Welcome to Pure America’s Got Talent

I must admit that I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get this list posted last night. I had it nearly ready and then my internet went out. Oh well, better late than never. Below you’ll find the list of music from America’s Got Talent Top 20:

The Cadence Performed to “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks

Queen Emily Sang “Hero” by Mariah Carey

- Original Music Video
- Live Mariah Carey Music Video
The Wright Kids Sang “Rockin Robin” by Bobby Day

The James Gang Performed “Hit the Road Jack” by Ray Charles

Daniel Jens Sang “I’m Already There” by Lonestar

- Original Music Video
ZOOperstars! Performed to “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C+C Music Factory

- Original Music Video
Neal Boyd Sang the song “Mama” by il Divo


Jessica Price sang the song “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillat

- Original Music Video
Extreme Dance FX danced to the song “Let’s Get It Started” by the Black Eyed Peas

- Original Music Video
Paul Salos sang the song “Come Fly with Me” by Frank Sinatra

You can find the entire list of America’s Got Talent music and songs here.

Below you’ll find a list of all the performances and music from the America’s Got Talent Semifinalists part 4. If you’re looking for the AGT Semis videos, you can find them here. Also, here’s a link to a list of all the America’s Got Talent music from previous episodes.

The fourth episode of the live performance semifinals broadcast from Los Angeles, California on September 3, 2008 had the following performances along with links to the music they used:

Dallas Desperados Dancers
General: The dance team of the Dallas Desperados Arena Football team.
Preliminaries, Week 5: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4):

Bryan Cheatham
General: Singer, a former Chippendale dancer
Preliminaries, Week 5: Sang “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4):

Flambeaux
General: Fire breather
Preliminaries, Week 4: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Only shown briefly in a montage. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4): Received 3 X’s from the judges, who complained his act this time was boring, his timing was slow, and that in general his act was too scary.

Kaitlyn Maher
General: four year old singer
Preliminaries, Week 1: Sang “Somewhere Out There” by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang “When You Wish Upon A Star”
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4): Sang “What a Wonderful World” .

Dorae Saunders
General: transexual Tina Turner impersonator
Preliminaries, Week 5: Lip-synced and danced to “Proud Mary” .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Performed to “The Best” .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4): Performed to “Disco Inferno” .

Donald Braswell
General: Former professional opera singer, his vocal cords were severed in a freak car accident eleven years back. He was told by doctors he might never speak normally again, let alone sing.
Preliminaries, Week 5: sang “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang One Day I’ll Fly Away from the musical Moulin Rouge .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Eliminated (Judges Wild Card)
Semifinals (Part 1): Won the Wildcard slot and returned to the competition.
Semifinals (Part 4): Sang “Impossible Dream” by Robert Goulet

Indiggo
General: Romanian twin sisters Mikaela and Gabriela
Preliminaries, Week 1: Sang “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra
Las Vegas Callbacks: Montage shown singing “Viva Las Vegas” . Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4): Sang an original song.

The Tapping Dads
General: A large group of tap dancing dads.
Preliminaries, Week 7: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4): Performed to “Puttin on the Ritz”

Eli Mattson
General: Singer and pianist
Preliminaries, Week 2: Performed “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang “Your Song” by Elton John .
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed Through.
Semifinals (Part 4): Sang “Nobody Knows it But Me” . Osbourne commented “No dancers, no fire, no backing tracks, just talent.”

Nuttin’ But Stringz
General: Sibling violinists Tourie and Damien. They combine classical music with hip-hop.
Preliminaries, Week 1: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 4): Their performance earned a standing ovation, including the judges.

Below you’ll find a list of the various performances and music from America’s Got Talent semifinalists participating on September 2, 2008. Here’s a link to find all the AGT Semifinal videos from this batch or feel free to browse through the entire list of AGT music.

Texas State Strutters
General: precision dance team from Texas State University.
Preliminaries, Week 6: Performed to “September” as made famous by Earth, Wind, and Fire
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Performed to “Boogie Wonderland”

Michael Strelo-Smith
General: Opera singer who appeared on America’s Got Talent, Season 2, however, was not passed through to the live shows.
Preliminaries, Not Shown: Passed through.
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): sang “Somewhere” from the musical West Side Story
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Sang “I Am What I Am”.

Bruce Block
General: Magician/general performer. Appeared in the previous season of the show as well.
Preliminaries, Week 5: Brock lay on a bed of nails and held a board on top of himself for his assistant to dance on and sing “Anything Goes” . Hasselhoff then asked to stand on Brock as well, to establish that the bed of nails was indeed real.
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): escaped from a straitjacket
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Performed an act where he transformed a divided pantomime horse into a small living pony.

Shequida Hall
General: Female impersonator and operatic singer. Able to sing both in a very low bass range and a extremely high tenor range, sounding both male and female in a single performance.
Preliminaries, Not Shown: Passed through.
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Passed through.
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Sang “I will Survive” completely in falsetto.

The Taubl Family
General: Family performing group. Singers and miscellaneous instruments
Preliminaries, Week 2: Performed “The Sound of Music” from the musical “The Sound of Music”
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Sang and performed to Umbrella by Rihanna

Jonathan Burkin
General: Baton twirler
Preliminaries, Week 1: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Only shown briefly in a montage. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Performed to “I’m Still Standing” . His performance included large amounts of flames, a sequence with him spinning flaming batons around his neck, and a more traditional juggling sequence with the batons.

Sarah Lenore
General: Singer
Preliminaries, Week 4: Sang “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang “Teardrops On My Guitar” by Taylor Swift
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): “Not Ready To Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks

SickStep
General: hip hop dance troop.
Preliminaries, Week 1: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3):

Matthew Piazzi
General: impersonator
Preliminaries, Week 7: Passed through
Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Did impressions of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson, Vince Vaughn, and George Clooney.

Joseph Hall
General: “young Elvis” impersonator
Preliminaries, Week 2: Sang “Hound Dog”
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang “Heartbreak Hotel”
Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
Semifinals (Part 3): Sang “Jailhouse Rock”

I posted the videos from AGT Semis part 2 and all the music from AGT semis part 2.

Tonight they announced which 5 of these 10 AGT semifinalists will be going on to the AGT top 20. To me the only real shocker is the Zooperstars. I was also sad to see Jonathan Arons in the bottom 5, but other than Zooperstars I don’t see an act that he should replace. See below for my full review of the AGT top 40 acts.

5 Acts Going to the AGT Top 20
Queen Emily - She’s the queen. I think we all realized that she’d make the AGT top 20. A wonderful talent, a wonderful stage presence and a wonderful story. She’s just wonderful.
Paul Salos - I must admit that I’m not a huge Frank Sinatra guy, but this guy seems to do him pretty well. Maybe someone who knows Sinatra better than I should judge.
Wright Kids - There’s something nice, unique and innocently wonderful about this act. I think bluegrass music will be better for them, but let’s hope they choose some of the more modern bluegrass music that will be more popular with America.
Daniel Jens - I wonder how long he can last as a military man. He has a nice voice with moments of pure greatness, but also has moments where you just wonder if he should really be on the show.
Zooperstars - I always knew that the Hoff and Sharon Osborne were delusional, but there is just something deeply wrong about putting this act through over BBDC. It’s not even really a competition when you consider which one has more talent. It’s not even close and I feel very bad for BBDC. Piers was dead on with his decision. Too bad Sharon and the Hoff really screwed it up for BBDC.

5 Acts Getting Sent Home
Jonathan Arons - I can see why America didn’t keep him on the show, but he was very entertaining. The guy also has guts to go on AGT with a trombone. Probably the first and last one to do that and actually get compliments from the judges.
Beyond Belief Dance Company - Very unfortunate that we’re not going to see them again, but yet we’ll have to see Zooperstars do more or less the same routine again that we’ve already seen. What a pity. Sharon and the Hoff are fools and I’m sure they’ll later regret this decision.
Kazual - I hope the guy in this group that is a great lead will come back next year as a soloist and really knock it out of there. His voice was really great, but the group as a whole was just so so.
Slippery Kittens - Not my thing. Glad their gone. I did find it unique that such a riska act came from Salt Lake City. I think you can quickly say…not a mormon.
George the Giant - I liked a couple things he did in the beginning, but his performance in the end deserved to be sent home.

Check out the video of the actual announcement:

Most of these seemed really obvious except for Zooperstars and that was just Sharon and Hoff trying to make good television?

Part 3 of the America’s Got Talent semifinals happened tonight. I’ll talk about the results from part 2 of the semifinals in another post. In this post, you’ll find all the videos from America’s Got Talent semifinals including performances by the Texas State Strutters, Michael Strelo-Smith, Bruce Block, Shequida Hall, The Taubl Family, Jonathan Burkin, Sarah Lenore, SickStep, Matthew Piazzi and Joseph Hall.

**Click on the arrows to skip to the next AGT video.

I’ll be posting my commentary on these acts very soon along with link to the AGT semifinal music.

The second episode of the live performance semifinals was broadcast from Los Angeles, California on August 27, 2008. Below you’ll find a list of all the music that was performed on the live America’s Got Talent performance of these 10 contestants and their previous performances on America’s Got Talent.

If you’re looking for the video of their performances, you can find it here. Otherwise, you can look through America’s Got Talent music.

Acts that performed include:

* Beyond Belief Dance Company
o General: 22 member dance troupe from Mesquite, Texas.
o Preliminaries, Week 3: Danced to “Fashionista” . Morgan disliked the group’s outfits and makeup, but loved their performance.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Danced to “Don’t Stop the Music” by Rihanna.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Performed to “When I Grow Up” by the Pussycat Dolls

* Paul Salos
o General: Frank Sinatra style singer/performer
o Preliminaries, Week 3: Sang “Fly Me to the Moon”
o Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Sang “My Way”

* Kazual
o General: A cappella barbershop quartet style group
o Preliminaries, Week 7: Passed through
o Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Sang “Can You Feel It” by The Jackson 5 . They were heavily criticized that, besides the main lead singer, the others did not have solo quality voices and the group should stick to the other three backing up and harmonizing with the lead singer.

* Zooperstars
o General: Oversized animal mascot versions of various sports celebrities, already a popular act at various minor league baseball games and other sporting events.
o Preliminaries, Week 5: Performed to “Tootsee Roll”.
o Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Performed to “Macho Man” and “Y.M.C.A.” by The Village People, including having one of the members swallow a second performer into the costume.

* The Wright Kids
o General: Three children who played the guitar, mandolin and upright bass. Bluegrass group
o Preliminaries: Performance was not televised
o Las Vegas Callbacks: Only shown briefly in a montage. Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Sang “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees

* Jonathan Arons
o General: Trombonist and dancer
o Preliminaries, Week 1: Performed to “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Performed to “Car Wash” by Rose Royce.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through[49]
o Semifinals (Part 2): Danced and performed to “Let’s Groove” and “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire

* Daniel Jens
o General: Singer/guitarist who had just returned from active duty in Iraq.
o Preliminaries, Week 7: Performed “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): sang Michael Buble’s “Home” . Forgot his lyrics halfway through.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Sang “Every Breath You Take” by The Police

* Slippery Kittens
o General: A group of high-energy burlesque strippers comprised of mothers.
o Preliminaries, Week 1: Passed through
o Las Vegas Callbacks: Performance was not shown. Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Performed to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by The Andrews Sisters

* Queen Emily
o General: Emily David, singer
o Preliminaries, Week 6: Sang “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 1): Sang “I’m Every Woman” by Whitney Houston.
o Las Vegas Callbacks (Part 2): Passed through
o Semifinals (Part 2): Sang “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Diana Ross

Tonight’s America’s Got Talent Semis wasn’t nearly as captivating as last night’s America’s Got Talent semis. However, still quite entertaining to watch and one or two that should make it quite a ways. The following acts performed on this show: Beyond Belief Dance Company, Zooperstars, Jonathan Arons, Daniel Jens, Queen Emily, Paul Salos, Wright Kids, Kazual, Slippery Kittens, and George the Giant.

Here’s the video of their semi final acts:

**Click on the arrows on the side to skip to the next act.

Here’s a link to find all the videos of the America’s Got Talent semis.

Look for a full evaluation of tonight’s performances in the next couple days.

In a recent article about Jessica price there were some interesting quotes from Jessica.

On being away from GR and her job at medical supply company PSI: “It’s hard being away from my family. My work has been really great; they totally support what I’m doing (and) let me have as much as I want off. That’s amazing; not a lot of jobs would let you do that.”

On fans: “Oh my gosh, it’s so great. (I’m hearing) from all over the world. People are sending encouraging e-mails. Someone even started a fan club.”

On what she do with the $1 million prize:

“I would probably buy my mom a new car. She drives like a $300 car (that) breaks down all the time. I would take my brothers on a trip; they have never been on a proper vacation. I would save a lot of it, and maybe go shopping.”

Eli Mattson was really quick out of the gates of America’s Got Talent earning high praise from the judges and a lot of coverage by the show. However, Eli Mattson, from what I remember, has gotten very little time on America’s Got Talent during the Las Vegas auditions. More time has been spent on the likes of Opera singer Neal Boyd and Queen Emily. Few people would argue that those two are more talented than Eli Mattson, but I guess you could say they have more compelling stories. Plus, I’m pretty sure they emit much more emotion than the calm, cool and collected Eli Mattson.

All of that said, Eli Mattson did travel over 2000 miles riding by bus to be on America’s Got Talent. He stepped onto the stage wearing a hat and cool confidence, Eli won over audience members singing “Walking in Memphis” while playing the keyboard. Here’s a video of Eli Mattson’s performance of Walking in Memphis:

My only suggestion for Eli is to remember that in a reality TV show like America’s Got Talent, America votes for personality as much as talent. Eli, don’t be afraid to show America your personality if you want to win.

As most of you know, Jessica Price is my favorite singer on America’s Got Talent. I think that I fell in love with her when she was able to show the jaded Brit, Piers, that not all American girls are like Britney and Paris. I’m not sure that she’ll be able to win, but I’d be so happy if she does.

Well, today I came across a story of someone who attended the same church as her. Here’s their story about Jessica Price.

I can’t believe she’s in the top 40! Okay, I can, because I remember the first time I heard her sing. It was at church and right after American Idol first premiered. She started singing a praise song, and my mom and I looked at each other and were like, “She could make it on American Idol.”

Even on the ride home, instead of talking about the churches message we spent the entire ride home talking about how she had a better voice than most people who we hear on the radio. She was probably sixteen at the time, and my mom said, “I bet if she tried, she could be big.” And as silly as this may sound, I said a quick prayer for her right then and there, asking God if he could bless her in a music career. Wouldn’t it be cool if he did?

I wonder if Jessica Price new that people were praying for her to win and be successful. Regardless of whether Jessica continues on from here, God has certainly blessed her music career. Looks like at least a partial if not complete answer to prayer to me.