Asia's Very Own SuBo

Well, we have Susan Boyle, and now Asia have its own SuBo in Taiwanese Lin Yu Chung. Now he is a hot favourite to take the top prize in Taiwan's Superstar Avenue show. How to go wrong, give a Chinese kid a Whitney Houston voice.

100 Million Vs 3 Million - The Beautiful Soul Of Eva Cassidy

The Susan Boyle youtube video now has been seen by more than 100m people collectively in just one week. While I am happy for her, I am a bit angry that only a few million (just 3 over million, and this was over a few years mind you) have seen this video of Eva Cassidy.

Many people just had to stop whatever they were doing and just listen to her when they first heard her sing Over The Rainbow. Some even said they were driving and had to pull over, listen to her song which was playing on the radio, and then tears just flowed. Eva touches so many of her listeners because she has a beautiful soul, and you know she sings from a place deep inside her. Eva never had the success she deserved when she was alive, and later she battled cancer but still sang her heart out. She got her fame after she died when some station picked up her recordings, and her albums now have sold millions. If there were so many of you who have watched Susan Boyle or Paul Potts, the least you could do is to give Eva a few minutes of your time, and you will be touched and amazed by her sincerity and talent.

Beautiful Eva died in 1996, from melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. Her music was little-known during her 33 years of life, but today her soul-stirring voice is reaching people all over the world. For some fans, the pleasure of listening is enough. Others want to know more: "Who was this remarkable singer? Why haven't we heard of her before? Just listening to her rendition of Over The Rainbow, you'd never know the song could be so heartfelt and meaningful. Eva's assuredness, phrasing, brings out the lyrics as a genuine soul yearning for redemption and assurance, its reflective and hopeful, achingly beautiful. You know that "somewhere" place she sang about in the song, I am pretty sure she is there now. Now go buy all her albums.
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By Sherri Dalphonse

It was the fall of 1996, and Eva Cassidy was dying. As she lay in bed in the Bowie home of her parents, musicians in a nearby studio were laying guitar, piano, and violin tracks on vocals Cassidy had recorded over the years.

"After they'd finish, they'd come in and say, 'Eva, we just finished one of your songs—would you like to hear it?' " recalls friend Jackie Fletcher. "She had left so many incredible recordings."

Her friends wanted to do something—anything—for Eva. They wanted to share with others a voice that had been little heard outside Washington. Fletcher sent tapes to local radio stations, requesting that they play Cassidy.

"If they'd tell me, 'Jackie, I'm going to play Eva in this hour,' I'd call Eva and say, 'Listen to the station—they're going to play you tonight.' It made her so happy. She had worked so hard, and finally she was getting some recognition."

No one guessed then how the voice of Eva Cassidy would spread.

Four and a half years after her death from melanoma, a posthumous album, Songbird, reached number one on the United Kingdom chart with more than a million copies sold. One Web site devoted to Cassidy—there are five and counting—has messages from fans in Australia, Poland, Hong Kong, even Vatican City. In this country, National Public Radio aired a nine-minute segment on Cassidy in December, and soon her albums occupied five of the top seven slots on Amazon's bestseller list.

What is it about Eva that has created such a sensation?

For one thing, her voice is captivating. Mary Chapin Carpenter, a gifted singer herself, says that the first time she heard Cassidy's voice she "just about fell off the couch."

When radio stations play Eva, their switchboards light up. Many callers say they were in their car when they first heard her and had to pull over to cry.

"Eva evokes that kind of reaction. Not just 'She's good' but 'Who the heck is that?' " says Keith Grimes, who was a guitarist in the Eva Cassidy Band.

Cassidy had great control, phrasing, and range. She was petite—five-foot-two—but could belt out a bluesy "People Get Ready" as easily as she could sing a delicate tune like "Autumn Leaves." Some who heard this soulful Scotch-Irish-German woman thought she was black.

It's more than Cassidy's technical skill that grabs people. It's the sense as she sang that she was reaching from her heart to her listener's.

"There are singers that have great instruments but are just singing the notes," says Grace Griffith, a friend and local chanteuse. "Other singers have emotion but not the instrument. Eva had both."

No song speaks to this expressiveness as much as her rendition of "Over the Rainbow." Cassidy, who loved the Wizard of Oz books as a child, breathed new life into an old song about hope and longing.

An amateur video of Eva shot at Blues Alley, her face full of feeling as she sings "Over the Rainbow," is largely responsible for the big sales in England. It's just about the most requested video in BBC history.

Eva's parents receive two or three letters a week that mention how soothing and uplifting Eva's music is, how it helps them through troubled times. Her mother, Barbara, recalls a letter from a woman who said that when her son died, "the doctor gave her a hug and Eva's record."

In 1998, when David Finn's mother was dying, Cassidy's voice provided comfort.

"With the diabetes, she had lost her sight and was bedridden the last six months of her life," recalls Finn, who once owned an Annapolis restaurant called Pearl's, where Cassidy performed. "We would sing along with Eva's songs. The diabetes causes a lot of pain. It was one of the things that would help ease the pain."

Some may wonder if Cassidy's death at the age of 33 accounts for some of the popularity. No doubt her life story is part of it. But articles about her haven't boosted sales as much as when her songs are played on the BBC or NPR. Hearing about Eva Cassidy isn't as powerful as hearing her.

Says her father, Hugh Cassidy: "The letters, the things I read, more and more confirm that there's something afoot here. It is kind of mysterious the effect it's having."

Eva Cassidy was happiest not in a smoky nightclub but outdoors, where she hiked and biked and basked in the beauty around her. She and her mother—her best friend—went for a walk, bike ride, or drive to the water almost every Sunday.

"She had this old pickup truck, and one time we were on this country road and she started swerving," recalls Barbara Cassidy. "I said, 'What are you doing?' And she said, 'Mom, don't you see those caterpillars? I can't run over those.' "

"She's one of those people who see God in everything," says Keith Grimes. "She had respect and appreciation for living things. She wasn't a religious person in the churchgoing sense, but she was spiritual."

Cassidy's favorite "holiday" was the first day of spring. Her birthday was in February, and she'd save one of the sugar roses off her sheet cake and stick it in the freezer. Then on the first day of spring she'd take it out and savor it.

Cassidy's favorite time was sunset, which she called "the golden time."

"When I'm working out in the shop, I wait for the golden time," says Hugh Cassidy, a retired Prince George's County teacher and a metal sculptor. "You just stop what you're doing and take it in. When I see those golden rays, every once in a while I'll say, 'It's time to put on Eva.' "

The Susan Boyle Phenomena Debated

Sometimes the media can drive something into orbit and then take the other side and whack the same thing down, after being largely responsible for jazzing up the frenzy. Granted, Susan Boyle was very good. The fact that she was frumpy, even a bit fat and not in the requisite package, made her rise to stardom all the more wonderful and appealing. We have a strong streak in rooting for underdogs. Now after all the hype and hoopla, we have the detractors coming in to pour cold water on the Susan Boyle phenomena.

Some would compare her to Paul Potts, who won the previous year. The thing that made Susan's appearance on the show all the more remarkable was that she faced a hostile audience that treated her with complete disdain, yet she silenced and won them over within four or five bars of her song. Potts faced no such hostility during his audition in 2007 and the reason was he knew his place: he was fat, ugly, poorly dressed, a typical "mild, unassuming, probably a loser" and the look of someone who has been probably bullied way too often and discarded when he fronted the judges, it was almost pitiful - like he was bracing for the inevitable rejection. Susan Boyle, however, did not know her place: she was old, fat, ugly, dowdy, unemployed and didn't pluck her eyebrows, yet she had sass, she refused to shuffle meekly onto the stage, her body language said "like it or lump it".

That seems to be a big thing about prejudging people, that everyone should know their place in life, and not step out of those boundaries. If you do not look like a supermodel, don't try to wear those "revealing clothes". Don't pretend to be scholarly and smart when you cannot even deliver a proper sentence in English. Don't attempt to be sexy when you do not have the goods. Don't think you can be accepted by the snobs just because you learn a few simple terminologies from the Wine For Dummies book. Susan basically taught us all that no matter how you look or is presented, you are still a person, not a non-person in the many instances I have cited above.

It's that the judges and most of us that didn't know our place and we ended up looking like morons for judging a person in a singing contest on her appearance. We should embrace and feel comfortable in our own skin. There is nothing wrong with having self confidence and projecting an image of success at all times - even though we may not have the requisite appearance that the shallow society dictates. If you haven't grown out of superficiality by the time you hit your 30s, you probably never will. Aesthetics should always run second to substance.

We all have our Susan Boyles in life, people whom we have prejudged unfairly, and maybe never having given them a decent or fair chance before categorising them. People are only discovering now the way human nature works? If you're physically attractive, people will give you the benefit of the doubt. If you're a hot chick with a nice rack, men will be even more generous to you on a first impression. If you're fugly, people expect you to prove your worth. While that may be the unspoken mantra of the world as we know it, we should all strive to cut that bit by bit out of the already "false world" that we live in and that we somehow built up.

The second part of the debate lies in determining just how really good Susan Boyle was. OK granted, she was good but so too were the hundreds of aspiring singers who tried out for the same role of Fantine for Les Mis in London, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, etc... If you put them together, maybe just 5 final shortlisted candidates for the role of Fantine for each staged musical of Les Mis, you'd have close to 200 candidates. I believe Les Mis has been performed in more than 20 countries already and counting. Thus we can argue that out of those shows, maybe there were 160 really good singers that are still trying out week in week out to make a decent living as a musical actor, and let's say just 20 of them are better than Susan Boyle - what about the fate of these 20 brilliant singers still barely making enough week in week out, who haven't tasted stardom, who are still locked into playing bit parts, waiting for the day for their big chance. The sad thing is for most of them, the big breaks never do come at all.

This puts into perspective that as good as Susan Boyle is, she is but one of thousands of similarly talented people. Her frumpiness and not-so-correct age may have actually given her a better chance at success than the 20 or 30 aspiring professional singers/actors I mentioned earlier, probably better looking and much younger Fantine wannabes in the Les Mis phenomenon.

I did say before that I think Susan Boyle sounded better than Elaine Paige, and she did, but we have to remember that Elaine Paige is more than just a singer, she is a stage and theater musical performer. Elaine is a more complete package when she acts and sings on stage, e.g. her performances in Evita and Cats were absolutely wonderful. I don't wish to prejudge Susan here, but it is probably going to take years of experience and training to sing and act anywhere close to the level Elaine Paige is at. Granted, I still think Susan sounded better than Elaine, its the timbre in her voice and the soaring range (that doesn't go into yelling) she has. Susan will make a good recording artist, probably of heart-stopping show-stopping numbers: Memory (Cats), You'll Never Walk Alone (yes, you Liverpool buggers, the song does not belong to your fucking club, its the magnificent number from the 1945 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel), I Am What I Am (now that would be wonderful to hear.... the song is from one of my favourite musicals La Cage Aux Folles) .... gee, I should get some fees as a producer!!??


So how?


p/s photos: Wen Wen Go

Susan Boyle Is Better Than Elaine Paige

This is precisely why this talent show is a lot more watchable than American Idol. To be in AI, you have to be in a certain package and a certain age. Great talents like Paul Potts and Connie Talbot last year left audiences gasping. This year in Britain's Got Talent, we have Susan Boyle. To me, she already sings better than Elaine Paige and many other Broadway singers. How a voice can suddenly touch and move us is still a mystery.

You look at Susan and you know she probably never was given much of a chance in life. Her song choice was spot on. Its from my favourite musical over the past 20 years, Les Miserables. The song, minus the fatalistic part, could have very well been her theme song - I Dreamed A Dream.

Miss Boyle, who admits she has never been kissed, looks likely to be even bigger than her idol Elaine Paige. The 48 year old charity worker from West Lothian, announced from the stage that her dream was to emulate West End star Elaine Paige. Her eccentric ways and less than polished appearance drew sniggers from the audience when she initially appeared but they were mesmerised from the moment she broke into song and gave her a standing ovation.

Simon Cowell pronounced her voice "extraordinary" and Amanda Holden was reduced to tears by hearing her sing. Piers Morgan, their fellow judge, said the performance was "without a doubt the biggest surprise I have had in three years of this show". Miss Boyle, who says she has never been on a date or even been kissed, is now the favourite to win the 2009 series of Britain's Got Talent. Her story invites comparisons with Paul Potts, the unassuming mobile phone salesman who won the first series of Britain's Got Talent in 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

p/s photo: Yuki Asada