{"id":15103,"date":"2016-08-31T10:59:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T14:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15103"},"modified":"2016-11-10T12:44:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T17:44:37","slug":"top-10-raise-goosebumps-in-hoedown-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/top-10-raise-goosebumps-in-hoedown-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 raise “goosebumps” in Hoedown Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The judges have spoken, and the Top 10 contestants in the 2016 Hoedown Showdown preparing to work with mentors to bring out the country star inside them.<\/p>\n

20 of the top emerging country talents from across Ontario entertained crowds last Saturday at Ribfest, hosted by the Town of Aurora at Machell Park.
\nOffering a wide variety of country songs from the classic styles of George Jones and Dolly Parton to the more contemporary sounds of Blake Shelton and The Band Perry, the cream rose to the top and the Top 10 will be performing live before an audience of thousands on September 16, the first night of Magna\u2019s annual Wild, Wild West Hoedown. <\/p>\n

Vying for the crown, which will be awarded that evening, are John Anderson of Barrie, Roy Borden, Jr., of Trenton, Sarah Campbell Mills of Burlington, Cameron von Criegern of Peterborough, Amber Crump of Stouffville, Jade Daniel Eagleson of Millbrook, Josh Ross of Dundas, Mac Shepherd of Keswick, Ryan Vanlieshout of Haliburton, and Patricia Villegas of Newmarket.<\/p>\n

The Top 20, in which Melissa Suma represented Aurora with Roy Orbison\u2019s Crying, were judged by manager Tom Cross, philanthropist Joan Walker, and Magna for Community\u2019s Steve Hinder.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the performance, they said they were looking for those performers that gave them goosebumps and had that extra dose of stardust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got goosebumps when we were picking the Top 20 with two performers because it was something so unexpected,\u201d said Ms. Walker. \u201cTheir voices sounded different from what I expected. They got up there and just owned it. They totally controlled the stage and you were just mesmerized. You don\u2019t have to have the most technically perfect voice, but it is the whole package.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quite simply, Mr. Cross said they were looking for a \u201cstar\u201d: \u201csomeone who needs a little bit of help to be a Canadian country music star.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStars give me goosebumps, stars deliver songs, stars are entertaining and that is what we\u2019re looking for today,\u201d he said. \u201cUniqueness is important. So many people will come up here and sing a cover and there will probably be three people that sing Miranda Lambert songs today. Unless they really turn it into something totally different it is not that unique to me. I am looking for somebody who actually knows who they are and not who somebody else is.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, he said, was the \u201cblurry\u201d part. More straightforward, he added, was the \u201ctechnical stuff\u201d of whether they belong on the stage, whether they are nervous before an audience and, of course, the quality of their voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cSinging is better than having a great voice,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is more important to be a great singer than to have a great voice. Bob Dylan? Great singer, bad voice. Deliver the song. A lot of people in these kinds of contests sing songs they like. They should pick songs they are good at singing. That is the whole deal. A lot of people say, \u2018Oh, man. I love that song on the radio. I\u2019m going to sing that song,\u2019 but it sucks for their voice. The person we want is bright enough to see through that and think \u2018I\u2019m going to sing things that are in my pocket that I believe in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

One such star they cited is Brad Battle, the Ontario singer who came second in last year\u2019s Showdown. Each year, the competitors seem more serious than the last, they agreed, noting many of them had their eyes on the prize \u2013 and that prize was the mentorship week about to begin, not necessarily the chance to perform at Hoedown. At the end of the day it is a talent contest and it gives potential stars the chance to be heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proof is in the pudding,\u201d said Mr. Cross. \u201cBrad is on the radio right now and doing very well with a song called Hung Up, an original song written and recorded between Canada and Nashville. [Winner] Sarah McRae probably won\u2019t end up in the country genre, but that is okay because uniqueness found her. You\u2019ll hear her on the CBC coming up like a Sarah McLachlan kind of artist. That is what turns me on about this: watching people happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The judges have spoken, and the Top 10 contestants in the 2016 Hoedown Showdown preparing to work with mentors to bring out the country star inside them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/2016-09-01-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3VB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 15:10:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}