In 2005, Glennis Grace represented the Netherlands with “My Impossible Dream”. Now her dream is becoming closer to reality after she delivered an impressive Whitney Houston performance in front of the judges on the new series of America’s Got Talent.
The Dutch diva faced the panel of judges Howie Mandel, Mel B, Heidi Klum and Simon Cowell, as well as a live audience.
Before she began singing, Glennis told the panel of what was motivating her. “I have an 11-year-old son and he would love to see me follow my dreams.” She also added, “Ever since I was a little kid, I knew I was made to sing for lots and lots more people.”
Glennis then launched into her version of the 1993 Whitney Houston song “Run to You”.
She impressed both the audience and the judging panel with her powerhouse vocals and uncanny ability to convey the spirit of Whitney Houston. Glennis won votes from all four judges and will proceed to the quarter-finals of America’s Got Talent in coming weeks.
This isn’t the first time that Glennis Grace has made a splash with “Run to You”. Last year she performed the song as part of a concert by the Dutch group Ladies of Soul. A video of the performance went viral internationally and to date has racked up over 1.8 million views.
Ladies of Soul is a four-piece Dutch soul diva supergroup. As well as Glennis Grace, the group is also made up of Edsilia Rombley (Netherlands 1998, 2007), Berget Lewis (Nationaal Songfestival 2003, The X Factor UK 2017), jazz saxophonist Candy Dulfer. Trijntje Oosterhuis (Netherlands 2015) is a founding member and sometimes performs with her ex-group.
Berget Lewis had a similar experience on a TV talent show. Last year — along with Slavko Kalezic — she reached the Judges’ Houses stage of The X Factor UK before being eliminated.
Glennis Grace got her big break in 1994 at the age of 15, when she performed as Whitney Houston on the talent show Soundmixshow. Her performance of Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time” helped launch her career as a professional singer.
This eventually led to Glennis competing in Nationaal Songfestival 2005, which she won with the song “My Impossible Dream”. However, the success was not repeated at Eurovision. Glennis placed 14th in the semi-final, kicking off the Netherlands’ eight-year non-qualification streak.
She may be hoping that history doesn’t repeat as she pursues her dream on America’s Got Talent.
What do you think of Glennis Grace’s performance on America’s Got Talent? Has she got what it takes to win? Share your thoughts below!
Read more of our Eurovision news from the Netherlands
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How could anyone punish Glennis Grace for singing like Whitney Houston?? It is her voice, and the songs she sings are the ones Whitney sang, but that’s exactly the sons she shone sing. The power, voice control, and delivery of a song shows Glennis is one of a kind and needs to be heard. I love her voice and hope someone signs her to a contract so her voice can fill our hearts that need to hear her.
Before this post came out, I had no clue Glennis had been in Eurovision or that she’s even Dutch. AGT made us Americans think she’s some American amateur singer whose big break would be AGT. This isn’t fair to any of the real amateur singers competing.
Glennis had the best song of ESC2005. And did not even make the final. Had juries been working back then I think she would have easily qualified.
Glennis should have qualified, but the song itself is pretty generic and formulaic. She made it work, though.
Wow! What a voice. Anyone that can cover Whitney, effortlessly deserves praise. .
Which reminds me…. go check out jessie j’s whitney covers on youtube. I have nothing / i will always love you – totally flawless, and the exact type of song and singer we need to send to represent the UK at eurovision 2019
I’m in South Africa, and shows like AGT, BGT, and XFactor UK only air on our tv screens a few months after their broadcast in the US/UK. As a huge Eurovision fan, I would obviously root for Eurovision artists, but it’s such a bummer because I visit Wiwibloggs daily, so before these shows even air on tv here, I unfortunately already know the outcome. Case in point… Just last week’s episode of XFactor involved Judge’s houses, where Slavko and Berget got eliminated. But I already knew this was going to happen back in October 2017, whilst on Wiwibloggs. Likewise for… Read more »
I’ve seen similar complaints on videos of the Eurovision voting that say something like “Eurovision 1993 voting and winning Ireland,” like SPOILER ALERT. I mean, it’s been years in those cases, but it’s the same idea.
I was incredibly lucky that I knew nothing of who had won this year until I actually saw it. That made it much more exciting.
I mean, if you’ve already performed for millions of Europeans, America’s Got Talent can’t be that nerve-wracking. Her song in ’05 was pretty good.
Millions of Europeans? She is only well known in the Netherlands. All of her big performances had place in the Netherlands. So you can indeed imaged that standing in front of a international well know Jury and in de spotlight of 11 million American viewers, it must be nerve-wracking. Even if you consider that they give her a 10 minute interview in advance (we only have seen 2 minutes of that) so she had to start singing with a dry throat with no water nearby. She did a incredible job with this performance. In the Judge Cuts she will be… Read more »
I just fear that this whole “I sound like Whitney” will continuously overshadow the true talent of Glennis … the fact that she sounded like Whitney allowed her to win the Dutch Sound mix show back in 1994 (in the same year Portugal’s Sara Tavares, who was also part of this year’s interval act, won the Portuguese version with the same act and song), she represented the Netherlands in 2005 with an image and song that echoed too much Whitney in a sort of “One Moment In Time” vibe. Glennis has been performing so many Whitney songs in the Ladies… Read more »
It’s people like Mel B who are so stupid to think that Glennis could only deliver Whitney covers. What motivates Mel B to come to this kind of statements after the first and best performance of Glennis for this jury? Look, if Glennis started to sing a song from Whitney again in the Judge Cuts, she would have a point. No, people are always so quick with their prejudices that the true talent is overlooked. Glennis is capable of so much, but she does need the right songwriters and producers to break through internationally. Something that could never happen in… Read more »
She’s still my favorite Dutch act
This woman is unbelievably talented and I wish her the best on the show!
Wow, it is actually more surprising for me that our German model Heidi Klum and the X Factor UK judge Simon Cowell (who was also a bit responsible for my fave Saara Aalto’s participation in 2016) are part of the jury in the USA 😀
Mel B is british aswell lol
All four of the judges are foreign-born, but Heidi Klum has become a naturalized American citizen (gaining citizenship in 2008) and holds dual citizenship with both the United States and Germany. Simon Cowell and Mel B are both English, and Howie Mandel is Canadian. The last American-born judge to serve on the AGT panel was Howard Stern, who was on the panel for four seasons.
Talent shows are cancer, and the worst is that for some people Eurovision is just another talent show. These people and their stories are just used and abused.
Most of the winners and high placers at ESC in the last decade have some associations with talent shows
It’s true that a lot of contestants have appeared on Idol-style shows, but more often it did not result in their “big break”, it is just an incidental part of their resumé…