American Idol brought its audition tour to Milwaukee Wednesday night, and the field of Hollywood Week-worthy singers started to take shape.
Kicking off the night was 16-year-old country crooner Scotty McCreery, whose pitch-perfect Travis Tritt cover was dubbed "beautiful" by Steven Tyler. "With the right songs, we discovered him," declared Jennifer Lopez.
Adding to the judges' excitement was Naima Adedapo, a grounds cleanup worker from Milwaukee. Belting out Donny Hathaway's "For All We Know," Adedapo, 25, was deemed "the whole package" by Lopez.
Perhaps the night's most touching performance came thanks to Illinois contestant Chris Medina, who sang for the judges as his handicapped fiancee watched in the wings.
Suffering a traumatic brain injury as the result of an accident, Medina's fiancee Juliana slipped into a coma for a month and a half before waking up to her doting boyfriend. "I didn't know what was going to happen after [the accident], but I knew she wasn't going to die," Medina said in his audition tape.
After Medina's soulful performance of The Script's "Breakeven," the judges asked to meet Juliana. "He sings so good because he sings to you," Tyler told the wheelchair-bound woman, as the trio offered Medina his ticket to Hollywood.
By Allison Corneau for UsMagazine.com. For more Channel Surfing, click here.
