Watching the 7th season opener of American Idol (and possibly Katy Perry's last), I was glad to see the show employ a new tactic: instead of just a stream of wanna-bes show up to audition, just about all of the performers had a heart-tugging story that brought them to the judges and those stories were explored making the two hour show much more emotional.
Here are just two of those segments:
Odell Bunton Jr. is a security supervisor at the Dallas airport and has five young children. In the show it was revealed that he and his family are living at a hotel--which even though they didn't say it, implied the family is homeless and he's using the money from his overnight shift at the airport to provide a place to stay. Clearly this was an important moment for Odell who can use some good news. And he got it. And wait til you hear him sing.
And then we meet McKenna Breinholt who (bearing a resemblance to a young Sheryl Crow) explains that her mom passed away at a young age but she was raised by a loving and supportive family. McKenna revealed that he love of music came from her mom who actually recorded several of her songs on You Tube (Katy quickly took notes to check those out@) and she performed one of the songs her birth mother had recorded. She also revealed that in three weeks she was going to meet her mother's family and she was very excited. What she didn't know is that her adoptive family brought her birth family members to the audition and, well the rest you have to see!
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