Susan Boyle reveals she could sing at Simon Cowell’s wedding on ‘Wendy’ (video)

graysea

SusanBoyle Fansinternationalinc added 9 photos.

December 3 at 3:41pm ·

Captures by TommyUSA of the Kathie Lee and Hoda "I'll Be Home For Christmas" performance. Beautiful, Tommy! Thank you so much.

graysea · December 4, 2013

Susan Boyle reveals she could sing at Simon Cowell’s wedding on ‘Wendy’ (video)

Susan Boyle visits Good Day NY; second documentary about her life to air internationally

December 4, 2013 by Jamie Leave a Comment

Susan Boyle continued her tour of New York this morning, when she stopped by the Good Day New York studios in Manhattan.

The 52-year old Scottish songbird performed Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas yesterday on the Today Show.

A documentary about her life, There’s Something About Susan, will air on UK’s ITV early this month. Susan’s international fans will also get a chance to see the film, the rights to which have been sold in 88 countries.

Susan has sold a massive 22 million albums worldwide in the four years since her X Factor debut in 2009.

Photo: INFphoto.com

http://www.soallegedly.com/2013/12/04/susan-boyle-visits-good-day-ny-second-documentary-about-her-life-to-air-internationally/

graysea

Loved it! Every bit of it! Fantastic!

graysea

‏@SusanBoyleHQ

Susan's on her way to the studio on the @WendyWilliams show!
Tune in!! pic.twitter.com/gv98v3hrzX

graysea · 3 December 2013

Nightlife & Music

Susan Boyle in Abu Dhabi

Talented Brit, Susan Boyle to perform at the Zayed Cricket Stadium Discuss this article

Embarking on her first solo tour abroad, UK talent show hero and global superstar Susan Boyle is coming to Abu Dhabi on December 13. Gary Green caught up with the extraordinary vocalist to find out more.

When Susan Boyle first stepped foot onto the stage for the audition rounds of UK talent show staple Britain’s Got Talent, no one knew quite what to expect. As soon as she sang her first note though, it was clear that the woman from Fife was unlike any of the other acts that had stood in front of Simon Cowell and co that day. She stunned Cowell and the audience with a powerful yet subtle performance of the iconic song ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ from the well-known musical Les Miserables, went on to finish as the show’s runner up that year and hasn’t looked back since.

Fast forward four years and Susan is still wowing the crowds today. With two Grammy nominations, over 680 million hits on YouTube and 20 million album sales worldwide Boyle is a bona fide international superstar. And when we heard that she would be on her way to Abu Dhabi this month to perform for her fans in the Middle East for the time, we had to grab a word with the woman herself to hear more about her rise to fame.

It’s fantastic news that you’ll be performing in Abu Dhabi. What are you looking forward to most during your show?
I am most looking forward to just being in the country and being able to perform in Abu Dhabi. This will be the very first time I have performed in the Middle East and I am very excited to be bringing my show to this country.

2013 has been a year in which you embarked on your first ever worldwide solo live tour, with your first dates being in Scotland. How important was it for you to start it off at home?
The Scottish people have been an amazing support to me over the past four years. It felt right that I should start at home to say a massive thank you to them all for their loyalty and friendship. I couldn’t have done it without my country behind me and it was the only way I could say thanks for everything. I’m eternally grateful.

Your fans seem to be extremely loyal, some of them flying to see you in concert.
I genuinely think that I am the luckiest singer in the world. My fans are truly amazing people who have been so supportive and followed me to all corners of the globe, including Japan, the USA, Australia, Europe and Scotland. It is always wonderful to see the same familiar faces and the red scarves where ever I go. Really they are an exceptional group of people, even fans who can’t travel around and follow me on tour are fantastic and always manage keep in contact in their own special way. I appreciate every one of them.

It’s been over four years since the video of your Britain’s Got Talent performance took the world by storm. Do you think something like YouTube is necessary for your career now, or do you think you’ve established yourself enough that you can do without it?
I hope I’ve established myself as an artist now, but the YouTube medium is vital, not just for me but all established and new artists. Four years ago I had no clue about YouTube or the power that it holds. Now I do. It kick-started my career overnight because it meant so many people, particularly outside the UK, could see and hear me sing immediately, and has done the same of many people. Between Britain’s Got Talent and YouTube, I have a lot to be grateful for.

This will be your first time performing a full concert outside your home country. Are you excited for this new experience?
Very excited, it will be great! I can’t wait to visit Abu Dhabi. The world, as they say, is my oyster and I can’t wait to travel it performing. First stop the UAE!

We look forward to seeing you in concert. What can we do to welcome you?
Coming to watch the show would be the best welcome Abu Dhabi could offer me. There are a lot of surprises in the show, it’s definitely worth a watch.
Susan Boyle will be performing at the Zayed Cricket Stadium on December 13. Tickets start at Dhs250 and are available fromwww.ticketmaster.ae (800 86823).

By Anna McCormack
Time Out Abu Dhabi, 3 December 2013

http://www.timeoutabudhabi.com/nightlife/features/46628-susan-boyle-in-abu-dhabi#.Up8ziMRDsSa

graysea

Susan is lovely!

graysea

For wonderful video of Susan singing Miracle Hymn in The Christmas Candle with Hans Matheson, click link below.

Watch: Susan Boyle makes movie debut - Yahoo Movies UK

From shy, softly spoken kitchen assistant, to record-breaking singer and movie star in just four years, Susan Boyle' journey since appearing on 'Britain's Got Talent' in 2009 has been phenomenal.

The video of SuBo's first 'BGT' audition, where she wows the judges with a show-stopping rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream' became an international viral sensation, and she's since gone on to become a best-selling recording artist.

The West Lothian singer makes her acting debut in new festive flick 'The Christmas Candle', playing Church Warden's wife Eleanor Hopewell. See how she does in our exclusive clip for you above.

[Susan Boyle tells of biopic plan]

The film, set in 1890, tells the story of a young preacher suffering a crisis of faith, who is confronted by a local myth about a candle with miraculous properties that reawakens his beliefs.

Produced by Big Book Media, a company that specialises in Christian films, documentaries, and animations, 'The Christmas Candle' is based on a novella by Max Lucado, and also stars John Hannah, Lesley Manville and Sylvester McCoy.

Festive... Boyle makes her debut in 'The Christmas Candle' (Credit: Pinewood Pictures)

As you can see from the clip, Boyle is given the chance to demonstrate her singing skills.

Screenwriters Eric Newman and Candace Lee say the script was written with the singer in mind, as Newman explains: “My mother-in-law is a huge Susan Boyle fan and when she stays with us, we play her records.

The script was being written at the same time and I woke one morning and said we have to have Susan Boyle in this film!"

Dreamer... SuBo wowed the BGT judges with a Les Miserables number (Credit: ITV)
Boyle says it was the festive message of 'The Christmas Candle' that convinced her to join the project saying, "It’s all about the magic of Christmas and the Christmas message. The story is inspiring as it tells us never to give up on our dreams and to always believe in miracles - look what happened to me!"

[Have you seen Norwich's Alan Partridge Christmas lights?]

"I hadn't planned to take up acting, but when this came my way it was something that I wanted to take part in because...well, my life for the past four years has been about trying new things and this was a great first acting experience. I was honoured to have been asked."

'The Christmas Candle' is in UK cinemas from December 13, special previews at Vue Cinemas on December 8.

graysea

Big ad for Susan's "Home For Christmas" ASDA

raechelle

6 hours ago

My mam insisted I take this photo of her outside ASDA!! #SuBo #HomeForChristmas

graysea

Very nice!

We have an exclusive interview with James Cosmo (Braveheart, Narnia, Troy) from The Christmas Candle UK to share with you…Don’t forget to purchase your tickets for nationwide previews this Sunday 8 December 3pm here: bit.ly/HNFcXC

Leng

graysea

This is beautiful! Thank you, Tommy for sharing! Wonderful!

graysea

graysea

UK TV Reviewer

ITV, 9:00pm December 12. ...See More

This Week in TV – 7th – 13th December

uktvreviewer.wordpress.com

Here I provide a comprehensive list of the best of the coming week’s TV – which is unusually jam-packed with great stuff! Must be nearly Christmas… Saturday 7th December Stephen Hawking: A Brief Hi...

Thursday 12th December

There’s Something About Susan

ITV, 9:00pm

Despite having found masses of adoring fans after her astounding Britain’s Got Talent audition, 'There's Something About Susan' - ITV, 9:00pm

which was viewed by over 100 million people on YouTube (that’s almost 1/70 people in the world!), Susan Boyle still suffers from terrible anxiety. This isn’t surprising: anyone who has read her autobiography, The Woman I Was Born to Be, will know that she has had a lot to put up with in her life – both pre- and post-BGT fame.

Her anxieties are about to become more intense, however, as she prepares to embark on a nationwide tour of her native Scotland – and then go on to perform in front of a 20,000 strong crowd in the States. This one-off documentary goes behind-the-scenes of the tour, showing how Susan dealt with the pressures of touring as well as the prospect of taking her show across the UK.

graysea

BESTDAILY FILM REVIEW: Christmas Candle

Monday, Nov 25 2013 WRITTEN BY Siobhan Wykes

Susan Boyle stars in an enchanting Christmas film that deserves to be a hit

Susan Boyle's role as the wife of a church warden is small but her sweet face, innocent giggle and enchanting singing only add to the Christmas magic of this feelgood film.

The story is set in the fictional Cotswolds town of Gladbury, where for 200 years, one family has made all the candles and - the villagers believe - an angel touches a single candle every 25 years. The recipient of this 'miracle candle' found their prayers were always answered.

When, in 1890, the candle-maker's son leaves the village, the new vicar introduces electric light to the church and the precious candle goes missing. So the ageing candle-maker and his wife give a candle to everyone in the church and they all hope and pray that theirs is the blessed candle.

Susan Boyle is enchanting

On Christmas Eve, almost every villager believes they have received a miracle. A little boy's stutter has disappeared, another finds work, a grandchild is found and the new reverernd regains his lost faith.

Do angels exist? And can they every grant our Christmas wishes?

Well, it's nice to think that they might – even if it's just on Christmas Eve.

5 out of 5 for Christmas schmaltz.

THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE - Special Preview Screenings 8 December at VUE Cinemas & Nationwide 13 December www.facebook.com/TheChristmasCandleUK

http://www.bestdaily.co.uk/showbiz/news/a533578/bestdaily-film-review-christmas-candle.html

graysea

Wednesday, December 4

Click link below:
http://www.wendyshow.com/2013/11/29/susan-boyle/#.UpzkVMRDsSY

Susan Boyle's Holiday Album | The Wendy Williams Show

wendyshow.com

International star Susan Boyle makes her debut on “Wendy” and performs “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” off her new holiday album, “Home for Christmas.”

Susan Boyle!

International star Susan Boyle makes her debut on “Wendy” and performs “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” off her new holiday album, “Home for Christmas.”

graysea

graysea

THE BREEZE

Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

Mark Leishman

Click link below to here the wonderful interview:

http://www.thebreeze.co.nz/Susan-Boyle-Interview/tabid/1092/articleID/7064/Default.aspx

We caught up with Susan Boyle, chatting about her new album: ‘Home for Xmas’- We talked about her duet with Elvis, the council flat she still lives in, and the possibility of a New Zealand tour.
Posted on Wednesday 27 November 10:42 a.m. Viewed 137

graysea

The Bigger Picture

SusanBoyle Fansinternationalinc

about an hour ago ·

In this blog by Bob Richards, he considers something said recently by perhaps the most successful composer of our time Andrew Lloyd-Webber and what he said about Susan.

Love it, Bob!

The Bigger Picture: Susan Boyle's Impact: Bigger Than You Think!!
bob-richards.blogspot.com

1
Sunday, December 1, 2013

Susan Boyle's Impact: Bigger Than You Think!!

I think one has to be living under a rock not to know of Susan Boyle and her audition on 'Britian's Got Talent' in 2009. Her trying out on show and through the way ofutube went viral around the world and she received immediate international recognition in a way none in history had done. Initially her intent by appearing on the show was to become a professional singing similar to one well known UK stage singer, Elaine Paige. I think it's safe to say Susan's one performance caused her to surpass in notoriety many of the great vocalists of the world. On that day in January 2009 when she sang 'I Dreamed A Dream' she embraced courage and boldness and humorously stated she was going to make the audience rock.

The audience however was world wide or became such when the taping of her audition was shown just a few months later in April. In the years since 09 she's taken her talent travelling internationally and has delighted audiences around the globe. Much could be said about her many achievements but here's one that rightly should be appreciated that will lead one to conclude her impact and influence is even bigger than one would think. Other generations will see it clearly and I trust this one will do so as well. What is it?

Andrew Andrew Lloyd-Webber perhaps the most successful composer of our time recently made comments about his new musical:

'You can never work out in life how anything’s going to go,’ he continues. ‘Take [Cameron Mackintosh’s] Les Misérables. Three or four years ago it was closing around the world and there was no film likely. Susan Boyle comes along and does that I Dreamed A Dream and the show has now become the biggest musical around the world. Just that one little thing turned it around. She could have just as easily have gone on and done Memory [from Andrew’s Cats].’ He twinkles good-humouredly.‘I rather wish she had. I haven’t seen the [Les Mis] film but it’s fantastic for musicals because everybody wants to make them again. Universal has now got Cats out of the drawer in which they locked it years ago when they bought the rights and suddenly they’re talking about a film."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2515039/Andrew-Lloyd-Webber-risqu-new-musical-Profumo-affair--kept-going-months-crippling-pain.html

When assessing what he said I'm thinking it's important that we rightly connect the dots. If he's right in what he's saying then we must conclude not only did Susan bring life back into one play [Les Mis] or the song [I Dreamed a Dream] but she also brought back into the forefront a whole type or genre of music as well!

Consider therefore if and I say IF a whole variety of musical plays go to the big screen, which ALW thinks they will, it should be understood the thing that triggered it is that one day in January 09 when that one hopeful contestant was bold enough and had the courage enough to make her dream come true. Not only did Susan change her own life but she may very of well have changed the course of entertainment including what's seen on the big screen. When we think of impacts we many times associate them with earthquakes. Susan's audition rocked an audience, then the world but aftershocks on other things within entertainment are still taking place!

Here is a link to Susan's original audition http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D5DgQi2oqA

Posted by The Bigger Picture at 7:05 AM

graysea

Click on link below to see Susan's fun calendar:

Susan BoyleFans

http://countdown.susanboylemusic.com/

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