Every year American Idol has a ‘Country week’ and while usually reserved for later in the season, they chose to have it the second week into the finalist portion of the show. With Randy Travis serving as the mentor for the vocalists this week, my hope was that it would be a great showcase for Country music and The Grand Ole Opry but in the end it felt like a mixed bag.
Michael Sarver, who I thought would be this year’s ‘country’ singer on the show, started the show off very shaky with a pitchy, nervy, and not very lively rendition of Garth Brooks’ “Ain’t Goin’ Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up).” The judges were mixed and I’ll just say it: it was awful. Allison Iraheta was next and she sang “Blame it On Your Heart” from Patty Loveless. At 16 years old, Allison is the youngest contestant in the group and that usually doesn’t help her but the young redhead sings the song about as well and bluesy as one might expect her to be. While the judges were iffy on it, I think she held her own.
Kris Allen, who sang a-la Jason Mraz last week, did a complete 180 and sang the Bob Dylan-penned, Garth Brooks ‘classic’ “To Make You Feel My Love” straight-up and subdued. It was the first song of the night to gain universal approval of the judges and while he turned the song into torch pop song, it worked. Country week is almost uniformly a bad week for R&B singers and Lil Rounds’ take on “Independence Day” confirms it: she didn’t sing bad, per se but she was always going to be compared to Martina McBride, who in the country canon is like trying to sing a Whitney or Mariah song. You just don’t do it.
Adam Lambert came up nest and as a kid who grew up in stage productions and now wears loads of make-up and paints his fingernails, along with “is he” or “he’s obviously” gay rumors floating, Country music wouldn’t ever have made a good marriage with him. He chose “Ring of Fire,” and sang it in a strange sitar-led Middle Eastern arrangement that worked quite well. There’s no doubting that this young man has the most vocal talent on the show, he just has to reign-in his stage-y delivery if he truly wants to be the next Freddie Mercury. The judges were so-so on it with Randy and the girls loving it and Simon calling it “indulgent,” which it obviously was.
Blind piano man Scott MacIntyre is up next and while the judges love him, I have yet to see him do much of anything on the show and his strange, subdued arrangement of “Wild Angels” was no different. The judges kept praising him but I just don’t get it. Ryan Seacrest compared Alexis Grace to Dolly so naturally, Alexis sings a Dolly song in the form of “Jolene.” Singing the song in the same way that Mindy Smith did on a Dolly Parton compilation, Grace did a smooth, savvy job with the song and managed to make the song his own.
Idol’s current front-runner, widower Danny Gokey sang Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take The Wheel” and while he sounded a little ‘off’ in the verses, his bluesy, Joe Cocker meets Taylor Hicks delivery ended up working really well in the chorus. Still, I disagreed with Kara DioGuardi and Randy Jackson who both wanted Gokey to sing “full-voiced,” instead of building up the song, a position that Paula and Simon disagreed with.
In the surprise of the evening, Anoop Desai, who has showcased his personality in all of his performances on Idol thus far, took the time to serve up a very current “Always On My Mind.” Last week he stunk up the joint and this week he gave one of the Top 3 performances of the night, something all four judges agreed with.
Singing like actress Zoey Deschanel from “She & Him,” a very sick Megan Joy Corkery performed a vomit-inducing version of “Walking After Midnight.” Megan Joy did quite well considering the fact that she had to go to the hospital earlier in the day to get fluids for her flu. The judges, for whatever reason, liked her quite a bit, something that really puzzles me. Singer-songwriter Matt Giraud, who has been compared to Justin Timberlake in the past, gave a performance of Carrie Underwood’s “So Small” that rivaled Anoop Desai’s as the best of the night. It was nuanced, controlled and was the first performance, aside from Adam Lambert, that had the look of a genuine artist and performer who was in control of his performance, not just doing some karaoke performance.
In the end there was very little about the night that was even remotely country or “Grand Ole Opry” except the songs they sang. If I had to guess right now, I’d bet that the final four on this show will be Matt Giraud, Adam Lambert, Alexis Grace and Danny Gokey. As for the chances that Idol turns out a country singer this year, I’d say it’s all but a fleeting thing as there’s virtually no chance that Michael Sarver lasts this week, unless Anoop Desai is voted off by America for the simple fact of his Indian heritage, something that is likely to happen sooner rather than later as Idol has never had a winner who wasn’t white or African American.
Randy Travis' commentary and "mentoring" of the contestants proved to be very bland except for him talking to the artists about being careful where they do their vocal runs. Still, the high profile appearance should have no problem helping Randy's just released double-disc set "I Told You So: The Ultimate Hits of Randy Travis." He'll sing with Carrie Underwood tonight on the results show as will Brad Paisley, who will sing "Then" for the first time.
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