Another unexpected talent is discovered on Britain's Got Talent. Susan Boyle is an unemployed 47-year old Scottish woman, who has never been kissed. I suspect, like Paul Potts before her, that Simon will be signing her to a fast million dollar contract.

I love stories like this.

Susan Boyle - Britain's Got Talent

Oh my goodness, she's adorable!

C'est magnifique!!! I was moved to tears.

Thanks, cfans.

That was absolutely lovely. I don't think I've ever seen Simon look so unguarded in his enjoyment. Usually you can see the dollar signs in his eyes, but not here. I hope she goes far and really makes people realize you shouldn't judge someone by their appearance and manner.

I totally agree. Very sweet.

Totally agree! I was disgusted by the reaction of the judges and some of the audience when Ms. Boyle walked out on the stage and then said that she wanted to be like Elaine Page.

Thanks for the link!! Such a beautiful voice!! Her voice sounds very youthful as well. I've seen several Britain's Got Talent clips and notice that Simon seems to actually be more polite on that program than on American Idol. I also wonder if he leers at and hits on the beautiful judge Amanda the way he does with Paula!

To be fair to the judges and the audience, I don't think it was her appearance that led them to think she was a joke contestant (or at least it wasn't purely it).

When she came on stage, she acted the part of a wannabe superstar. She sashayed her hips to get a laugh and said she wanted to be like Elaine Page. Now, if you've watched any of these talent contests or even Idol, her profile and stage presence was very much like that of a joke contestant. I mean, how many times have we seen on idol someone claiming to sing like Whitney or Aretha or Brian McKnight only to realize that they don't sing horribly LOL

That said, I love how the judges and the audience owned up to the surprise and gave her the full credit she deserved. I really do hope Susan does well in the competiton! :)

I think the way she acted on stage with the hip sashaying was in response to the buffoon in the audience who wolf whistled at her. From the short interview the hosts did with her, together with her responses to Simon's questions, I would bet that she has spent her entire life being judged on her appearance and like many people who don't meet society's expectations when it comes to physical beauty, she has probably tried to hide the psychological devastation it causes by using comedy to try and deal with it.

If she had come out looking like Paula Abdul (who is around the same age and most people find somewhat attractive), I'm sure the audience would have treated her with respect and, if I can be totally honest, would have expected her to sing well because of the attractive exterior (that is how shallow many people seem to be today). Susan had every right to say she wanted to be like Elaine Page because every single one of us have the right to have aspirations for our future. In Susan's case she actually has the voice to meet her own aspirations, but she hasn't been given the chance because she doesn't look the part - much like Paul Potts. I say bravo to Susan for having the guts to get up on a huge stage in front of millions of people to realize one of her life's dreams - many of us wouldn't have the courage to do that - I know I wouldn't.

Holy guacamole!! She is absolutely adorable! I never dreamed she would sound so angelic. I got goosebumps, then she made me cry! I, too, loved that the audience & judges owned up to prejudging her & recognizing the error of that. I hope she wins it all & gets a kiss from the hunkiest fella she can find, followed by a kiss from her true love(who may be that hunk!!) so that she can have all her dreams in one fell swoop. *sigh* That would be wonderful.

Wow! Watching and listening to Susan was just like watching and listening to Paul Potts for the first time. Cfans, thank you so much for posting this.

Someone posted on youtube that Simon Cowell has already offered her a recording deal with Sony/BMG Britain. Hope it's true!

Here's an article in yahoo on Susan Boyle. She apparently made the top 5000 searches and it does say the following: "In fact, she's already meeting with officials from Mr. Cowell's Sony BMG label"

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92464?fp=1

It would be fantastic if she gets to release an album!

Um, I think Ms. Boyle's tone is much richer than Elaine Page, although I do love Ms. Page.

*runs out the door*

Fantastic post Midge and right on the money.

I'm totally wishing this contestant the best!

She has a gorgeous voice and a sweet demeanor. I don't watch this show, but I'll root for her to win anyway. :)

I've watched this about 10 different times and tear up for her each time. Her voice is so beautiful!! Les Miserables is one of my favorite plays and I love the music. She sung "I Dreamed A Dream" perfectly! I'll buy her CD no matter what type of music she records to support her dream. I also bought Paul Potts' CD and it was beautiful.

Never heard of Elaine Page, so I went to You Tube and listened to her and I think Susan Boyle actually sounds better.

What a sweetheart! Totally enjoyed the video and hope she realizes her dream.

Elaine Page is to the musical theatre of the West End in London as Patti LuPone, Betty Buckley, Bernadette Peters and Marin Mazzie are to Broadway, contemporary contemporaries anyway - earlier generation was Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury. Elaine was the first to play Eva on stage in "Evita" and Grizabella in "Cats" (Memory), and was on the concept recording and in the London staging of "Chess". I always thought Elaine's voice was better live, there's a soft nasal quality that's more prevalent on her recordings.

Susan Boyle's voice has much darker and dramatic shadings in her tone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30aBb7vGQhI
Her first interview on Scottish television.

^^^
Thanks for the interview link!! I was glad they had the written transcript of what they were saying since I wasn't getting all of it.

Of course, I had to look up the word 'gobsmacked' and it means “utterly astonished, astounded"! Good word!!

I can now see why the audience was shocked when she said she would like to be as successful as Elaine Page!

I just saw that the CBS early show is going to do a story on Susan tomorrow (Thursday) morning. It airs here in central PA from 7 to 9 am.

I can't get this lovely talented woman out of my head. I play her song over and over again in my mind. I cannot wait to hear what she sings next.

I watched another slightly longer version of the video tonight. After she leaves the stage, Pierce and Amanda are talking to each other about how amazing Susan was, while Simon sits quietly thinking. I think he was genuinely touched by her. It's nice to see that side of him.

I saw a video of her on the local news last night, I was blown away! She's very talented.

on The Early Show

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4949467n

In this instance, though, I'm sure he knows from the outset that there aren't an infinite number of dollars to be gotten from this woman, has a pretty good idea of how many dollars there actually can be and how to get them, and decided within about eight bars of her song to make the recordings that will reap those dollars. So he was free to just be happy and enjoy the music.

Sometimes I see him look pretty happy on Idol, too. I've seen him beam briefly at Melinda, Elliott, Adam, and others in what I'd call a similar way. He does love talent. But it can't be relaxed beaming because he's too busy calculating whether he can make them the next big pop thing.

With Ms. Boyle....well, there's no possibility of her toppling the Miley's and the Chris Browns of the world, as there conceivably could be with an Idol contestant, and there's no way he could package her to be a pop star of any sort -- he'll just be leaving the packaging the way it is -- plus, the tv show has already uber-successfully packaged her for a certain level worldwide sales as "homely funny cute 47-year-old cat lady who comes out of nowhere to sing like an angel" (that's why Simon does that show, after all) so there just wasn't nearly as much on his mind. He could just enjoy her lovely singing.


The Early Show interviewers annoyed the heck out of me this morning (well, pretty much every morning, in fact...) by starting out the interview with her, telling her she "looked lovely," when I'm 100 percent sure that they didn't mean it. Way patronizing, the jerks.

now Diane Sawyer gets into the act...


http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=13005654

I love Susan's confidence!

Ah, Diane must get into every act, mustn't she? ... I lost all respect for Mike Nichols when he married that woman.

Thanks for the link! Enjoyed the interview and the partial encore of the song! I think she did look lovely!! Pretty outfit and her hair was straighter and styled. I just love her and can't wait for her CD!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXwc-i5eYdU
Here she is on a cd for charity 10 years ago. ''Cry Me a River''. 1,000 copies were sold. Whoever owns them is lucky. She sounds fantastic recorded too.

I agree!

Loved it! Thanks, AvivaDove.

ETA: My 16-y.o. daughter came in to my room as I was listening to this and even she was impressed by Ms. Boyle's voice.

So beautiful!! Thanks for the link!!

I don't think most people would quarrel with that, would they? After all, Page isn't just a singer. She's a singing actress, and when you put together all her attributes -- voice, expression of songs, acting skills, looks, and ability to command a stage -- she's definitely a star. Just saying that somebody else has a more beautiful voice doesn't in the least diminish Page's accomplishments, seems to me. She's got all that stuff, and Susan B. is a heck of a singer. I don't actually think there's a reason to compare them. Each is what she is and is really good at it.

I did the same and thought the same! I listened to EP's 'Memories'...I hope Susan will sing that.

Ms. Boyle could totally nail that song!

Oh my, someone just sent me the link to the video. BEAUTIFUL! I've watched 4 times already. How emotional. She's darling. I wish her the best.

I just listened to Cry Me a River too. Def undiscovered talent. She's wonderful.

AvivaDove, thanks for the link to Susan's version of "Cry me a river". She does have a truly fantastic voice and you are right, she sounds great recorded!!

Here's a link to a yahoo music article about this cover (thanks yamignonette for the link), thought I'd share it here: http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/videogaga...year-old-cover/

Here's a quick excerpt of the article on what Susan thinks of getting an overly extreme makeover:

"I wouldn't want to change myself too much because that would really make things a bit false," she told CNN's American Morning on Friday. "I want to receive people as the real me, a real person."

SUSAN IS AMAZING. I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW A TALENT LIKE THIS HAS BEEN UNDISCOVERED ALL THESE YEARS. SHE SOUNDS LIKE A SINGER THAT I LOVE NAMED LINDA EDER. ANYONE KNOW OF HER. SHE IS GREAT. I WISH SUSAN THE BEST OF LUCK WITH HER CAREER. LIKE ELLIOTT SINGERS LIKE THIS ONLY COME AROUND ONCE IN A WHILE. I AM VERY HAPPY FOR HER. :hooray:

:chloestrain: 4LIFE

I received this in my e-mail today about Susan. I don't know the author, but it is well done.




> More about Susan Boyle...
> "Susan Boyle's story is a parable of our age. She is a singer of
> enormous talent, who cared for her widowed mother until she died two
> years ago. Susan's is a combination of ability and virtue that deserves
> congratulation. So how come she was treated as a laughing stock when she
> walked on stage for the opening heat of Britain's Got Talent 2009 on
> Saturday night?
> The moment the reality show's audience and judging panel saw the small,
> shy, middle-aged woman, they started to smirk. When she said she wanted
> a professional singing career to equal that of Elaine Paige, the camera
> showed audience members rolling their eyes in disbelief. They scoffed
> when she told Simon Cowell, one of the judges, how she'd reached her
> forties without managing to develop a singing career because she hadn't
> had the opportunity.
> Another judge, Piers Morgan, later wrote on his blog that, just before
> she launched into 'I Dreamed a Dream', the 3000-strong audience in
> Glasgow was laughing and the three judges were suppressing chuckles. It
> was rude and cruel and arrogant. Susan Boyle from Blackburn, West
> Lothian, was presumed to be a buffoon. But why? Britain's Got Talent
> isn't a beauty pageant. It isn't a youth opportunity scheme. It is
> surely about discovering untapped and unrecognised raw talent from all
> sections of society. And Susan Boyle has talent to burn. Such is the
> beauty of her voice that she had barely sung the opening bars when the
> applause started. She rounded off to a standing ovation and - in her
> naivety - began walking off the stage and had to be recalled.
> Susan, now a bankable discovery, was
> then roundly patronised by such mega-talents as Amanda Holden and the
> aforementioned Morgan, who told her: "Everyone laughed at you but no-one
> is laughing now. I'm reeling with shock." Holden added: "It's the
> biggest wake-up call ever." Again, why?
> The answer is that only the pretty are expected to achieve. Not only do
> you have to be physically appealing to deserve fame; it seems you now
> have to be good-looking to merit everyday common respect. If, like Susan
> (and like millions more), you are plump, middle-aged and too poor or too
> unworldly to follow fashion or have a good hairdresser, you are a
> non-person. I dread to think of how Susan would have left the stage if
> her voice had been less than exceptional. She would have been humiliated
> in front of 11 million viewers. It's the equivalent of being put in the
> stocks in front of the nation instead of the village. It used to be a
> punishment handed out to criminals. Now it is the fate of anyone without
> obvious sexual allure who dares seek opportunity. This small, brave soul
> took her courage in her hands to pitch at her one hope of having her
> singing talent recognised, and was greeted with a communal sneer.
> Courage could so easily have failed her. Yet why shouldn't she sound
> wonderful? Not every great singer looks like Katherine Jenkins. Edith
> Piaf would never have been chosen to strut a catwalk. Nor would Nina
> Simone, nor Ella Fitzgerald. But then ridicule is nothing new in Susan
> Boyle's life. She is a veteran of abuse.
> She was starved of oxygen at birth and has learning difficulties as a
> result. At school she was slow and had frizzy hair. She was bullied,
> mostly verbally. She told one newspaper that her classmates' jibes left
> behind the kind of scars that don't heal. She didn't have boyfriends, is
> a stranger to romance and has never been kissed. "Shame," she said.
> Singing was her life-raft. She lived with her parents in a four-bedroom
> council house and, when her father died a decade ago, she cared for her
> mother and sang in the church choir.
> It was an unglamorous existence. She wasn't the glamorous type - and
> being a carer isn't a glamorous life, as the hundreds of thousands who
> do that most valuable of jobs will testify. Even those who start out
> with a beauty routine and an interest in clothes find themselves
> reverting to the practicality of a tracksuit and trainers. Fitness plans
> get interrupted and then abandoned. Weight creeps on. Carers don't often
> get invited to sparkling dinner parties or glitzy receptions, so smart
> clothes rarely make it off the hanger. Then, when a special occasion
> comes along, they might reach, as Susan did, for the frock they bought
> for a nephew's wedding. They might, as she did, compound the felony of
> choosing a colour at odds with her skin tone and an unflattering shape
> with home-chopped hair, bushy eyebrows and a face without a hint of
> make-up. But it is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a
> person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of
> themselves. Is that a cause for derision or a reason for congratulation?
> Would her time have been better spent slimming and exercising, plucking
> and waxing, bleaching and botoxing? Would that have made her voice any
> sweeter?
> Susan Boyle's mother encouraged her to sing. She wanted her to enter
> Britain's Got Talent. But the shy Susan hasn't been able to sing at all
> since her mother's death two years ago. She wasn't sure how her voice
> would emerge after so long a silence. Happily, it survived its rest. She
> is a gift to Simon Cowell and reality television. Her story is the stuff
> of Hans Christian Andersen: the woman plucked from obscurity, the buried
> talent uncovered, the transformation waiting to be wrought. It is
> wonderful for her, too, that her stunning voice is now recognised. A
> bright future beckons. Her dream is becoming reality. Susan is a
> reminder that it's time we all looked a little deeper. She has lived an
> obscure but important life. She has been a companionable and caring
> daughter. It's people like her who are the unseen glue in society; the
> ones who day in and day out put themselves last. They make this country
> civilised and they deserve acknowledgement and respect. Susan has been
> forgiven her looks and been given respect because of her talent. She
> should always have received it because of the calibre of her character."