Mother's Day Talent, For A Sweet Moment

So you can forget the pandemic for a moment, here's a mom who was also a 96-year old contestant recently on "Britain's Got Talent."  Fitting for Mother's Day, right?

Enjoy the sweet vid:

Autistic Girl Wowing Us With Her Rendition Of "Hallelujah"

Kaylee Rodgers, who has autism and ADHD
gives an incredible performance of "Hallelujah"
in a viral video. 

Social media and YouTube is hot with yet another viral version of the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" and it's a good one.  

It's done by a 10 year old girl at the Killard House School in Donaghadee, Northern Island.

On the face of it, she does an awesome job, by any standard. You can watch the video at the bottom of this post.

What's really amazing is the girl, Kaylee Rodgers, has autism and ADHD.

I have ADHD and can barely get my act together. Throw autism on top of that and you get a performance like this? Incredible!

According to the BBC, music teach Lloyd Scates spotted Kaylee's talent and convinced her to sing solos. She was extremely shy and quiet when she first arrived at the school, and the singing is developing her voice and confidence.

"She always loved singing, but it wasn't until she started at Killard House School that she really came into her own," said Kaylee's mom, who gave loads of credit to Scates. "He's like her safety blanket. He's amazing."

So is Kaylee. Give her a listen and hear for yourself:

Two Year Old's Version Of National Anthem Not Soaring, But Beautiful Nonetheless

Trent Harris, age 2 and a half, sings the National
Anthem recently at a New Jersey high school
basketball game.  

At many sporting events, it seems singers try to outdo each other with ever more soaring versions of the Star Spangled Banner. 

It's become kind of like a televised singing competition. Blow the house down with blowtorch vocals or something.  

So it was refreshing, at the start of a recent high school basketball game, that quite another type of singer did his version of the "Star Spangled Banner."

As the Huffington Post notes, Trent Harris might not have hit all the right notes, and maybe he struggled with a couple bits of the lyrics. But that's OK. He's only 2 years old.

That's right. It's probably the youngest age at which I've ever heard the Star Spangled Banner performed. 

Trent's mother said he likes to listen to her sing the anthem before bedtime, so he's pretty familiar with it now. That might sound strange, but Trent's dad is a football player with the Cincinnati Bengals, so the anthem, which starts every NFL game, is a connection to his dad.

Trent didn't practice much before the performance, but as you'll see, below, that's OK. It worked.

I love how he pronounces "glare" and "air" in the part of the Star Spangled Banner that refers to the rockets red glare. 

There was a backup plan in case Trent got cold feet or was too nervous, but he handled the task of singing before the game like an old pro.

Next up: He'll be a competitor on "The Voice" or something.

Watch Trent's awesome rendition of the National Anthem:

Best Roman Catholic Nun EVER Rocks "The Voice"

Some of you might be old enough to remember that strange 1960s show, "The Flying Nun"    

Sister Cristina Scuccia knocks it out of the park
in Italy's version of "The Voice."  

I've got something better for you and it's (mostly) reality: The Singing Nun.  And it's a lot of fun. And surprising.

I'm a sucker for some of those competitive "reality" talent shows and my favorite is "The Voice" 

During the audition rounds, four celebrity judges, all singers and musicians sit in big chairs and listen to contestants perform with their backs to the performer, so the appearance of the singer doesn't influence their decisions.

If the judges like what they hear, they push a big button on their chair, their chair swings around 180 degrees and they get to see what the performer they enjoyed looks like.

Many nations have their own The Voice franchise, including Italy.

This week, all four judges on the Italian "The Voice" LOVED want a performance of Alicia Keys' "No One" as done by a 25 year old women.

All four judges hit their buttons, their chairs swung around and there was the performer, Sister Cristina Scuccia, a Roman Catholic nun. 

When more than one singer turns around, the contestant has to choose which singer will be her coach, to help with future battle rounds and face offs as the ultimate winner is chosen.

Sister Scuccia chose J-Ax, an Italian rapper to coach her, because he was the first to turn his chair around

J-Ax was visibly moved by Sister Scruccia and the fact that she chose him. He said: "If I had found you at Mass I would always be in church. You and me are like the devil and holy water."

I bet even Pope Francis really enjoyed this. Her performance certainly fits in with the Pope's outreach, in making Catholicism relatable to everybody and not just some rich, robed dudes being weird and pompous in the Vatican.

News of Sister Cristina Scuccia's success is going viral today, big time, so we haven't heard the last from her.

Here's the really fun video of the event. It's in Italian, of course, except for the song. But the language is no barrier to understand what is going on:

Singer Rion Paige Is My New Favorite Reality Show Contestant

I know it's a cliche on those dime-a-dozen talent reality shows on TV but I'm a sucker for them anyway.

Rion Paige, 13, singer and future star.  

It's the meme in which a person who has had disadvantages in life goes up on stage and nobody is expecting all that much out of them and then they bring the house down.

Think Susan Boyle as the most famous example.

The latest person in this parade is Rion Paige, 13, who appeared on The X Factor last week.

She has a condition with an alphabet soup name that has left her wrist joints deformed and pretty much useless. She's also blind in one eye.

But on stage, Rion was as vibrant as a ticker tape parade. The cloud of frizzy blonde hair that surrounded her face glowed almost as much as she did.

Then she sang a Carrie Underwood tune called "Blown Away"  She owned the stage as she performed. The girl has star power.

Simon Cowell, the most famous of the talent show judges out there, is on the X Factor panel. He said watching Rion's performance reminded him of the time he first met Carrie Underwood and predicted she would be a star.

"I will say the same thing about you," Cowell told Rion.

We shall see, but I do hope we hear a lot from Rion over the years. Watch the video and judge for yourself: