Hollywood Actor Luke Evans Covers Maria Mckee's "Show Me Heaven" On Debut Album ‘At Last,’ Out Nov. 22 On BMG
World renowned star of stage and screen Luke Evans today releases a brand-new track from his debut album ‘At Last’. ‘At Last’ brings together an eclectic collection of modern and classic songs, personally curated by Evans to highlight and complement his unique delivery and vocal style.
Following the release of two previous tracks, "Love Is A Battlefield," which had its first play on Graham Norton’s BBC Radio 2 show, and "ChanginG" which now resides on the Radio 2 B-List, Luke Evans created a frenzy of news and social media activity with a jaw-dropping performance of his version of the Les Mis classic ‘Bring Him Home’ on Strictly Come Dancing’s Remembrance Day show. A truly remarkable vocal performance, set to beautiful choreography by the Strictly professionals, that saw UK TV audiences take Luke Evans, the singer, straight to their hearts.
With his cover of Maria McKee’s classic power ballad "Show Me Heaven," Luke takes things back to the early 90’s – and the golden era of the movie mega-hit. "Show Me Heaven" was one of the biggest hits of the 90’s and featured front and centre as the heart-stopping love theme in Tom Cruise’s NASCAR blockbuster, "Days Of Thunder." On choosing "Show Me Heaven" as one of the twelve tracks for his debut album, Evans said……“There are songs on ‘At Last’ that allowed me to present my own interpretation to them, and others that called for something closer to the original. With ‘Show Me Heaven’, I just wanted to belt out that incredible chorus. It’s such a magical Nineties moment.”
The bold and imaginative selection of songs that have been reimagined by Evans include such modern classics as U2’s ‘"With Or Without You," Pat Benatar’s 80’s power ballad "Love Is A Battelfield" and Cher’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’, along with the Etta James’ Jazz standard ‘At Last’ and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack.
Recorded in early 2019 at the world famous Sarm Studios in London, Luke worked with producer Steve Anderson (Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Take That), The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and in-demand string arranger/composer Cliff Masterson (Kylie, Michael McDonald, Emeli Sandé), who’s stunning work has been used across the world of film and music for decades.
Clearly Evans has always had incredibly strong vocal ability. Growing up with the music of the valleys running through his veins, he left school at 16 and immediately headed to Cardiff to study under the supervision of Louise Ryan, an established singing coach in the Welsh capital.
After winning a scholarship to the London Studio Centre theatre school and graduating in 2000, Luke Evans began his illustrious career on the stage, performing in many of London's West End productions such as Rent, Miss Saigon, and Piaf before making his film breakthrough in the Clash of the Titans 2010 remake. Evans continued to take the film world by storm appearing in huge Hollywood blockbusters such as The Fast and The Furious, The Girl On The Train, The Hobbit, 3 Musketeers and many more.
Despite his obvious musical prowess, it wasn’t until 2017 that the entire world got to witness Luke’s vocal capabilities, in Disney’s highly anticipated, live-action adaptation of the animated classic Beauty and the Beast. Luke starred as lothario and villain ‘Gaston’ alongside Emma Watson’s ‘Belle’, from which he’s amassed well in excess of 100m music streams to his name already. “I’ve always dreamt of having a solo album, something that would just be my voice,” he admits. “And it didn’t happen back then. But then doing movies upped my profile massively – and then came Beauty and the Beast. Alongside that I sang for The Queen’s birthday at the Royal Albert Hall last year, alongside Kylie Minogue, Jamie Cullum, Sir Tom Jones and Sting in the finale. And a lot of people’s ears pricked up after that – they were, like wow, he can sing.”
Luke can currently be seen in Roland Emmerich’s No.1 Box Office hit movie, Midway, alongside Woody Harrelson, Ed Skrein and Patrick Wilson – in theatres now. He’s also filmed Dreamland, co-starring alongside Gary Oldman, Evangeline Lilly and Armie Hammer – due for release in early 2020, as well as the second season of TNT’s The Alienist – coming soon.
For now, Evans is set to focus on his singing career as another, very impressive string to his bow. And with ‘At Last’, he proves that all those years of dipping in and out of the medium have created a force to be reckoned with.
‘AT LAST’ TRACK LIST
1.Love Is a Battlefield
2.First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
3.If I Could Turn Back Time
4.Changing
5.With or Without You
6.I’m Kissing You
7.Show Me Heaven
8.At Last
9.Always Remember Us This Way
10.Say You Love Me
11.Faith’s Song
12.Bring Him Home
MORE INFO ON LUKE EVANS