Hometown fave Kelly Clarkson still rockin' our world
By Heather Svokos
Dear Kelly,
I'm hesitant to ask this, because I know you're ...A) super-duper busy with your Stronger world tour (can't wait for Friday's show at Verizon Theatre! Squeal!)B) insanely popularC) a Ron Paul supporterD) not into chicksBut, I wanted to know if you would ... um ... ugh, this is so embarrassing. Would you be my valentine?OK, well, let me clarify: My crush on you is strictly platonic. (I'm taken, and very much in love.)Also -- and I realize this puts an awful lot of pressure on you -- I'm not asking if you'll be just my valentine. I'm asking for my co-workers, who all seem to have a thing for you (even the jaded music critic who prefers the indie rock of men with beards). North Texans have it bad for you, being the homegirl and all. But, come on, we all know your allure has spread beyond the Metroplex.Let's face it, Kells. You're America's rock 'n' roll sweetheart.I can't picture any other contemporary pop singer who could -- without Bieber-like irony -- lure the disparate likes of ESPN's Chris Berman, James Lipton and TV chef Andrew Zimmern into a Toyota Camry for a moment of rock-out abandon. But there you all are, car jamming as your Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) pumps out of the stereo.I still can't believe it has been 10 years (10!) since you won the first American Idol. Who knew at the time that that would mean anything? It was a show so new, so unproven, that after your judges' audition, you told the cameras: "I was so happy, 'cause the British man didn't make me cry."But when you sang, not only did your voice lay me flat, I loved how your whole face lit up; there was no pretension -- no overdone expressions of divine exaltation. Just pure joy, real emotion and chops, chops, chops.And now, confession time: When they released your version of the Idol-generated A Moment Like This, I was! a littl e worried you might fizzle out, Kelly. And then came that mortifying From Justin to Kelly movie. I could feel your 15 minutes ticking away.Turns out you had other plans, Miss Independent.Over the course of a decade, you keep reminding us you aren't controlled by the starmaker machinery. You've had radio hits and Grammy wins (you're up for another on Sunday), and you've also had showdowns with legendary music producers (Clive Davis) and critics of your weight (God forbid there's a pop star who looks less like an anemic waif than a real human being).But here you are, on the national stage, right where you belong: Sitting at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart with Stronger. World touring behind another hit-fueled album. Proving your mettle on the unforgiving stage of Saturday Night Live; nailing the national anthem at the Super Bowl (Flawless! AND you remembered the words!). Getting ready to hit the Grammys on Sunday night. And in a sure sign that you've outgrown Idol, you're going to be a mentor on a competing show -- NBC's The Voice, which had its second-season premiere Sunday in the primo post-Super Bowl time slot.Whew. So clearly, you're busy (which is why I'll forgive you for not calling back). Still, Valentine's Day looms, and here I am with an unrequited crush. Sometimes the only thing that helps is to obsessively list all the things you love about someone.So now then. Kelly Clarkson, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways.Them pipes1Before Miss Independent came out in 2003, we'd already heard it was co-written by -- and originally for -- Christina Aguilera. So I immediately thought: not gonna like it. While Xtina has technical brilliance, I've never connected with her as a singer. But then Kelly's version hit the airwaves. That techno groove pops in the song's intro, Kelly's voice slides in, at first slinky and seductive, even a touch defiant (Keepin' he! r heart protected/She'd never, ever feel rejected). Then, a simultaneous sonic and vocal blast: She roars out the chorus, taking it through the roof with the throaty, raspy powerhouse of a voice that always stops this short of a scream."After she won, I was skeptical, I was like: 'Is she really gonna have a radio hit or not?'" said Patrick Davis, program director at KISS/106.1 FM in Dallas. "Because that was the big thing at the time: Would these people translate into radio? And then I heard her and I thought ... maybe. But I was won over by Miss Independent, not so much A Moment Like This."When she got a chance to do more of her own stuff, I liked that better," David added. "But right from the beginning, I think, she has been a star."Kris Noteboom, a Burleson High School friend, confirms that: "From the moment she stepped onto campus, it was clear that she was better at singing and dancing than anyone else."Before she'd even hit high school, she was wowing them in the halls of Pauline G. Hughes Middle School in Burleson. Debbie Pesnell, Kelly's former choir teacher, says her husband was Kelly's sixth-grade science teacher. "One day he heard her singing a Mariah Carey song in the hall," she said. "And he came home and said: 'Honey, you've got to meet this kid.'"We got her in choir, and in show choir, and we knew that we had something there. We knew that she had a lot of talent.... Anybody can sing, but she knew how to deliver a song, and she knew how to make that song sing."Girl next door? Try 'edgy fighter'2People have called her the girl next door, but that oversimplifies Ms. Kelly. Her persona is a tapestry of beautiful contradictions: she's down-home, dorky and self-deprecating, but she's also confident, poised and edgy. She's got tattoos (13, by our last count). She listens to Nine Inch Nails when she works out. Her way with an angry breakup anthem -- Since U Been Gone, Mr. Know It All, Stronger! -- has caused people to wonder if she'll be labeled the breakup queen.Hey, she can't help it if she can write and sing about heartbreak in a way that connects with people. Plus, she's said Mr. Know It All is about her struggles in the business, of which she's had plenty -- despite her success."Back in the day, female artists were told to perform and then go sit in the corner," Reba McEntire told Elle magazine in a 2007 story. "Thank God for people like Dolly Parton who took charge. Kelly is the same way. She knows what she wants. She's had a rough go of it in the music business. People think she just won Idol and everything else was easy. Not so. She's had to fight."One of those fights was with the legendary producer Clive Davis. He wanted Kelly's 2007 My December album to be poppier; she wanted to keep it darker and more stripped down. She won the battle.Pesnell remembers that same fierce determination from Kelly's high-school choir days. It didn't matter who she was talking to, Pesnell said. When she thought she was right, she'd fight for herself."There was another My December kerfuffle. When she was set to finally return to the show that spawned her, for an Idol Gives Back charity performance, her label wanted her to push the album by singing the first cut, Never Again. Kelly told Elle: "And I was like, to promote yourself on a charity event is beyond crass. People are starving and dying, and I'm up there singing some bitter pop song? ... I just refused."No surprise then, that she ditched her label, and hooked up with Starstruck Entertainment, headed by Narvel Blackstock -- Reba McEntire's husband.And when people have been critical of her weight, Kelly doesn't dignify the ugliness."When you get so strict [about your diet], that's when you screw up," she told Self magazine in 2009. "For me, it's the times when I'm not paying attention that I end up los! ing weig ht. But I'm never trying to lose weight -- or gain it. I'm just being!"When people talk about my weight, I'm like, 'You seem to have a problem with it; I don't. I'm fine!' I've never felt uncomfortable on a red carpet or anything."She's the anti-diva3Kelly remains the only winner in Idol history who didn't have her audition played in the show's early episodes. Crazy, right?Her lack of blatant rock-star glitz and glam is part of her appeal. She didn't stride onto the stage on Idol like an Adam Lambert, a shock of eyeliner and spiked hair. She didn't look like she was trying out for a pageant, a la Katharine McPhee. She's girly rock, with a dash of tomboy-meets-Annie Hall."She's genuine," Pesnell says. "She doesn't have to wear a meat dress."After one of her Idol performances, Simon Cowell compared her charm to that of Patsy Cline: "You have an amazing voice, and some of these girls are described as divas," he told Kelly. "And divas have to remember: It's another way of saying I have forgotten who my fans are. I don't think that would ever happen to you."Noteboom, her friend from high school, agrees. "Christina [Aguilera] is polished within an inch of her life," he says. "But Kelly, you'll see her, and she'll be rockin' it in a T-shirt and blue jeans. She's never ever forgotten who she is or where she's from. She's not wrapped up in the whole Hollywood thing, she's kind of the antithesis."She's got great taste in music4Sure, she grew up on Whitney and Mariah; for better or worse, she can even do Mariah's dog-whistle note. But, as she told Texas Monthly in 2005, she also got an earful of Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith and hometown favorites the Toadies."The Toadies -- my favorite band of all time!" she told the magazine. "I've gone to about a billion shows of theirs. Todd Lewis' voice, I just love that it's sexy, dirty, drunk, broken. Anything about rock swagger I learned from them. And yeah, I crowd-surfed."In! her sho ws now, she covers Carrie Underwood, Florence + the Machine and the late Etta James; but she doesn't do the obvious hits. During a January show at Radio City Music Hall, in tribute to the recently passed James, Kelly told the audience that she wouldn't do At Last, which in addition to being the song she auditioned with for Idol, is a song that has been covered to death. Instead, she launched into her favorite -- I'd Rather Go Blind. She killed it.Clearly, she won't be pigeonholed. "I've had these meetings with record executives where there is all this deep talk about how to break me out of the American Idol label, and I say, 'Dudes, just let me sing,'" she told Texas Monthly. "It doesn't matter to people how you got into the business. It matters to them how you stay.'"Homegirl makes us proud5Lots of famous musicians say they would be happy playing in podunk clubs or smaller venues -- just as long they can still play music. And pardon our cynicism, but typically, that's just a load of hooey. But when Clarkson says she'd be happy just playing Billy Bob's every Saturday night, we can't help but believe. (Oh, Kelly, you've turned us soft. We hate that.) No matter how high her star rises, we don't see her turning her back on her roots. The self-proclaimed dorky girl from Burleson is North Texas, through and through.And that's just one more thing to make our heart swell. Kelly, you're one crush we never want to get over.