Season three runnerup Diana DeGarmo spoke with on and off for about 20 minutes in section 107 at Turner Field near the Braves dugout before the hometown opening day game tonight as she prepped to do the National Anthem. Here are some photos I took:
ABOVE: Diana confers with her onsite “handler” Austin Rhodes
Sarah Averill, 9, poses with Diana after she sings.
ABOVE: Diana sings near the pitching mound.
ABOVE: A closeup from the monstrous Turner field screen.
Diana is a veteran of singing the National Anthem at sporting events. She has sung for Georgia Tech, the Falcons, the Hawks and the Braves to name a few. Her first time for the Braves was 12 years ago as a third grader. “I was so nervous, my knees were shaking,” she said, dressed in a red shirt, white jacket and blue jeans. “I did it every year for the Braves until I was 18.” Prior to doing the opening day, her biggest National Anthem for the Braves was July 4th after Idol in 2004. At the time, she even got an official DeGarmo Braves jersey. Last year was the first year she went to opening day just for fun and recalled that it was “freezing.”
She says she always wears some sort of red, white and blue get up for the National Anthem. “I’ve just toned down the rhinestones and sparklies,” she said.
Although she doesn’t need to do anthems anymore, she likes to do it to get to go to a game for free as a Braves fan.
Tonight, she did a robust but very straightforward National Anthem. She holds the word “free” extra long and gets huge applause. “It’s a really important song for everybody including me so I don’t mess with it,” she said.
Diana said she’s never had a chance to meet any of the big stars like Chipper Jones and John Smoltz. She becomes quite self-deprecating. “I’m not at that level of coolness,” she said. “One day maybe when I’m a multiplatinum star.”
She said last year, Georgia Tech’s national anthem singer had gotten sick at the last second and they called her three hours before the game. She was at the mall at the time so she ran home to change, then got stuck in traffic. Fortunately, she had a friend with her who stayed in her car while she parked illegally and ran to the game, just in time.
She moved to Nashville in January just before CMT’s “Gone Country” debuted to pursue a country career. She’s now renting a home outside of Nashville and working with songwriters to put together a country album. (“I live in the boonies with the wildlife,” she said. “It was the best deal for the money and I can sing at the top of my lungs, something I couldn’t do if I had gotten a condo.”)
John Rich has committed to producing it. She said he has to finish his own and the next album for Gretchen Wilson before getting to hers. She hopes to have an album out by the end of the year and thinks she can bring both a bit of Faith Hill and Wynonna Judd into her singing. With the blondes like Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert hot in the country world, she said “a brunette needs to mix it up.” (She did note she was blonde for a bit but went back to darker hair as lead of “Brooklyn” in 2006.)
She tried to explain why John Rich picked Julio Iglesias Jr. over her on “Gone Country.” “I think he was thinking bigger picture. He was thinking of bringing in the Spanish speaking market into country, bring the borders together.” Diana has nothing to complain about because she ultimately got a production deal with Rich anyway. She’s still seeking a label and distribution deal but she’s confident she’ll get one.
She said the women were okay with Iglesias winning but Dee Snider, Bobby Brown and Sisqo weren’t so thrilled. “They all thought they were going to win!” she said. Most of the people, she said, are planning to record and release the songs they wrote and performed on the show.
Her favorite to win it all is David Cook. She thinks the Daughtry-type fans won’t let what happened to him happen to Cook. She is mildly annoyed that Michael Johns is not American but thinks he’s a good singer. She also expects Brooke White to go furthest among the women. Her take on Ramiele: “She’s a little out of her range.” And of the folks she keeps in touch with from her year, she mentioned Amy Adams and Matt Rogers.
You’ll get more of her “Idol” thoughts later this week on Us magazine’s Web site. She’s supposed to do a blog on this week’s performance show.
Over four years, Diana has always been cautious around me the times we’ve met in person and tonight was no exception. (She was more relaxed and gabby when we did the phoner prior to “Gone Country.”). Though polite, she didn’t look remotely happy to see me. She brought along a few musician friends from Nashville but didn’t introduce them to me. She wasn’t conversational. She didn’t even say goodbye. I know a lot of her fans still resent me for not jumping completely on the Diana bandwagon in 2004 so it’s possible that affected Diana’s perception of me. Still, since then, I’ve gone out of my way to chronicle her career in the fairest fashion I could. Seriously — I don’t expect her to embrace me. I am a journalist, not her friend. But her coolness, considering her normal bubbly approach toward everybody else around her, is perplexing.
In other “Idol” news:
Major label reject, Kristy Lee Cook, has been teetering on the brink of elimination all season long, though she hit a high note this week performing Lee Greenwood’s red-state-rousing “God Bless the USA.” Randy, Paula and Simon lauded the “smart” song choice, with Cowell calling it Cook’s “best performance by a mile.” But how did the patriotic anthem play with our judges in uniform? The song resonated with the troops but Kristy’s rendition did not. “We did not really buy it… We were more motivated by [Michael Johns’] “We Are the Champions,” 19-year-old Nathan wrote. “I think after hearing that song we were all ready to go fight.”And they came gunning for early “Idol” favorite David Archuleta, whose confusing song choice left the military men at a loss, though they had little trouble finding some strong words in their curt condemnation - “hate” being the one that stands out the most.
David Archuleta, “You’re the Voice” by John Farnham
Nathan: “I had no clue what the song was.”
Steve: “This song sucks!
- Frenchie Davis will undergo surgery to remove a vocal cord polyp, according to AP..
