GR SUBO: Posted on SBFII - Rebirth of the Reluctant Star (Susan Boyle)

graysea

Posted on the SBFII by Counic

Rebirth of the Reluctant Star - The Daily Mail

This is a wonderful, long article by Jonathan Brocklebank, who has written about Susan in depth now over several years. Unfortunately, I cannot find an online version to link to so that you can read the whole article. For copyright reasons I can't reproduce it in its entirety here, although nothing in it deserved to be cut. So, I took out parts that I thought were already known by avid fans, as well as some transitional paragraphs which I wish I could have left in because they were by no means throw-aways. Here's what's left - maybe a UK fan can buy the paper and scan the article so that you can read all of it. I left the author's contact information at the bottom of this, in case anyone would like to leave some positive feedback for him.

Title:REBIRTH OF THE RELUCTANT STAR; Four years after she shocked the world on BGT, SuBo is now 'ready' to face her fans alone
Source: Daily Mail (London, England). (July 6, 2013): News: p26.
Document Type:Article
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2013 Associated Newspapers Limited
http://www.associatednewspapers.com/
Full Text:
Byline: by Jonathan Brocklebank

PERCHED in an armchair in a secluded hotel a few miles from Inverness, Susan Boyle looks perilously close to disappearing from view entirely behind the mountain of cards and bouquets filling up her suite.

All morning she has been bombarded with accolades for her near flawless performance the previous evening at the city's Eden Court Theatre, the place where, at 52, she had just launched her career as a touring live artist.

So much could have gone wrong. Miss Boyle, as everyone familiar with her story knows, has led a sheltered life.

........................................... But the opening night of her Scottish tour was an unqualified success. Her fans were in raptures. She had proved to them and, more importantly, to herself that she was capable of fronting a complex stage show, of remembering the words to all two dozen songs, of chatting to her audience between numbers without drying up and of leaving them shouting for more when the curtain fell. All this without - as she would put it - 'making a fool of myself'. She had pulled it off. Surely she should be ecstatic.

'I think things went smoothly last night,' Miss Boyle concedes. 'It was quite humbling. When you go out on a new project you're never sure how it's going to be received and I'm happy to say it's been received rather well, so it's a pleasant surprise.' The singer's tendency for understatement is a recurring theme in our chat. So, too, is her acute embarrassment whenever the subject of men is raised - and the corresponding relaxation of her defences on 'safe' topics such as life at home in Blackburn where she is among friends who respond to her today exactly as they did before her sudden elevation to stardom.
........................And the changes go well beyond the cosmetic.

It has taken time and adjustment, but Miss Boyle is coming to terms with the astonishing statistics behind her success ................................................
More than that, she has developed an understanding of her showbiz narrative - something that, in the bewildering early days of her celebrity, seemed quite beyond her.

She says: 'The idea behind it was the rags to riches syndrome. That probably appealed to a television audience. I wasn't aware of it at the time but, on closer reflection, that was the psychology behind it.

'I was a totally unexpected contestant and it was quite clever the way it was put forward. There was nothing hurtful in it.' .................................................. ..
If Susan Boyle were to survive in showbiz, clearly her career was to be handled with great care. Hence the four-year wait before the launch, this week, of her live shows. Much as she had pestered her manager Andy Stephens to arrange a tour earlier, she realises now he probably was right in holding off so long.

'I'd been harassing him, saying, "When am I going to do it?" But I think he was reluctant because he didn't want to put me into a situation where maybe I would get too nervous or maybe make a fool of myself. He's a very caring person, Andy. He didn't want to put too much pressure on me at that time.' Today Miss Boyle knows much more than she once did about what is involved in putting on a show which involves up to 50 performers on stage during her big production numbers. She has developed stagecraft - something which could hardly come naturally for a shy woman whose talent vastly outstrips her confidence.

She says: 'Someone who has just newly been auditioned, you don't know a lot about the music business. You don't know about presentation and stuff like that. I feel I've been in a training ground, something that has to be gone through gradually and I feel I've reached the stage where I would like to do more live work now.

'Two or three years ago I didn't really have the confidence. I've got the confidence now. That's been building up very slowly.' Curiously, Miss Boyle does not count her appearance before 65,000 pilgrims during the papal visit to Glasgow in 2010 as a stepping stone on her journey to becoming a live performance artist.

'That was an entirely different set of circumstances,' says the devout Catholic. 'That was as part of the Holy Mass that I did that. It wasn't really a performance - it was something you would do anyway if you're asked to do it because it was an honour.

......................................... She admits that she has needed coaching to interact with her audience between songs. And yet the obvious sincerity attached to every word does not come from oratory lessons. It comes from the fact that, in Miss Boyle, there is no showbiz facade. What you see is what you get.

'I'm very down to earth,' she says, sounding noticeably happier to be talking about the Susan Boyle she has always been rather than one she is learning to become. 'I can return to Blackburn where I came from and the people are just on the same level and they have known me all my life and I feel more relaxed.

'I'm just the same as I've always been in Blackburn, isn't that right Lorraine?' Miss Boyle's best friend Lorraine Campbell pops her head round the door from the adjoining room in the suite to give her own take on the phenomenon she has watched from close quarters.

.................................................. .............................
It is doubtful whether anyone knows the real Susan Boyle better than she.

She says: 'You're Susan Boyle in Blackburn. Everyone just goes "Hi Susan" and keeps walking. She's just part of the community.

'But the minute she stands up to perform we actually detach her from who she is and we don't see her as Susan then. In Blackburn, we kind of go, "Wow!".' THERE was a time when, on the advice of her manager and Cowell, Miss Boyle attempted to put at least some of her past life in Blackburn behind her. ...................she bought a [pounds sterling]300,000 villa a few streets away. Ever since, she has referred to it as 'the posh house' - and she has no wish to stay there. 'It's too quiet,' she protests. 'Where I am it's just a nice neighbourhood and I feel comfortable there.' So while her niece Frances now occupies the 'posh house', Miss Boyle is back in the three bedroom council home she shared with her parents before their deaths. The only difference is she now owns it.

Will she ever move away? 'Maybe in the future, but not just now. I'm not ready.' Is the arrival of a life partner, perhaps, a more viable short-term prospect? Miss Boyle giggles nervously at the thought. 'I knew you were going to ask that,' she says, eyes darting around the room for help. None is forthcoming. Her best friend merely confirms she is actively engaged in trying to bring Miss Boyle's long-term single status to an end.

'I'm not on the search yet,' says the singer, 'but when the right guy comes I'll let you know. It's manners to wait until you are asked. It's not the woman's prerogative.' She adds: 'I think my professional life would come first. I'm too busy for boyfriends.' Beneath the giggles clearly lies a well of sadness. It is easy to conclude that at least some of Miss Boyle's confidence issues arise from the absence of a partner. .................................

But life is immeasurably better for the singer than it could possibly have been had she never showed up at the auditions for Britain's Got Talent, that day in 2009.

SHE casually mentions that Elton John has invited her to stay in his suite in Las Vegas and that, when she feels brave enough, she may accept. ....................................
Now she has branched into movies too............. 'The acting was difficult to begin with, but you get used to it. It was good fun,' says Miss Boyle, as her publicist sitting nearby finally loses patience.

'She's not blowing her own trumpet. She was known as the one-take wonder. Everything in one take. They were blown away by her. Look, she's hiding her head in embarrassment. But yes she was - one-take wonder. The director was over the moon.' The nervous giggles are back.

Miss Boyle may not have the psychology of the born performer but, with the right guidance, she has negotiated herself into a place where she can display her extraordinary talent. And she is clearly the happier for it.

.................................................. ...
'I'm very happy, very comfortable,' she smiles. 'I'm glad it happened at my age and not when I was younger because I don't think I would have been able to handle it.

'You have to be mature and know what you're doing. I think I've reached that point now. It happened at the right time and the right place.'

j.brocklebank@dailymail.co.uk

Thank You Counic.

Susan Boyle: Singer and Now Businesswoman

By Marie Sheahan Brown

Who can forget the YouTube masterpiece? She strode and sashayed onto the stage with golden stature and confidence. She sparred wittily with the three famous judges, wearied by their long day of auditions in Glasgow, Scotland. She didn’t look the part of a “professional singer,” although one might perceive that being “currently unemployed” at forty-seven left little extra for beauty-shop pampering. Was she, rather, a comedienne? Susan Boyle audition

Then she sang. The formerly skeptical audience stood enraptured, tears welling as she belted out “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Misérables with stunning clarity and passion.

More than five years after the seven-minute audition video aired on Britain’s Got Talent on April 11, 2009, and promptly hit worldwide news feeds, multitudes in America and beyond remember Susan Boyle. Since she first broke Amazon pre-sale records in September 2009, millions have bought her albums. Each year, a new carefully crafted album has been released in time for Christmas. Since 2009, five albums have garnered sixty-three gold and ninety-four platinum sales levels in forty-two countries. Her sixth album, Hope, will be released on October 21 in the United States.

Scottish and United Kingdom audiences thrilled to Miss Boyle’s first full-length concert tours in 2013 and 2014. Now she’s coming to America—home of an immediate and strong support base—starting in San Diego on October 8, and singing her way across the southern half of the United States at venues in twenty cities. A sweep through the northern states could likely follow in the future.

See http://www.susanboylemusic.com/us/events

Many have written about Susan Boyle’s difficult and graced life. Her 2010 autobiography, The Woman I Was Born to Be, is a good source. Now fifty-three, she carefully revealed late in 2013 that, after decades of mistaken assumptions, she had finally been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. The relief of self-knowledge strengthens and encourages her after a lifetime of dealing with debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, and some difficulty in handling emotions and relating comfortably to people.

“This is a point: People may have problems,” she states in a documentary, “but they’ve got other things as well. And they’ve got a lot more to offer.” (Gammon, Lottie, produced, filmed, and directed. “There’s Something About Susan.” Firecracker Films Ltd. for ITV, 45:37 minutes. 2013)

Fewer analyses have considered her role as a small businesswoman and philanthropist whose personal success has enhanced the lives and small businesses of countless others not only in her native Scotland but also in, for example, America.

Miss Boyle, easily mistaken for a stately five feet ten in the famous video, is, in fact, barely over five feet tall with soft, dainty hands and feet—a huggable China doll. So she does qualify as a smallbusinesswoman despite her multimillions in sales, which also benefit business giants like Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited; SYCOmusic (Simon Cowell); Simon & Schuster, Inc.; Amazon; and, more recently, concert tour bus companies. In significant other ways, she retains her focus on the little ones.

The woman who had “never been married, never been kissed” and remains a virgin has, since 2009, given birth with astonishing fecundity. Lewis Hyde well describes her kind of gift and fertility in his 1983 classic, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property: “I have hoped . . . to speak of the inner gift that we accept as the object of our labor, and the outer gift that has become a vehicle of culture. I am not concerned with gifts given in spite or fear, nor those gifts we accept out of servility or obligation; my concern is the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us.”

Mr. Hyde first explores traditional “gift economies,” in which citizens are considered wealthy not according to how much they acquire but how much they give. In fictional form, Jean M. Auel’s well-researched Earth’s Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear and five sequels) describes the creativity and ingenuity that led people to survive, to form communities, and to work cooperatively for mutual benefit. Goods, services, storytelling and musical talents, art, and many other gifts were appreciated in deeper ways than they might be in a typical “market economy.”

According to reviewer JoAnn Schwartz, “Above all, Hyde is interested in examining the effect our current immersion in the market economy and the myth of the free market has both on our view of gifts and on our ability to give and receive them. The market economy is deliberately impersonal, but the whole purpose of the ‘gift economy’ is to establish and strengthen the relationships between us, to connect us one to the other. It is this element of relationship which leads Hyde to speak of gift exchange as ‘erotic’ commerce, opposing eros (the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together) to logos (reason and logic in general, the principle of differentiation in particular). A market economy is an emanation of logos.

“In a market economy,” Ms. Schwartz continues, “one can hoard one’s goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding—although we generally call it ‘saving.’ In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase—increase in connections, increase in relationship strength. Through this book, Hyde helps us focus on the importance of gifts, their flow and movement, and the impact that the modern market place has had on the circulation of gifts.” (http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html)

Susan Boyle does appreciate the financial security that she had never known, especially in the fearsome years after her mother died in 2007, when Miss Boyle kept her house cold so that she could afford the heating bill. Yet more important, Susan Boyle has said all along, “I sing to make people happy.” When she was a girl, the gift spoke “commandingly to the soul”—her soul. She honed, honed, honed the gift to perfection over decades of world obscurity. She sees with gratitude and humility the effects of this gift on people worldwide. When this gift is pointed out to her in personal conversation, she bows her head and lowers her eyes shyly. “Thank you.”

Miss Boyle’s fame and financial success have boosted tourism modestly in West Lothian, Scotland, with its pastoral more than spectacular scenery, a region that has suffered from bouts of economic depression and unemployment over the past few centuries. In February 2013, for example, following a centuries-old pattern, the main employer in the area—Halls of Broxburn meat processing plant—was closed by foreign owners, leaving 1,700 unemployed.

Lorraine Campbell co-owns and manages The Balbairdie—a nicely refurbished old hotel and pub in Bathgate, West Lothian. When the economy suffers, The Balbairdie feels it. Asked how she copes, Ms. Campbell replied, “You just keep going.” Happily, the local economy has improved some since 2013, according to Ms. Campbell in April 2014.

Miss Boyle has engaged experts like Andy Stephens, manager; Nicola Phillips, publicist; and Andrew Panton, creative and vocal director, to name a few. She has provided jobs for local personal assistants who handle correspondence, scheduling, wardrobe consultation, and myriad other details; gardeners; carpenters to renovate the council house she grew up and still lives in (her first big post-Britain’s Got Talent purchase); a housekeeper; women who fix her hair, do her nails, and apply her makeup for special public appearances and photo sessions; and others who tend to basic needs of a now-busy celebrity who still prefers to live in her home village, stop in at her favorite small shops and establishments, and take the bus.

Miss Boyle has also given seed money and sponsorship for creative business and charitable ventures in her local community and beyond. One start-up, Boyle’s Boutique, is an extended-family cottage industry that sells, among others, products featuring the new Boyle Tartan created for the family. Products may be ordered online.

Susan Boyle’s very capable personal assistant Sadie Boyle (no relation) says Miss Boyle gets about four hundred emails weekly, many requesting her generosity. This kind of response to another’s fame and fortune is not uncommon.

More unusual, and a clearer example of the fruits of the “gift economy,” is the generation of a worldwide community of Susan Boyle supporter-fans who have formed friendships, discovered or rekindled their own creative gifts, invested thousands of volunteer hours, spread financial generosity, and—to a small extent—started creative cottage enterprises for profit or merely to cover expenses.

Several unofficial Susan Boyle fansites live on the Internet. The first and largest, still flourishing, is www.susan-boyle.com. On April 11, 2009, Paul Wood, a London construction worker, watched Miss Boyle’s audition on TV and immediately put up a website. Starting within hours after the audition aired, people from many continents to whom Susan Boyle’s gift spoke “commandingly to the soul” were “irresistibly move[d]” to find out anything they could about her on the Internet. They frequently stumbled across Mr. Wood’s hastily launched site with its prolific discussion threads generating hundreds of written comments every day in the first two months of Miss Boyle’s fame.

To bring some order to the conversational chaos, Mr. Wood launched a companion Forum in June 2009 with more sophisticated software, accessed through the main website. Anyone could (and still can) join for free. The main rules are that one not be an Internet troll (a term and experience many had never heard of), that one behave reasonably civilly as outlined in posted guidelines, and that one not use the Forum itself for commercial purposes (more on that later).

Volunteer moderators and techies keep the discussions and online experience on an even keel. Online advertisements generated by Google AdSense and Amazon sales linked to the website (“SuBo Store”) help pay for the normal operational expenses.

In early 2010, Mr. Wood announced that he was going to auction off the website (some fifty thousand registered members) and its Forum (a few thousand registered members at the time). The worldwide member community could not bear the prospect of being taken over by some unknown commercial entity with other goals. So they decided to bid on the fansite themselves. A few members—by no means wealthy—each voluntarily loaned trusted fellow members a few thousand dollars to buy the fansite during the auction. The effort succeeded in July 2010.

Navigating through some tensions and hurt feelings (typical in any community anywhere), the worldwide Susan Boyle Fans International, Inc. (SBFII) community established itself as a non-profit corporation registered in Delaware, USA. SBFII elects a multinational volunteer board of directors; keeps meticulous financial records and files annual tax returns; maintains bylaws; and holds online annual meetings and elections engaging active members. Technically not a charity, SBFII uses AdSense and SuBo Store income to cover modest expenses and keep a healthy bank balance. Funds left over from voluntary collections (often for tasteful gifts for Miss Boyle for special occasions) are donated to a charity of Susan Boyle’s choice, frequently benefitting children in Scotland. By December 2011, SBFII repaid all interest-free loans given by members to buy the website; it remains debt free. No member gets paid for services to SBFII or personally benefits financially.

From the beginning, even silver-haired grandmothers proficient only with email learned to navigate the fansites in order to participate in a community of people who have experienced an inexplicable response to Susan Boyle—both her singing and her unique way of being—unlike their response to other favorite singers. Within months, members began gathering in person around the globe (often in restaurants, boosting local economies). They attended (and surreptitiously filmed and posted to the fansites for the enjoyment of those who could not attend) Miss Boyle’s performances in various cities (Britain’s Got Talent tour venues in the UK; Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, and more). Supporter-fans flocked to these events even though—until only 2013, when she first tried her own full-length concerts in Scotland—Miss Boyle was slated to sing just one, two, maybe three songs. These gatherings supported local hotels, B+Bs, restaurants, cab drivers, shops, and other travel-related businesses.

Miss Boyle and her team soon experienced that supporter-fans who came to these early events were older or at least more mature than stereotypical rowdies at, for example, Justin Bieber concerts. They saw that typical Susan Boyle supporter-fans are responsible, respectful, fun loving, generative. They include retired or active professionals—teachers, nurses, techies, writers, musicians, artists, farmers, truckers, businesspeople, social workers, radio hosts, professors, lawyers, homemakers, construction workers, postmasters, foresters.

To most gatherings (usually at restaurants) supporter-fans bring homemade memorabilia to share, including commemorative buttons and red scarves to identify themselves in various venues. The popularity of such items led SBFII to add another linked site, “Fan Creations,” linked in turn to the creators’ individual websites. Products include non-Susan-Boyle-related fan creations. Currently, three members offer SuBotique Hand Painted Apparel; Creative Images by tweek (Buttons, Mugs, etc.); and Susan Boyle Professional Singer chronicles gathered from news and other sources.

SBFII members often post creative ideas and images to discuss in writing with one another. Memorably, in 2009, a member from Texas, one from Iowa, and other volunteers, coordinated an international quilting bee. Supporter-fans from every continent, including Antarctica, created and mailed squares for a handmade quilt presented to Miss Boyle at a brunch following her debut solo appearance on the Todayshow on November 23—the day her first album, I Dreamed A Dream, was released in the United States and quickly broke world records in several categories.

Members can upload Susan-related videos that they have created; share poems that they’ve written; upload posters that they’ve designed digitally to document Miss Boyle’s career and accomplishments; upload news reports of supporter-fan activities, complete with photographs; post fine pencil drawings or paintings displaying talent the artists had only recently discovered; and offer a place where members can contribute their own essays. These essays, sometimes written in French or other non-English languages, often try to explain how the wee singer with the big voice; the shy woman who communicates profoundly—cor ad cor loquitur—through music others have written; the multimillionaire who stays in her small lifelong home and still takes the bus—the essentially inexplicable Susan Boyle—“irresistibly moves” them.

SBFII and other volunteers take responsibility to daily and positively post or re-post Susan Boyle news, photos, and encounters on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Their Internet involvement began immediately when Miss Boyle became famous—and once again experienced the bullying known since childhood, only this time inflicted by some members of the media and anonymous commentators. She writes in her autobiography, “What I didn’t know then, because I didn’t have a computer at the time, was that every time there was a mean comment about me in the press, a dozen messages of support would appear in response. On the Internet there was a growing community of fans. I had no idea how many people out there in the world felt moved to stick up for me, and I want to thank everybody for that.” (The Woman I Was Born to Be, pages 188–189)

Miss Boyle’s professional team also encourages creativity from fans. Starting with the first documentary of her life, Susan Boyle: I Dreamed A Dream, produced in 2009 by Talkback Thames, fans were invited via the official www.susanboylemusic.com site (picked up and promoted by volunteer sites) to send short videos of themselves saying “Hello, Susan!” with backdrops representing their locations. Several clips from around the world were chosen for the documentary. As a lead-up to Miss Boyle’s second album, The Gift, she held a worldwide “Susan’s Search” competition, inviting any amateur singer to upload a brief selfie singing “Silent Night.” The winner, Amber Stassi, a thirty-three-year-old paramedic from Brewerton, New York, sang “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with Miss Boyle on the album and at the 2010 outdoor Today show appearance in New York City.

In the 2013 and 2014 concert tours in Scotland and the United Kingdom, Miss Boyle and her team selected local choirs to serve as back-up choruses in every city, receiving standard financial compensation. Already individual choir members in the United States are tweeting: “Aaliyah Buchanan ‏@Itsuko_Sora I’m to pumped, i get to sing for Susan Boyle!!!!” and “Drew Mikuska ‏@DrewMikuska Hahahahaha I’m singing backup for Susan Boyle.”

Already in the twenty cities spanning the southern United States, supporter-fans from as far away as Australia and Scotland are buying tickets. They are organizing pre-concert dinner-camaraderie gatherings for supporter-fans, some of whom they have never met in person but know through their written posts on fansites. Restaurants, hotels, theaters, airlines, public transportation providers, cab drivers, and many small businesses will benefit. Susan Boyle, her team, and numerous music-related vendors will profit.

Yet in Susan Boyle’s “gift economy,” which she neither forecasted nor manipulated, money can facilitate but cannot possibly buy the greatest benefits to the community in which she finds herself to be the generator and principal member. In this higher economy, she is both blessed herself and a blessing to countless others.

As recently reported on her official website, Susan says about her upcoming United States concert tour: “This is a brilliant moment for me. The past five years have been incredible, and it just keeps getting better. I have spoken so often about wanting to tour America and be able to visit different cities for the first time—I’m so excited. This really will be fantastic, and I can’t wait for October. The US embraced and supported me from the beginning, and it really feels like a second home. So I can’t wait to get on the road and perform there.”

Source:Small Business Exchange Northeast