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14-Year-Old Reid Wilson's Moving Whitney Houston Cover Is Beyond His Years (VIDEO)
The AGT Act performed "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" for AGT Season 19's Semifinal.
Whitney Houston's hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" is usually an upbeat toe-tapper that gets people out of their seats, but slowed-down, it's a wonderfully emotional song, as well.
America's Got Talent Season 19 Semifinalist Reid Wilson proved as much when he performed the tune solo, earning plenty of applause from the audience and praise from the Judges. And though the teen (who happens to be the younger brother of a Voice alum) didn't advance to the next round of competition in the Final, he certainly made his mark.
Reid Wilson took a risk with "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"
Not only did the young Golden Buzzer Act take a traditionally happy song and imbue it with emotion, he also invited comparisons to Houston, one of the most legendary vocalists of all time. As Judge Simon Cowell put it after hearing him, "The worst thing is being safe. And that wasn’t safe. You’re 14 years old and you’re singing Whitney Houston." But after Wilson flawlessly hit the hard notes, Cowell had to admit, "Smart decision."
Judge Sofía Vergara agreed, telling Wilson, "I love that you picked a song that is so difficult and so well known, but you made it yours."
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The story behind "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston
Released in 1987 as the lead single from Houston's second album, Whitney, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was an instant hit. Houston had a lot of momentum after her 1985 smash "How Will I Know," and songwriters Shannon Rubicam and George Merrill were keen to replicate their enormous success.
“We tried our best not to freak ourselves out because we had to follow [“How Will I Know”] up, and that’s a little challenging because of all your self-doubts,” Rubicam told Billboard for a retrospective on what the outlet called the number one pop song of all time. “We knew that [Houston] could deliver something large.”
“We lived in Venice, California, and we started making a habit of going out for a walk around dusk… because there’s something about that dusky hour that makes a person restless and uneasy,” Rubicam explained. “There’s this social pressure, like ‘I should be doing something right now.’”
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She began to ruminate on the image of “going to the club and finding company. Then it morphed into finding someone to love who would love you back and do that dance of life with you,” and the idea for the song began. After she and Merrill recorded a demo, Merrill had to literally spring through Los Angeles airport LAX to hand the cassette to executive Clive Davis before his flight left. Davis could hear the song's potential and, and soon Houston had another hit on her hands.
The song hit number 1 in 14 different countries and has been consistently popular in the decades since its release, re-entering the charts after Houston passed away in 2012.
