For weeks, Casey Bishop has brought rock ‘n’ roll thunder to “American Idol.” But the Estero teen changed it up for Sunday’s episode.
Instead, she turned down the volume for a classic Hollywood ballad: “Over the Rainbow” from the movie “The Wizard of Oz.”
“Idol” viewers apparently loved what they saw. They voted on Sunday’s live episode and put Bishop in the show’s Top 9 singers. She’ll return to perform again May 2.
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The voters weren’t the only one’s impressed by Bishop. All three judges stood up and clapped after her performance with a string ensemble.
Katy Perry echoed something fellow judge Luke Bryan said on an earlier episode: Bishop is a frontrunner this season — and she just might win the whole thing.
“You can do anything you want!” Perry told her “You can sing rock, you can sing R&B, you can sing standards, you can sing Judy Garland. It’s all inside of you, and it’s so beautiful.”
Judge Lionel Richie said he’s constantly amazed at Bishop’s young age — the same age Garland was when she was cast in “The Wizard of Oz.”
“I keep looking down at 16, wondering what the heck the DNA is made of,” Richie told her. “Because you are hell under pressure. … You’re controlling every facet of your delivery. Rock to ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’ It’s just unbelievable.”
