Susan Boyle: An Unlikely Superstar

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Susan Boyle: An Unlikely Superstar

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Time: December 27, 2011 from 8pm to 9pm
Location: ITV1, UK [GMT]
Event Type: documentary, tv, show
Organized By: Bree
Latest Activity: 3 hours ago

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Susan Boyle: An Unlikely Superstar

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http://www.eurochannel.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=747%3Asusan-boyle-scottish-music&catid=11%3Aallcontent-from-the-old-site&lang=enAallcontent-from-the-old-site&lang=en

Airing times

Susan Boyle: The Story of a Bullied Girl who became a Music Diva

Susan Boyle
Scotland

Presentation:

Susan Boyle is a superstar: the phenomenon of her meteoric rise to fame shook the music industry to its core, and disproved all of the sceptics. Humble, yet ambitious, Boyle is a singer of astonishing talent and touching determination. Just days after the release of her newest hit album, Boyle comes to Eurochannel with a moving special where she reveals the secrets behind her greatest hits.

Susan Boyle broke out onto the worldwide music scene after her appearance on the hit TV musical contest Britain’s Got Talent. She won her auditions in Glasgow with an outstanding performance, paving the way for a career that has become what she described as a “dream come true.”

Despite not fitting into the usual pop-star appearance and a life of constant struggle with bullying and scandal, Susan Boyle has managed to shatter the mould through raw talent and determination. She broke records right from the start, her album I Dreamed a Dream propelled her to international stardom, topping the charts as the fastest-selling debut album to ever appear in the US.

She has travelled the world, singing for the most influential people imaginable: She has performed for President Obama in 2009 and for Pope Benedict XVI in London. Now she is coming to Eurochannel to once again prove her unique brand of charisma by performing and discussing her beloved music.

graysea

I looked up the article and found it is an older report, but I though it was interesting.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/dont-lose-the-tune-warns-man-who-taught-susan-boyle-to-sing-1671687.html

Posted by Grethe on December 05, 2011

Susan's Voice-Coach Fred O'Neil said this:

With her seemingly guileless talent and extraordinary voice she may have conquered the hearts of all she serenades. But the man who taught Susan Boyle to sing said he fears the world's unlikeliest diva is in danger of squandering her gift amid the blaze of publicity surrounding her appearance on Britain's Got Talent.

Her former vocal coach Fred O'Neil said it was critical that the 47-year-old spinster be given space and time to develop. Having devoted nearly six years to nurturing the raw talent he spotted in the church volunteer, spending countless hours running through scales and exercises at his home in Livingston, West Lothian, he said he was delighted at her success.

"I feel great about it," he said yesterday. "I just feel I ought to defend her. I want to see her go about this with some space to breathe a bit and grow."

Boyle's dowdy frock, frizzy hair and angel-like voice have earned her a rapid following. However, Mr O'Neil said he was increasingly dismayed about the way his protégé was being portrayed in the media, where she is routinely described as the "hairy angel" – a name supposed to highlight the dissonance between her soaring vocal talents and her down-to-earth appearance.

Mr O'Neil, 41, who when he is not offering voice lessons enjoys a career as a singer and performer in his own right, fears his former pupil's dream of being the next Elaine Paige could be crushed under the wheels of the publicity machine surrounding the ITV talent show.

"As a singer she always had a lovely, calm, beautiful rounded voice. It is a very good instrument. But I am concerned about her being surrounded by all these PR people that she will not be given the time to sing," he said.

"She is like an athlete – she has to keep using her voice to keep it. If she wants to keep on singing big show songs she has to keep on practising. It is very different from singing for a couple of minutes on Britain's Got Talent."

Boyle has not had any lessons since 2002 and nearly gave up singing after the death of her mother, Bridget. She decided to have one last stab at achieving her dream and her resulting TV performance has so far garnered 25 million hits on YouTube, turned Demi Moore into a fan and left her fighting off offers to appear on US talk shows. The emergence of a "lost" recording of her singing the blues standard "Cry Me a River", made while working under Mr O'Neil, has confounded suggestions that she is a one-hit wonder.

Her former teacher conceded that there were limitations to her voice but said her steely determination to succeed would continue to help her win over audiences while her unique personality could well turn her into a successful actress, too.

But he has reservations about the TV talent show route to fame: "Sometimes I feel it is so sensationalist. I feel they sometimes are not allowing the more intelligent Susan to come forward. I look at the names people are calling her and I think this is worse than what she is leaving behind. This is not respecting someone, saying they have a voice like an angel and then calling them names," he said.

"Susan is a woman you can sit down with and have a very intelligent conversation. She is one person with whom I can say about my own act 'do you think that song should be dropped?' or 'is that working?' She is one person whose judgement you can really trust."

He said the much-reported mild brain damage she sustained during birth barely affected her daily life.

"She is being portrayed as being lucky but she is someone who is not just a talented woman but she has a real intelligence. She may have had the problem when she was born but it does not affect her 99 per cent of the time.

"Cosseting her in this mad, batty thing – that is all right maybe for five minutes in the programme but maybe not in the long term," he said.

The pair have spoken on the phone since her TV debut and he dropped a tape of singing exercises through the front door of her home in Blackburn.

"She is surrounded by PR people and you are not seeing the real person behind this. She is a sensitive woman. She knows what she is doing with a song. I feel bound to dispel this view of her as some hapless, lucky person who was born with this extraordinary voice."

graysea

SUSAN BOYLE - Susan Boyle and Lorraine Kelly interviewed the Scottish:

SUSAN BOYLE - Susan Boyle and Lorraine Kelly interviewed the Scottish

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Story about the dress to be auctioned for charity.

http://www.sellebrity.org.uk/auction/susan-boyles-madrid-performance-dress

Susan Boyle's Madrid Performance Dress

End date:: 05 Dec, 2011 09:00 PM GMT
Time left:: 0d 3h 57m 42s

Current Bid: £525.00 (11 bids)

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Postage (UK only):: £40.00
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Description

A really special piece of music memorabilia.

Susan Boyle has very kindly donated the dress which she wore performing on The Ana Rosa show in Madrid in February 2010.

The dress was exclusively designed and made to measure for Susan by British designer Suzanne Neville.

The dress is silver grey silk Georgette, fully lined , has a fitted moulded bodice and is covered with silver bugle beads.

Your chance to own a piece from probably the biggest success story in talent show history.

Size UK 14-16

graysea

Theatres - Coming Soon - December 8 onwards

Dec 3 2011by Michael Green, Chester Chronicle

COMING SOON

I DREAMED A DREAM (Palace Theatre, Oxford Street, Manchester, June 19-23)

SUSAN Boyle will make a guest appearance in this eagerly awaited new show based on her life story. Starring Elaine C Smith (Rab C Nesbitt) the musical follows Susan Boyle’s rise from humble beginnings to global icon and features signature songs from her multi-platinum selling albums. Ring 0844 372 7272 or visit www.manchesterpalace.org.uk.

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/entertainment-chester/whats-on-chester/2011/12/03/theatres-coming-soon-december-8-onwards-59067-29891980/

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