Help Marty Brown Live Out His “Wildest Dreams”

On Tuesday, Marty Brown will be performing before a live audience at Radio City Music Hall on America’s Got Talent. As his long-term fans and regular Chimesfreedom readers know, it is a great story for the country singer to be making a comeback. Two decades ago in 1992, Marty Brown was a young man with a dream traveling the country performing in a tour of Wal-Marts. Check out the young Marty Brown singing “Wildest Dreams” in the shoe section of the retail store in 1992.

Help make the wildest dreams of the Brown family come true Tuesday night by picking up the phone, logging onto the AGT website, and/or Tweeting your votes. To vote by phone, call the number they show on your screen for him. To vote by Internet, go here. To vote on Twitter, tweet using the hashtag #voteAGT followed by “Marty Brown.” You get one vote on Twitter but can vote up to ten times each on the phone and on the Internet (for each email address).

Voting begins 10:55 p.m. Tuesday, and the phone voting goes until 1 a.m. EST while the online and Twitter voting goes to 6:00 a.m. Wednesday. For more information and details on the voting times for your time zone, check out AGT’s website. Or you may listen to Brown explain the voting system:

How will you vote? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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  • Marty Brown’s AGT Las Vegas Performance of “When You Say Nothing At All”
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    Saturday Night Live Performers Cracking Up

    Saturday Night Live Chris Farley

    One of the highlights of Saturday Night Live is seeing performers breaking character because they cannot control their laughter — as long as it does not happen too often. This video montage features cast members from various seasons — going back to the late 1970s — as they crack up. See if you can make it through without laughing.

    The term for unscripted giggling is “corpsing,” referring to the fact that the worst time to laugh is when you are playing a corpse. For a discussion of when it is okay for SNL cast members to laugh and when it becomes annoying, check out Slate.

    What is your favorite SNL moment where a performer started laughing? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Marty Brown’s AGT Las Vegas Performance of “When You Say Nothing At All”

    Marty Brown AGT Las Vegas

    As Chimesfreedom previously reported, country singer Marty Brown advanced to the New York rounds of “America’s Got Talent.” Below is a video of what they showed on television from the Las Vegas rounds, including a part of his performance of Keith Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing At All.”

    Howard Stern and Howie Mandel noted that they did not like the performance as much as Marty Brown’s San Antonio performance of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love.” On the other hand, if you saw the entire episode, you would see the show is edited to create drama so it shows the judges saying something negative about everyone. Meanwhile, one of the other competitors noted about Brown, “He makes me like country music.” Most importantly, the judges liked the performance enough to send Brown to the live performances at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. What will Marty Brown do next to win over the judges and America?

    [Update: For a post on Brown’s entire run on America’s Got Talent, check out our post on The Great AGT Rebirth of Marty Brown.]

    What would you like to hear Marty Brown sing next? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Marty Brown Advances to Radio City Music Hall on AGT!
  • The Great AGT Rebirth of Marty Brown
  • Marty Brown: “King of Music Row”
  • New Marty Brown Single: “CrackerJack”
  • Sneak Peak at Marty Brown’s Video for “Whatever Makes You Smile”
  • Marty Brown Gives Emotional Performance in NY: Still the One
  • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Gee Wasn’t Gilda Radner Great (Really Great)

    Gilda Rander Touch Me With My Clothes On The actress and comedienne Gilda Radner was born on June 28, 1946 in Detroit, Michigan, meaning on this birthday she would be in her late 60s if she were still around. It is hard to picture the ever-youthful Radner in her old age. But it is not difficult to imagine what Radner, who passed away from ovarian cancer in May 1989, would be doing now. She would be making us smile.

    I was a kid when Saturday Night Live premiered in 1975, and I remember staying up late to watch it with my older sister and her boyfriend (both who wished I would go to bed). Live television was something new for my generation, and there was something strange and wonderful about the new show. Although I had no idea how the Not Ready for Prime Time Players would ultimately be a constant presence in my life, I did sense that those folks would be around awhile. It was just too bad that some of them like Radner and John Belushi did not stick around longer.

    In 1979, during one of her final seasons on Saturday Night Live, Radner appeared on Broadway in Gilda Radner – Live From New York, and one of the performances was later taped for television. In this segment she captures some of that childhood innocence in the song “Honey (Touch Me With My Clothes On).” If you watch closely, you’ll catch Paul Shaffer on piano, and the saxophone player is Howard Shore, who went on to win three Academy Awards for writing the themes to the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies. [2016 Update: Unfortunately, the video of the performance is no longer available, but you may hear it below.]

    More recently, Radner’s performance of “Honey (Touch Me With My Clothes On)” was sampled in Kid Koala’s “Vacation Island.”

    We miss you Gilda.

    What is your favorite Gilda Radner performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Whose “Hallelujah” Closed “America’s Got Talent”?

    Il Divo Hallelujah

    A lot of readers have been curious about the version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” played over the ending of America’s Got Talent this week. Because we always want to give our readers information about pop culture, it was Il Divo from their 2008 album The Promise. Il Divo is an operatic “pop” group that was created by Simon Cowell and features the international voices of Sébastien Izambard, Carlos Marín, David Miller, and Urs Bühler. [For more recent uses of the song on America’s Got Talent, see below.]

    We initially thought the version may be by Mark Vincent, the winner of 2009’s Australia’s Got Talent, which would make sense. He was 15 when he appeared on the show and has recorded several albums like My Dream – Mio Visione(2009), which includes his version of “Hallelujah.” But if you listen closely to the end of America’s Got Talent, you will notice there is more than one singer in that version. And if you listen to Il Divo, you should recognize it.

    September 11, 2013 Update: Of course, it would not be a competition with singers unless at some point one of the competitors sings the overplayed and misunderstood “Hallelujah.” So, last night on America’s Got Talent Branden James did a nice job performing the Leonard Cohen classic (see video in comments).

    June 10, 2014 Update: Once again, the song “Hallelujah” made a prominent appearance on America’s Got Talent when this week the 20-year-old Anna Clendening, who explained to the judges her struggles with anxiety and depression disorder, gave an emotional performance of “Hallelujah.” Check it out:

    What is your favorite version of “Hallelujah”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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