I didn’t follow ‘The Voice’. I heard a lot about
it from my water aerobics buddies. I managed to watch a bit of one early on
where there was a fat chick, who turned out to be Jimmy Barnes’ daughter
Mahalia (what a name! The expectations!) and a pretty blonde skinny chick. By
then there were no more blind auditions, so it was pretty clear to me in about
3 seconds that, unless Mahalia was really an incarnation of THE Mahalia, she
wasn’t going to have a chance. And so I was right. So I didn’t really bother
with the show after that. Ho-hum, another pretty young skinny girl will win
another pop show. Whatever.
Monday morning I was at the gym and there was a
promo for The Voice playing on the TV which is just on there for a bit of
relief from the boredom of the elliptical trainer etc, and it was the morning
of the Finals. And there were 4 finalists. First, the Katy Perry with the red
hair. Hey, not bad, I thought. Then the blind blonde chick. OK, so-so, I liked
the other one. Then the token older male. Hmm, good, for Vegas maybe. And last,
there was this brunette girl, with a pretty, round, dimpled face and a bit of
the chubbies and THEN she opened her mouth and I nearly fell off the treadmill.
Oh. My. G-d. Why did anyone else even bother? This girl was going to win.
Well, she did. Of course there is the back story
of the girl who lived in refuges and foster homes, 19 years old. So she had a
legitimate right to sing the blues.
She sounded like – who? Like Renee Geyer- Etta
James- Adele- Janis Joplin- Tina Turner- Joss Stone, no, better, like Amy
Winehouse, even better than that- I don’t know who else. A female Joe Cocker.
And I look at this list and most of these people are white people who sound
like black people who invented the art form of Soul. Actually, I even thought
of Fado singers from Portugal. I thought of every man who ever done me wrong, I
thought of how the human spirit can rise above adversity, I got goosebumps, I
wanted to cry. I cannot think of the last time a singer made me feel like this.
In a different- very VERY different way- Cio-Cio San from Madama
Butterfly. But that’s not the same
as this raw, wailing, sweet, gravelly SOUND that came out of this child’s
throat. It was from a different planet.
Karise Eden, congratulations on your win. I hope
you cope with the life which now awaits you. I hope you don’t end up in the
shit like Amy and Janis and Whitney. I look forward to owning many of your
recordings in the future. You deserve success. Just keep it real. Please,
please, keep it real.
This was her blind audition. How clear is it that
she is remarkable????
No comments:
Post a Comment