Alyssa Wray (American Idol Photo)
Alyssa Wray, an 18-year-old singing sensation from Perryville, performed the song “I’m Here” from The Color Purple with a live band on American Idol’s Showstopper round Sunday night. Unlike her previous two appearances on the show, Idol did not save her for last. Instead, she was on at the beginning of the show and got a real scare from judge Katy Perry after her performance even though Katy Perry and Luke Bryan both stood to applaud when she finished.
Perry told her some contestants under compensate, others overcompensate during the competition.
“If you have made it this far you have talent but you can’t throw 52 cards at our face,” Perry said.
The judges noted how she was “psyching herself out” hearing the other talent after her song.
“I felt good. I don’t want to go home. I have to stay,” Wray said on the TV show and admitted she had been a nervous wreck with her “body shaking” all day.
Perry told her she was “playing in the big league” now and was not “just a girl from a small town” anymore.
Bryan told her that her audition was “very nice” when the judges had her back to let her know her fate. He said there was a fine line controlling her “powerhouse voice” and blending it together.
“The talent is there,” Bryan said. “For right now we feel like the only thing to say is that we see you going through to the next rounds. You are in the top 24.”
Wray cried as she went off the stage to let her family know in a video message that she had advanced.
“Katy scared me so bad. I thought it was over and I was about ready to cry and I thought I had to be classy,” Wray, a freshman at Northern Kentucky University, said. “I want this so bad. I have wanted this for so long.”
Now the dream continues and she went on Instagram to thank the judge from “the bottom of my heart” for what she called the “most emotional moment in my life thus far.”
