Susan and Kate

Remember Kate Smith? She brought a clear, strong voice to the American singing world years ago. When I was a young boy she was still going strong, bringing patriotic and religious music to television in black and white, and a conservative, respectable dress.

Kate has been dead for a couple of decades now, but I was reminded of her when I joined the many million YouTube viewers who heard this lady deliver a demanding selection from “Les Miserables” to a British talent show:

Susan Boyle, Blackburn Scotland

Kate Smith would belt out the long high notes, and put feelings into her music that touched me even at the tender age of whatever I was back in the mid-1950’s. She battled the “Fat Girl” image during her early career, and overcame that cynical “wisdom” from the “savvy” crowd of her own time.

Kate Smith 1909-1986

As did Kate Smith, Susan Boyle put the emphasis on what mattered: the talent that came from within, rather than the surface appearance. It was refreshing, and quite obviously unexpected for the theater-full of people watching the show as well as for the three judges, who ended up with not a small amount of egg on their faces.

It was a reminder to us all that we’ve become a little too caught up in the things Madison Avenue and it’s equivalents elsewhere have defined for us as being “vital”.

So thanks, Susan, for bring us back to earth. Let’s hope what one of the judges termed “the biggest wake-up call ever,” stays with us for a while.