This clip is from last year, but I didn’t know about it until the weekend, when it popped up on my YouTube feed because I had clicked on a different vocal-competition clip. I almost didn’t watch it because I avoid singing-contest shows in general, but like everybody else I was aware of Susan Boyle, the dowdy British woman whose audition went viral because nobody could believe that voice was coming out of that person. That formula must keep these shows in business — people apparently like things that make their jaws drop — because after I clicked on one of them, YouTube coughed up several more, none more stunning than this performance. Susan Boyle has nothing on this gawky 13-year-old girl who turns into a woman possessed once her backing music starts. I mean, show tunes are one thing, but a schoolgirl doing Otis Redding proud is not something you see every day.
