March 16, 2006
Songs of the South
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It appears Fox TV's "American Idol" has a Jewish contestant heading to the finals. Twenty-seven-year-old Elliott Yamin from Virginia, auditioned for the pop star search and singing competition in Boston, and has gone on to make it into the top 24, and then, on March 9, into the top 12.
With eliminations weekly, it's still open how much farther Yamin will go. As of press time, he remains in the game, however eliminations now take place weekly on Wednesdays, with the public voting by telephone Tuesday evenings to determine who moves on to the next round.
If commentary by judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell are any indication, Yamin should continue to do well. Their remarks have been almost unanimously favorable, and even notoriously harsh Cowell strongly praised Yamin in two out of three recent performances. After Yamin's performance of Stevie Wonder's "If You Really Love Me," Cowell went so far as to tell him, "I think potentially you are the best male vocalist we've ever had."
Yamin has never had any formal vocal training, but keeping up on American Idol isn't the first hurdle he's faced in his life. The young singer is open about his struggle with juvenile diabetes, for which he wears an insulin pump. He also recently revealed on the air that he is 90 percent deaf in one ear.
Regardless of the final outcome, however, Yamin said in an interview on the show's Web site he feels "a total sense of pride and accomplishment" for making it this far.
