I smell a scam

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Am I the only one cynical enough to suspect that he's just a good singer acting the role of the chicken catcher?

Don't you just love country??? Us rednecks are what USA is all about.

The faked judge reactions are a little excruciating, but I like it.

agt is so embarrassing compared to bgt

yeah, the “i'll be” at the end was a bit much.

I bet that song really means something to him personally. I wonder what he can do with some drivel they hoist on him.

The guy's got a really good voice. He's not technically spectacular, but he's got it where it counts—raw emotional interpretation—especially for the kind of neo-traditional country he's probably aiming for. I would LOVE to hear him cover Brooks' “Wolves” from _No Fences_. But Jeebus—the Susan Boyle clip wasn't half this cheesy. They really laid it on thick here. When Edwin McCain's “I'll Be (Your Crying Shoulder)” swelled up as he walked off stage, I just about lost it. The producers of the American show must not have any feel at all for the point at which the merely overwrought becomes squirm-inducing sentimentalism and then zooms straight into hilariously bombastic kitsch.

wasn't the original susan boyle named jim nabors?

meh^2

Yup the editors know precisely what they are doing. This clip looks EXACTLY like the Susan Boyle roll-out, right down to initial smirks, the off-stage guy shaking his head and the multiple shots of the dismissive-to-enraptured crowd transformation. They've got the star-maker formula down pat. I'd love to see the raw (i.e. unedited and spliced to create the mood) footage.

meh

Aside from the snide little nod at 1:30, it's a pretty decent performance, wasted before a bunch of people who (as they did with Boyle) wind up eating a lot of humble pie. Folks just never can get over the snap judgment thing, can they?