Look closely and you’ll find something curious about “American Idol”: Most of the winners of the Fox sing-off have been from America’s South.
But last year’s champion was from Chicago’s Northwest, Lee DeWyze of Mount Prospect.
This year, the five singers who remain represent the South (deep-voiced country crooner Scotty McCreery), South (underconfident teen Lauren Alaina), West (extra note-singing Jacob Lusk), West (would-be metal screamer James Durbin), and, once again, the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
The Illinois region’s banner carrier is Haley Reinhart of Wheeling, a 20-year-old, husky-voiced Harper College student, the daughter of two longtime local musicians and a veteran performer.
Reinhart’s status on the show has seemed shaky at times. Online betting odds have her fourth, and viewer voting has left her at least three times among the bottom three contestants revealed each Thursday.
“She takes it like a trouper,” says her mother, Patti Miller-Reinhart, 55, “but it’s got to hurt a little, especially when they leave her over there (isolated on one side of the stage) for 20 minutes.”
But she has also, on occasion, earned high praise from the show’s panel of judges, even beyond Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, who pretty much praises every performer every week. (When Tyler told Reinhart last Wednesday that he “saw God” after she sang Carole King’s “Beautiful,” she almost perceptibly rolled her eyes at the remark’s extravagance.) Reinhart has seemed to impress the professional music producers working with the finalists, too.
The producers’ comfort with her, Haley’s father, Harry said, is probably because she’s had experience in recording studios and singing with school jazz bands and her parents’ rock band.
Haley was not permitted to talk for this story — Fox rarely lets contestants speak to the press — but her parents and teachers tell of a playful, grounded young woman determined to take advantage of her musical gifts.
“She’s a pistol, but she’s a heck of a kid,” said Harry, 55, who plays guitar and sings in Midnight, a classic-rock cover band; Traffic Jam, a power trio; Skip Towne and the Greyhounds, a blues band; and the Harry Peter Project, an acoustic duo. “We’re so proud of her Midwest roots. Hollywood is Hollywood, and she sees some of that and sees through some of that, but keeps her feet on the ground.”
The arc
In some ways, Haley’s arc is reminiscent of DeWyze’s winning trajectory last year, when he climbed from face in the crowd to judges’ favorite as the series progressed.
Initially, judges seemed puzzled by Reinhart’s desire to perform in a variety of styles, suggesting she work to find a musical signature, especially pushing the idea of Janis Joplin on her. Now, Jennifer Lopez has declared that Haley has one of the strongest voices in the competition.
Support has also come from “Idol” alum Adam Lambert, who tweeted to Reinhart (Twitter handle: @HReinhartAI10), “well diva- listening an (sic) watching you makes me smile. Can’t wait to hear your album!”
And she has won over at least one harsh critic. Early on, comedian Paul F. Tompkins, in his deeply skeptical “Idol” recaps for New York Magazine’s online Vulture section, wrote Reinhart off as awkward.More recently, he said: “I am 100 percent on board with Haley now. She seems really intelligent and passionate when she talks abut the music, and down-to-earth and easygoing when she performs. I hope she gets something out of all of this because she seems all right.”
But DeWyze never had a bottom-three finish; this year, the same can be said only for Alaina and Durbin.
The back story
Reinhart started on stage at about age 8. As a kid, she would sing a few numbers with Midnight, which her mother also sings in, and then go home with the baby sitter as her parents continued their gig.
“We had the feeling she had something in her because she could pick out harmonies at will as a youngster,” Harry said. Haley sang a lot of Beatles tunes, a favorite of hers and her parents; when the “Idol” contestants had to sing Beatles songs one week, Reinhart helped many of them learn the songs, her mother said.
At Wheeling High School, from which she graduated in 2009, Reinhart took advantage of most of the singing opportunities: choirs, musicals, variety show and lead vocalist for the Jazz Band. After her senior year, the Jazz Band toured Europe, putting Reinhart on stage at big jazz festivals including Montreux, in Switzerland, where she sang Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” and a jazz arrangement of “Hey Jude.”
“The kids that are just amazing, you don’t really teach them. You guide them,” said Brian Logan, the school’s director of bands. “She’s one of those kids. We can’t mess her up, no matter how hard we try.”
At Harper College, director of jazz studies Ken Spurr said he assumed Haley was at the two-year school in a kind of holding pattern before she tried out for “American Idol” again. In the summer 2009 auditions for the season immediately preceding this one, she had made it well through the process only to be told by then-judge Simon Cowell that he thought she needed more seasoning.
But Harper was really a financial choice, her mother said: Haley wanted to attend Columbia College, but it was out of the family’s price range.
Spurr was glad to have her at Harper and soon recognized a special vocal talent. “We always take the band into the recording studio every semester. Boy, I could really hear it then,” he said, describing Reinhart’s as a voice that “makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.”
The Casey rumors
Online gossip has wondered whether contestant Casey Abrams, just voted off last week, and Reinhart might have a romance going. Tyler suggested as much on air.
Certainly, her parents said, the two have connected musically. In one of this year’s on-air highlights, they dueted on “Moanin’,” by Bobby Timmons, a song Haley learned at Harper. “I think he might have a crush on her, but that’s as far as it went,” said her mother. “When you find two 20-year-olds that love jazz that much, that’s a real strong thing.”
The community
Wheeling is now Haleyville.
The electric marquee at the Westin Hotel on Milwaukee Avenue has gone to “Vote for Haley” full time, her father said. There is Haley propaganda posted at all the big entrances to town. Local pubs have hosted fundraisers to help the Reinharts travel to California for show tapings.
And week after week, as Haley hangs in there on TV, old friends and their families have been showing up at the Reinhart family’s many musical gigs around the north and northwest suburbs, said Harry. “It’s been so great,” he said. “The gigs are just packed.”
Haley’s hope
Despite the tightly guarded access to “Idol’s” contestants, there was a press-invited event as the live “Idol” shows were beginning at which an LA Times blog caught a few words with Reinhart. Asked to pick three favorite songs or artists, she mentioned the Beatles, Corinne Bailey Rae and Etta James.
“I try to just let it all hang out and be exactly who I am,” she said. “I’m real bubbly and probably too hyper at times. … I hope that quirkiness can shine through.”
Twitter @stevenkjohnson
