Last March I started watched American Idol (after several years of skipping the show due to loss of interest) when my kids told me a young man they knew from high school and who lives in our town had made the Top 13.   In fact, one of my daughter’s best friends from middle school had been in this boy’s band when they performed locally (she also auditioned for American Idol several years earlier and got to Hollywood but was eliminated before semifinals).

The young man’s name is Caleb Johnson. Every week he made it through to the next round. When he made it to the Top 3, we attended his homecoming here in Asheville, not only a great deal of fun (I almost got trampled though and lost a shoe in the process!) but also fantastic publicity for our city. A little over a week later I remember sitting with my daughter as we bit our nails almost to the point of bleeding on finale night.

Well, he did win, in spite of most people thinking his equally talented competition (Jena Irene) would. Signs of congratulations went up all over town and it was front page news in the local newspapers. It was a HUGE deal here (not a whole lot happens in Asheville, haha).

Caleb is an old-school rocker, very Journey-esque. He even sounds a lot like Journey’s lead singer, Steve Perry. I didn’t buy his album (which didn’t sell very well) but I just love his new release from it, so here it is. Caleb works with kids suffering from cancer, and there is some very emotional footage here of a young cancer patient going to the “other side.”

I hope you like this as much as I do.