Two North Texans get their chance to impress Randy, Paula and Simon on
tonight's tryout episode of American Idol.
Blake
William Blake, a 22-year-old who's made a name for himself on the Dallas
cabaret circuit, and Daron Beck, 28, the singer/keyboardist for the band
Falkon, both got their shot late last summer during Idol's stop
in New Orleans.
Blake auditioned with "At Last," the Etta James classic that's been a
staple of his show at Bill's Hideaway Clubs on Buena Vista Street. "It
was quite a thrill to meet the judges, the people I've been seeing the
last three seasons," says Blake, who graduated from Plano East High
School in 2000.
Even the notorious Simon Cowell? "Simon is just being honest," Blake
says. "He doesn't have a whole lot of tact, but I don't remember him
being seriously rude to me."
Beck's audition songs were the Tom Jones number "Delilah" and "I Put a
Spell On You."
The judges "told me I should be performing on Rocky Horror
in drag," he told the Denton Record-Chronicle.
Not that he minds. Beck said he didn't fit in with the other Idol
wannabes. He calls them "a bunch of kids who want to be Britney Spears."
As for tonight's show, "I knew they were going to play me up as some
kind of weirdo freak," Beck told the Record-Chronicle. "But
I'd rather be that than American Idol anyway."
So Beck isn't moving on. Blake won't say how his audition went, and the
Fox publicity folks aren't talking either.
Steve Kenny
