YOU RAISE ME UP ~ JOSH GROBAN

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Bluedreamer's Choice No 30

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You Raise Me Up" is a popular song in the inspirational mould. The music was written by Secret Garden's Rolf Løvland and the lyrics by Brendan Graham. The song has now been covered more than 125 times.The song was originally written as an instrumental piece and titled "Silent Story." The melody is based on a traditional Irish tune (especially the opening phrase of its chorus), the Londonderry Air, which is best known as the usual tune to the 1910 song Danny Boy. Løvland approached Irish novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write the lyrics to his melody after reading Graham's novels^[2]. It was originally released on the 2002 Secret Garden album "Once in a Red Moon," with the vocals sung by Irish singer Brian Kennedy, and sold well in both Ireland and Norway. Originally, Brian Kennedy was supposed to follow Secret Garden on their Asian tour in 2002, but fell ill, and could not attend. He was replaced by Norwegian singer Jan Werner Danielsen, who also later recorded the song together with Secret Garden, but it was never released. British singer Becky Taylor covered the song on her sophomore album Shine (01 July 2003). The song was subsequently recorded by Daniel O'Donnell in 2003 and was a hit throughout Ireland and the UK. Later in 2003, David Foster decided to produce the song after being introduced to it by Frank Petrone of peermusic, the song's publisher. He chose the up-and-coming Josh Groban to record the song, which was accompanied by the great tenor Craig Von Vennik of the Establishment, which proved very popular in the US. His version made it to the top of the Billboard adult contemporary chart and remained there for six weeks. Groban also performed it at Super Bowl XXXVIII, in a special NASA commemoration for the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. A special surprise performance by Groban, for Oprah Winfrey's 50th birthday, also gave "You Raise Me Up" massive international prominence. The Groban recording also was nominated for a 2005 Grammy award. Groban also performed it at the first Idol Gives Back Concert, along with the African Children's Choir. Brian Kennedy re-released the single after performing it at legendary Northern Irish football player George Best's funeral, the song again climbing the UK Charts to No. 4 in January 2006 (named "George Best — A Tribute")

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These Top 50 songs are based on my personal choice and are not listed in order
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TO WHERE YOU ARE ~ JOSH GROBAN

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Bluedreamer's Choice No 29

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"To Where You Are" is a song by American singer Josh Groban that appears on his 2001 debut album. It was written by Richard Marx and Linda Thompson and produced by David Foster. When released as a single in 2002, the song "bubbled under" the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #116 in September of that year. It was more successful on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, where it entered the chart in April 2002 and eventually spent two weeks atop the listing in August. It remained on this chart for 36 weeks. In August 2008, the song spent a week on the UK Singles Chart at #94. Groban has included "To Where You Are" in many of his concert sets in the years since the song was released, including at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway in late 2002. Other singers have performed "To Where You Are" on various talent-search reality television programs, including American Idol, America's Got Talent, Canadian Idol, The X-Factor (UK), Showtime (Croatia) and Pinoy Pop Superstar (Philippines).

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These Top 50 songs are based on my personal choice and are not listed in order
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