Everyone’s a winner on touch-feely ‘American Idol’
BY PAIGE WISER Tv Critic/pwiser@suntimes.com April 6, 2011 9:18PM
Updated: September 24, 2012 6:25AM
Simon Cowell must be rolling in his “American Idol” grave: The current judges raved about all nine performances Wednesday night, and young girls mobbed the stage after Scotty McCreery’s rockabilly “That’s All Right.” Post-Cowell, the show has become a touchy-feely-fest.
On rock night, thrasher James Durbin slowed it down for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Pia Toscano busted out of her ballad rut for a rousing “River Deep Mountain High,” and the normally laid-back Paul McDonald brought down the house with “Folsom Prison Blues.”
At long last, Wheeling’s Haley Reinhart gave in to the judges’ nagging for some Janis Joplin. Predictably, Reinhart’s throaty growl got a workout on “Piece of My Heart”; predictably, the judges loved it.
