmas ‘Wish List’ together for us to have a gander at, using, with your permission, the songs and albums I know you love by sheer weight of requests and comment. So…here we go!

I’ve included brief review of the albums here and, as a special treat, I’ve also included links to Amazon if you want to buy the album for yourself or someone special (please note - we’re getting close to Christmas now and Amazon may not be able to deliver in time).

[UPDATE - I've written longer reviews for some of these albums, and put the links below]

Chris Botti – December

With his interpretation of ‘Silent Night’ a perennial favourite with the folks, not to mention the classic renditions of many of the standards from the festive season, this is a must for any lover of cool yule music. The Blue Nile-esque ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’, for example. Great stuff.

» Read the full review of Chris Botti’s December «

Sarah McLachlan – Wintersong

Mere words are not enough to describe the beauty of this lady’s voice. Worth the price of a download or the album simply to hear her sing ‘The First Noel/ Mary Mary’. A sweeping piece, moving from basic voice to an Arabic style montage of rhythm and sonic passion.

» Read the full review of Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong «

Josh Groban – Noel

My favourite American Male Vocalist in progress! Always has been, ever since I first played him all those years ago. When it was released last October, I chastised the record label for being too early for a holiday album. It went on to be one of, if not the biggest selling albums of 2007!

» Read the full review of Josh Groban’s Noel «

Frank Sinatra – The Christmas Album

This does exactly what it says on the tin. Frank at his coolest. Track 6 is one of your faves, judging by the amount of requests for his rendition of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ I receive every year. Just one of those albums you play when good friends are over for a glass of mulled wine.

James Taylor – James Taylor At Christmas

James’ distinctive voice adorns this selection of winter tracks like a warm familiar blanket on a cold and wintry evening. His take on ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ is an essential to anyone’s yuletide listening. It’s not just the voice, it’s the overall atmosphere of this album which makes it one of my ‘specials’.

I Love Xmas – Various
With the squillions of compilation albums out there, you can easily be confused, spoilt for choice, bamboozled… and ultimately disappointed. Do not fear! This is a Christmas cracker of an album. One of those CDs that you whack on when friends arrive for Christmas dinner. You just set & forget.

» Read the full review of I Love Christmas «

(NOTE: This one has been discontinued on Amazon, so I guess you’ll just have to listen to the Christmas shows to hear some of these great tracks).

Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Robbie x

Unlike the other Christmas albums I’ve reviewed this year, I Love Christmas is a compilation by the obligatory Various Artists.

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I went on air just before the release of Josh Groban’s Noel and berated the label for releasing it too early. Dope! You’ve never let me forget that. ‘Noel’ went on to be the best selling album of 2007 in the USA. Not surprising, really. All the faves are there, plus the classic David Foster production and that extraordinary voice.

Read the rest of this entry »

I often say ‘If you’re gonna do a cover version of something, stamp your authority and style on the darned thing, or it may be consigned to the musak shelf in the album collection.’ You never have that fear with Sarah!

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Chris Botti’s December is one of the albums of the festive season for us all. A simple treasure of a collection of the irresistable holiday classics. The delight I get in Chris’s playing is not just his beautiful tone, but he knows when to play that trill or that run and most of all… that note.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, gang!

I had some interesting and frank calls and texts to the show yesterday… Got me thinking… a rare achievement I know, but they did!

I was berated for not playing my weekly Chris Botti and Lara Fabian.

Years ago when I started MWOM, it was my privelege to introduce you to artists and bands not normally heard here in Spain. Fact is, I have always listened to different styles of music… thanks to my upbringing and environment. I’ll explain.

My dad was a Frank Sinatra man, my mum loved Shirley Bassey, my big brother loved the Beatles, my middle brother loved John Mayall, our next door neighbour (Mr. McNish), was a Jamaican who relished Caribbean music… you get the picture. It was a household binded together by, you guessed it… MUSIC.

I remember touring with Black Sabbath, (with Diamond Head), in the 80s when Lita Ford’s drummer swung by whilst I was warming up to play our set and grabbed my headphones to listen to the music I was warming up to…. what was it? Led Zeppelin? Deep Purple? Surely it must be some heavy metal band!

It was ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton John! There ya go… my secret’s out! I love the track, ‘Physical’. I love the guitar solo. I love the way the track moves…and I can’t help it!

Same tour… Black Sabbath through europe… It didn’t matter what time of day, I always had to be there for Sab’s sound check. Why? To listen to Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’. I was addicted to that track for the entirety of the tour. Played over the P.A. of a zillion watts, has that track sounded sweeter since? No way. It was a glorious avalanche of chords and groove and wonder. I’ll never forget that track and what it meant to me.

So when I hear you ask…’where’s Lara” or ‘where’s Chris?’ I can totally understand. You expect to hear certain artists on a Sunday and it’s my job to give you ya fix! Me! A dealer at my age! I thought I was too old and ugly!!

One of the other artists who seems to grab your attention is Yasmin Levy. I’ve a friend, Margot. Scottish. Normal. No preconditions. With M. What you see is what ya get. But a lover of Yasmin Levy? I thought NO WAY! She’s totally besotted with her! As I and millions of others are. Can’t get enough of her.

It just goes to show. With music, it’s beauty walks across party lines, across cultural barriers, haunts the soul…and if not heard on a regular basis? You get withdrawal symptoms!!!!!

See ya tomorrow. Off to the Monday Club… I’ll explain later.

Love ya!

Robbie. xx

Music is more global now than ever before. And that’s down to one thing…the internet.

With the net, it’s possible for a record company to release to the entire world it’s product and within 80 seconds get feedback from critics, fans and retailers alike. There’s a strange word nowadays…retailer. I can not remember the last time I walked into a record store and bought a CD. In the old days I would take the hike over the mountain to Cartagena and visit Alfonso at Carrots CD store, (quite often he’d be waiting with new releases for me), to buy the new album by Travis or Coldplay. Now I buy all my music on Amazon.com! ‘One Click Shopper’ is my mantra now and has been for the last 4 years or so.

I am often asked ‘what’s the biggest band you’ve been in?’ and to this day I still don’t rightly know…but I’ve a sneaky suspicion it’s Alphaville. A German band, they have been around for decades, still going strong, but have been relatively quiet in the UK. Someone said to me the other day, ‘Alphaville? One Hit Wonders!’ much to my surprise. But because they only had two hits in the UK, (’Big In Japan’ & ‘Forever Young’), the listener in the UK assumed that was their career in total. Whereby now you could investigate on the net and discover the dozens of albums & singles sold all over the world to a massive audience and that’s before the net was even a glint in a computer programmer’s eye. Millions & millions of records they’ve sold. So many hits it’s hard to put together a setlist for gigs. Depending on which country we were in would dictate the songs. However if the lads had arrived on the scene now…what a difference!

The video released on YouTube on a Tuesday, the download chart announced Wednesday, the amount of hits on MySpace & Facebook or Twitter calculated by Thursday and quite possibly you will have a hit around the world in less than a week! The power of the net seems to just keep increasing almost weekly.

Of course the music trade has had to adapt, as has the music loving public. But boy are they adapting! It’s a brave new world for us all. However it’s a fantastic world of different acts and styles of music delivered without fuss on to our computers every day. The days of the trek to the record store are well and truly over!

See you next month…keep listening!

Robbie x

This article was originally published in the November Edition of Beachcomber Magazine.

Here is the second Ellis Beggs and Howard video clip that we uploaded to YouTube, again with a link to the “back story”.

Ellis Beggs and Howard - Big Bubbles No Troubles:

Here’s a link to the backstory for this video over on my “official” site: www.robbiefrance.com

Robbie xx

After the recent article about the requests for Ellis Beggs and Howard on MWOM, we scouted around for some better quality video clips to show you. Here’s the first, with a link to little “back story” about the song.

Ellis Beggs and Howard - Homelands:

Here’s a link to the backstory for this video over on my “official” site: www.robbiefrance.com

Robbie xx

Hi, folks.

Welcome to the first article…the first of many…

Just a quick note to the dozens of people who have asked me over the years to play more of my ‘Sunday music‘ during the ‘Drivetime’ programme. I have to say, I’ve taken all the comments on board and decided to make a bit of a compromise. The thing that makes the sunday prog so cool is that there’s nothing else around that compares with it…so why spoil that individuality by placing tracks, normally reserved for My World Of Music,  in the DT show?

I’m flattered that ‘My World Of Music’ should be so highly ranked amongst yas. As long as you like it…I’ll keep doing it. AND I’ll put a couple of MWOM tracks in the DT programme for good measure. How’s that?

Great to see so many people turn up for the CAFE concert at the Playa Grande on the 4th of October. I know there’s a website featuring posts on their forum slagging the acts off, but overall there was a fabulous atmosphere and we raised €6,511.00 for our trouble. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in the music industry for decades, (4 in all), but nothing comes close to working hard and long for your community, no matter how small. And let’s face it… We live in a small, tightly knit community.

Many thanks to all the artists and bands for donating their time & effort so willingly…we’ll be back next year.

So. Until I get more proficient at this blogging lark, I’ll see if I can get my IT manager Dominic in the UK to arrange a seperate section for you to take a peek at the playlist from last sunday’s MWOM.

Talk to yas soon!

Love & Respect,

Robbie. xx

-= Update - 16.10.08 =-

You can now see the playlist here:

http://robbieontheradio.com/playlist/mwom-playlist-for-12th-october

Dom