Wow!

March 30, 2014 6:57 PM

Holy shit! I don't like to editorialize, but someone needs to give this nine year old a recording contract, stat!
posted by dobbs (41 comments total)

for some reason, I was prepared to come here all grumpy and grrar and whatnot and complain about this FPP. Then I watched the video, and YEP, she is quite good.

Therefore, I shall save my grrar for people who refuse to turn their phones to landscape when filming video.

Thanks for this post!
posted by 4ster at 7:00 PM on March 30, 2014 [6 favorites]

She's super rad, her bassist is rad, her fuckin' boots are rad, the third of her drummer I could see is rad, Yay! Hurray!
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:05 PM on March 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

It's worth following the suggested links to some of the others videos of her:

Folsom Prison Jolene Horrible Highway.

She's certainly fun to watch and listen to. She also has more stage awareness than easily 60% of the players out there.
posted by edgeways at 7:16 PM on March 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Therefore, I shall save my grrar for people who refuse to turn their phones to landscape when filming video.

He appears to be an older gentleman filming a nine-year-old girl rocking out in an old-time Americana string shop. I'll give him a pass.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:19 PM on March 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

And, yeah, damn talented kid.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:21 PM on March 30, 2014

That's some crazy, thrice-distilled, 180 proof Americana right there.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:26 PM on March 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

Talented kid. But... I kinda hope she gets to have a normal childhood, with lots of opportunity to hone her craft outside of the public eye, then gets a record contract when she's older -- if that's what she wants.

(...but given the number of views on her Youtube page, I think it's more likely she'll be on Ellen in a few weeks or The Voice in a few years).
posted by retrograde at 7:33 PM on March 30, 2014 [6 favorites]

Sounds like she is already putting out albums, and was just on the Today show.
posted by edgeways at 7:37 PM on March 30, 2014

I hope she continues to be a kid and have a normal life..
posted by Captain Chesapeake at 7:40 PM on March 30, 2014

I hope she continues to be awesome and has an extraordinary life.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:40 PM on March 30, 2014 [12 favorites]

I expected her version of Jackson to be a little weird since it's a duet with a grown man about a failed marriage, but it's amazingly cute, mainly because she seems to be literally channeling June Carter Cash in some supernatural-yet-wholesome way.
posted by lunasol at 7:41 PM on March 30, 2014

Escape from the potato planet: upon further review, I see your point, and withdraw my grrar.
posted by 4ster at 7:42 PM on March 30, 2014

It's worth following the suggested links to some of the others videos of her:
Folsom Prison

Well, now that I've watched a nine-year old girl convincingly sing about how she shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, I think my day is complete.
posted by dry white toast at 7:56 PM on March 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

It seems to be 9-year-old day. This morning I discovered this clip of Julian Lage (at 9) on stage with Carlos Santana playing a smokin' version of Eddie Hazel's "Maggot Brain". Lage has certainly gone on to an estimable career by anyone's standards. Let's hope this elfin yodeler is equally blessed.
posted by cleroy at 8:09 PM on March 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Heck with the plight of child stardom, here's my problem:

This video was recorded In a vertical aspect ratio by an idiot. I am on my phone. YouTube will not let me watch this video vertically as it was recorded. Is it too much to ask that I be able to watch it as incorrectly as it was recorded?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:09 PM on March 30, 2014

i think that gravitas and experience are required to work thru some texts, and it worries me that work as seminal as Blue Yodel are being remade by little girls for adult kicks. it's not cute.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:16 PM on March 30, 2014

I respectfully disagree, PinkMoose. I understand your point, however offer as a counter that there is nothing sacred in Art, but that what our blessedly limited perspective make so. Also, especially on her cover of Folsom Prison she is clearly punk as fuck and that is precious, precious as in a rare gem and not cute at all.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:52 PM on March 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Never underestimate the capacity of children to have the blues, to live the blues, to understand the blues. They have the bluest of blues.
posted by bicyclefish at 9:10 PM on March 30, 2014 [13 favorites]

I had no idea Goerge R. R. Martin played the double bass!
posted by smoke at 9:11 PM on March 30, 2014

Nice find, thanks for posting!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:12 PM on March 30, 2014

"Never underestimate the capacity of children to have the blues, to live the blues, to understand the blues. They have the bluest of blues."

Heh. I think that people underestimate children at their peril. I don't want to overstate that — I have horrid memories of a two-hour seminar on Symposium with eighteen-year-olds. Age/experience is not unimportant.

But, also, I think that age and experience don't always mean that a performer has that gravitas and wisdom in their performances. A lot of adult performers are probably as clueless in the sense that PinkMoose believes this little girl to be.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:27 PM on March 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

She's great, and she has a certain future in music, if that's what she wants to do (and I hope she does, because I'd love to listen to more of her when she's more grown up).

I worry about her, though, and about all of the attention -- and specifically all of the youtube attention -- she gets as a nine-year-old. And that bothers me, because I love music, and now I hear myself as a think-of-the-children kind of person.

Anyway, she's great, but listening to her sing "Jolene" creeps the hell out of me. As well as she sings it, it's not a song for a nine-year-old to sing so emotively.

But she's great!
posted by mudpuppie at 9:36 PM on March 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I agree re "Jolene." I love that song, and I don't want to hear a nine-year-old singing about her lover talking in his sleep.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:42 PM on March 30, 2014

"As well as she sings it, it's not a song for a nine-year-old to sing so emotively."

I couldn't get through Jackson for that reason. But, you know, my previous comment. This discussion is really not so different from all the others concerning authenticity in art. Actors playing people "essentially" unlike themselves, writers writing character "essentially" unlike themselves, and all that. She's bringing something to her performance when she's singing and if it works, then it works.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:49 PM on March 30, 2014

I love the sound of her voice. It works for me even on
very adult songs.
posted by quazichimp at 11:06 PM on March 30, 2014

I thought she was great and clearly having a lot of fun playing out. I wish I had practiced music when I was nine so I could have that much fun!

I've never worried too much about kids singing adult songs, really. Partially ibecause musicians want to play the music they like to listen to, and she's obviously playing songs she likes. (I mean, what's she gonna play in bluegrass that isn't about dancing, drinking or dying early from working too hard?) But mostly because, unlike watching movies that are too old for them, I think kids are sort of protected by their own innocence when it comes to song lyrics. They go over your head until they don't. When LeAnn Rimes got started, someone asked her if she knew what "Blue" was about, and she said, "No, my dad just told me it was a sad song, so I sang it like I was sad." You definitely wanna protect the kid from the fame machine, though.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:24 PM on March 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Also when I was her age I coordinated many a silly dance routine to "I'm Every Woman," which I thought was a sort of paramilitary girl power anthem about developing trade skills, and had it existed I would have put every one of them on YouTube.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:41 PM on March 30, 2014 [7 favorites]

it's not a song for a nine-year-old to sing so emotively.

Worth noting here that the prepubescent Michael Jackson delivered lines that he had no business delivering either!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:23 AM on March 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

When my niece was that age, she was (and happily still is, and I will refrain from linking any of her youtube stuff) damn awesome, but she had a voice coach wise enough to restrain her from some work and practices that may have damaged her voice. As someone (me, that is) who is so hopeless as to be able to consistently mix up the chicken dance song with the TV theme for batman, can someone tell me, is this talent young person risking permanent damage with the Grar-some bluesy growl as well as the yodel? Or is this all okay?
posted by b33j at 3:57 AM on March 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

She's got moxie! Chutzpah! True grit! And technique! Great musical heights appear on her horizon! All good. That throaty growl can be done without too much long term damage if she does it right. (Although it's probably analogous to "Can she learn to throw a 90mph slider without hurting her Tommy John?")

But if the gestalt-frying spotlight of media attention doesn't worry enough of her people to take it easy for about ten more years, she's likely not going to enjoy it too much, or as much as she does now anyway.

see: all child stars ever
posted by petebest at 5:03 AM on March 31, 2014

Wandered into this flea market last summer after going to The Lost Sea nearby. Folks sit around that music shop all day ripping amazing bluegrass. Worth checking out.
posted by GrapeApiary at 5:43 AM on March 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

metafilter: where viral facebook posts go to die
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:39 AM on March 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

edgeways: Sounds like she is already putting out albums, and was just on the Today show.

Yup, she appeared last Friday, March 28 on the Today show (Knoxville.com article with more on Emilie Hamilton, aka EmiSunshine; a different article about her Today show appearance), and she has released at least one album. She/her band doesn't have a "proper" website, but she/they have a Facebook page.

Mr.Encyclopedia: This video was recorded In a vertical aspect ratio by an idiot. I am on my phone. YouTube will not let me watch this video vertically as it was recorded. Is it too much to ask that I be able to watch it as incorrectly as it was recorded?

Odd, I was going to chime in on this thread that the vertical viewing worked just fine for my phone (original Droid with a keyboard, so it's not some new-fangled feature), which was a surprise for me.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:00 AM on March 31, 2014

Worth noting here that the prepubescent Michael Jackson delivered lines that he had no business delivering either!

And it's not like his ruined childhood haunted him for the rest of his life or anything.

You know who else was discovered on YouTube at a young age? Justin Bieber. And he turned out just fine, right?
posted by Sys Rq at 7:56 AM on March 31, 2014

Somebody also filmed her singing Blue Yodel #6 in landscape. Just as good.
posted by rongorongo at 8:12 AM on March 31, 2014

There are kids who weather this just fine as well. Not everyone is a Michael Jackson or Justin Bieber.
posted by edgeways at 8:13 AM on March 31, 2014

a-fucking-mazing! Thanks for this post. I'll give the portrait orientation a pass here too.
posted by brokeaspoke at 8:46 AM on March 31, 2014

And it's not like his ruined childhood haunted him for the rest of his life or anything.

I would tend to suppose that his screwed up family and home life were probably bigger influences, but then, I thought Tipper Gore's PMRC was bullshit from start to finish like some sort of Comic book reading, D&D playing child of the 70s would, so....
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:46 AM on March 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes, like Pogo_Fuzzybutt above, I wouldn't have drawn a parallel between a child singing songs that reference a bit of sexuality here and there and said child's being mentally unbalanced later in life. I agree that a "screwed up family and home life" would've been the culprit there.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:45 PM on March 31, 2014

I liked this one a lot. Although she looks and sounds much younger, the amazing accoustics really allow her voice to shine.
posted by marsha56 at 4:57 AM on April 1, 2014

In many of her videos, it seems like she's pushing too many notes too hard, and her singing needs a little more tenderness.

I think this song shows the singer she might become. I like the way she sings here with more subtlety and maturity.
posted by marsha56 at 5:13 AM on April 1, 2014