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Will Majesty Rose Be the Next American Idol?

Now that there are eleven American Idol contestants standing and this week will determine the top ten, one might start wondering who will win season 13. One readers’ poll has Caleb Johnson at the top, followed by Sam Woolf and Jessica Meuse. Las Vegas oddsmakers currently have Sam Woolf as a 3/1 favorite, followed by Alex Preston (7/2), Majesty Rose (4/1), and Dexter Roberts (6/1).

A lot can happen week to week, and there is no way to tell who is going to develop into the American Idol. Some seasons, like in the first season, there is a very strong frontrunner who is solid through all of the performances. In other years, someone begins to shine more and more each week, rising to the top. At this point in the season, I would put my money on Majesty Rose, who has been my favorite since the auditions when she sang “Violet Hill” by Coldplay.

Rose, whose real name is Rochelle York, is a young preschool teacher from Goldsboro, North Carolina. So far, she has shown great potential with her voice and the ability to bring her personality into her performances. Last week, the judges criticized her song which started out great but did not finish so well. If Rose can use the criticism to grow as a performer, she could make it to the end. Her best performance so far has been when she showed her high-energy entertainment chops with Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” during the show with the top ten women.

Majesty Rose – Happy – American Idol 13 (Rush… by IdolxMuzic

Caleb Johnson may have the most powerful voice since Adam Lambert was on the show’s eighth season, so Johnson has potential to do well too. But his rock performances have not yet shown the versatility that Lambert displayed during his run on the show. Below is one of his highlights on the show so far, covering “Stay with Me” by the Faces.

Alex Preston may be the contestant who is most ready to make a hit record that would play on the radio today. He could end up being the person from this season who has the most successful career, whether or not he wins. Here, Preston sings Jason Mraz’s “A Beautiful Mess” during Top 13 week.

Sam Woolf, who has a good voice with great potential and the teen vote, understandably has the best betting odds. I was impressed this Top 12 week when he chose a more obscure song, Blind Pilot‘s “Just One,” showing he may have some surprises in store for us.

Dexter Roberts gave a solid country performance of Montgomery Gentry’s “Lucky Man” this week, and Jena Irene Ascuitto has the potential to rise from the bottom three. So those two would round out my top six . . . for now.

[March 14, 2014 Update: Two days after I wrote this post, Majesty Rose ended up in the bottom two, barely missing elimination. Voters have been disappointed by her performances the last two weeks. Her mistake may be going for big high notes that she cannot quite hit consistently. If I were her coach, I would tell her to stop trying to be Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston and to find the songs that fit the sweet spot of her talents. Not every American Idol has to hit those big high notes to win, and many of the contestants who did better than her this week did not even try to hit huge notes. She has the potential for a comeback.]

[March 28, 2014 Update: On the March 27 episode of American Idol, Majesty Rose was sent home after she ended up at the bottom of the voting and by a “narrow, narrow margin” the judges opted not to use their save. Rose is considering whether to pursue music, acting, or continue her teaching. But because she made the Top 10, she will be touring with other American Idol finalists. Now, who are the front-runners to win? From the last few weeks, I would put Jena Irene Ascuitto and Caleb Johnson as the favorites, with an edge to Jena.]

Who is your favorite contestant this season? Leave your two cents in the comments and do not forget to vote.

What You Need to Know for the Final Episodes of “American Idol” Season 13

Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” in Sign Language

How Kiss Wrote the Hit Song “Beth”

Adam Lambert Sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” On Tour With Queen

Final UK Concert of Rod Stewart & The Faces in 1974

Springsteen and Vedder Sing “Bobby Jean”

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

How Kiss Wrote the Hit Song “Beth”

In this video, director Brian Billow imagines how Kiss might have come to write their hit song “Beth” from their 1976 Destroyer album. Bob Winter, executive creative director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, had the idea for the story. Check out this “historically inaccurate tale of the song’s inspiration.”

[2015 Update: If the video does not work for you, it is also available on Vimeo.]

The video, however, is not as “historically inaccurate” as it claims. Guitarist and songwriter Stan Penridge wrote a version of “Beth” while he was in the band Chelsea, which future Kiss drummer Peter Criss joined for awhile. In the song’s original version, the title name was “Beck” after Becky, Chelsea bandmate Mike Brand’s wife, who often called during practices.

Penridge later explained that the genesis of the song is not that far from Billow’s funny video. Penridge stated that the lyrics came “almost word for word, from Mike Brand’s responses to his wife’s constant calls that interupted our rehearsals. It got to the point where I wrote down his remarks over a period of 3 or 4 days . . . ”

Although I have always heard “Beth” as a love song, Penridge explained that one might see the song as “a hen-pecked hubby’s remarks to his nagging wife.” While in David Leaf’s and Ken Sharp’s book KISS: Behind the Mask Penridge acknowledges that the song was “basically written as a joke,” he also appreciates that the song evolved into something different that he also likes.

There are some questions about how much writing credit for the final version of “Beth” should be given to Criss, who sings lead on the Kiss recording of “Beth” and is listed as a co-writer with producer Bob Ezrin. Although sources name Criss as one of the co-writers of the final version, band co-founder Gene Simmons claims that the song was written only by Penridge and Ezrin. Simmons and Criss on not on the best terms, but Penridge seemed to confirm Simmons’s version in a 2000 interview (“Another poorman’s copyright by me in ’70”).

Still, Criss’s relation with the song goes back before Kiss. After Criss was in Chelsea and even before he was in Kiss, he recorded “Beck” with a band called Lips.

The name of the song was later changed to “Beth” so it would be a more recognizable woman’s name. Here is a Kiss version of the song we all know from the 1978 TV-movie Kiss Meets in Phantom of the Park.

After “Beth” was recorded, nobody realized it would become such a big hit. Some band members did not want it on the album, and it was initially released not as a single but as a B-side to “Detroit Rock City.” But then “Beth” became Kiss’s first gold record and one of their most recognizable songs.

No matter what role he played in the lyrics, Criss’s great vocals on the recording certainly helped make it a hit. Others have sang the song too. Eric Singer has rotated in and out and back into Criss’s seat behind the drums with Kiss, so Singer also has performed “Beth.”

There are a number of covers of “Beth,” including a nice one by Adam Lambert when he was on American Idol in 2008. Not surprisingly, the Glee cast performed the song too. Perhaps the most unusual cover appears in the movie Role Models (2008), where Paul Rudd wins back his girlfriend named Beth by making up some new lyrics to the song.

I have not been able to find what happened to Mike Brand and “Becky,” the two who inspired the song. But I hope they are still together and that she still calls him at work after all these years. It would make a great love song.

What is your favorite version of “Beth”? Leave your two cents in the comments. Note: This post was updated March 2014 to include Gene Simmons’s comments about the writing of the song.

Will Majesty Rose Be the Next American Idol?

Adam Lambert Sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” On Tour With Queen

American Idol & the Curse of “River Deep, Mountain High”

Springsteen and Vedder Sing “Bobby Jean”

Dwight Yoakam on Acting and Music

What You Need to Know for the Final Episodes of “American Idol” Season 13

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Adam Lambert Sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” On Tour With Queen

This Tuesday, Adam Lambert began his short tour with Queen in at Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine. Among the songs was the Queen classic, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” While nobody can replace the great singer Freddie Mercury, Lambert has the singing chops to pull off the songs. I am glad that Queen can still tour with a worthy front man, although some may complain that Lambert got his start as a runner up on the reality TV show American Idol. The performance remains a tribute to Mercury, though, as his voice and images appear during the performance, haunting the song and making us miss him even more.