A 12-year-old Scot hoping to make it big on Britain’s Got Talent has told how he took up singing because of Susan Boyle.
Glaswegian Kerr James loved to sing along with his granny Rita to Susan’s I Dreamed A Dream.
Now, a decade after Susan shocked the world, he will perform on BGT tonight. And he hopes to go one better than his idol and win the whole contest.
Kerr told the Record: “I used to watch that first audition on repeat.
“I’ve always watched Britain’s Got Talent with my Granny Rita and I always wanted to audition.
We used to love Susan because of her attitude and because she was Scottish. She was also the underdog who got respect by the way she sang.”
Sadly, Rita passed away two years ago. Kerr said: “It’s a shame she can’t see me on the show but I hope I can do her proud.
“I want to win for her and because it’s the 10th anniversary of Susan’s audition. I got into singing because of Granny Rita and Susan so hopefully I can do well for both of them.”
Viewers will also see the return of Susan in the 10th anniversary week, singing the song that made her a worldwide sensation overnight. But Kerr unfortunately sang on a different day and missed her performance.
He was too young for The X Factor, but he felt in any case that BGT had inspired him to become a musician.
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We can’t give too much away about his audition at the Palladium in London, but tonight could see the birth of a new Scottish star.
Simon Cowell congratulates Kerr on his confidence, telling him he isn’t like any of the usual crop of young hopefuls. And Kerr sounds like an old soul singer as he belts out Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness.
Kerr, who is in first year at secondary school, laughed: “A lot of people say I don’t sound how I look, and that I sound older.
“I like the classic soul singers, and more recently singers like Rag’n’Bone Man, who has that soulful voice.
“I got into soul through my Grandad Carr. I would always sit in the car with him, waiting for my sister Eva to get out of school, and listen to Sam Cooke. It was natural to sing soulfully when I started singing.”
His proud grandad was in the audience at his audition. “On the day, I started to get really nervous,” Kerr admitted. “But as soon as I walked out on stage the nerves fell away.”
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Waiting in the wings with presenters Ant & Dec were Kerr’s parents Robert and Kirsty, who call themselves “the oldest roadies in town” because they have to lug his keyboard around Scotland to gigs.
Kerr is already doing well, having played Glasgow’s Barrowland and King Tut’s for charity shows.
But he started big. He was just seven when he got the part of Oliver in an Apollo Players production at Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre, and he did more musicals before learning the piano and realising he wanted to be a musician.
He started busking on Buchanan Street in Glasgow a couple of years ago, sang at the launch of the European open water swimming championships on Loch Lomond and teamed up with Clyde 1’s George Bowie on a remix of Sweet Disposition. He’s now writing his own songs.
He said: “I hope being on Britain’s Got Talent will lead to me becoming a recording artist and get my songs more exposure. If I can get on the live shows, maybe I’d be able to perform one of my own songs.”
- Britain’s Got Talent is on STV tonight at 8pm.
