Aaron Kelly Wows the Crowd with "Fly Me to the Moon"

From the moment that Aaron Kelly started singing Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon," it became quite obvious that, even though his voice was quite different from that of Old Blue Eyes, he could pull the song off in such a way as to leave the crowd with a feeling of, "Wow, that was good!"

Before last night's performance on American Idol, I wondered how Aaron Kelly could possibly pull off singing a song made famous by Frank Sinatra. Not only were their voices totally different, but Aaron's voice lacked the deep resonance that made Frank Sinatra such a successful crooner, but he did it! When he ended with "In other words, in other words ... I love you" the crowd was ready to hear more.

Aaron sang quite well; he really did, but he left me with the feeling that something was missing. I guess the judges agreed with me. Randy Jackson said, "You did a really good job; you did," but he kind of left it at that. Ellen DeGeneres added, "I felt like you really pulled it off." It was as if Randy and Ellen didn't know quite what to say, but Kara DioGuardi summed it up nicely when she told Aaron, "You needed a little bit more charisma." That was it! His singing was wonderful, and truly; if he would have added charisma to the song, it would have been perfect. Simon; in one of his rare kind moments said, "Frank was the king of Cool, and you lacked conviction. People like you though, because you try so hard."

Even though Aaron Kelly's performance was good, it did leave you with the feeling that something was missing. That missing something was passion behind the words. That's okay though; Aaron's performance was good enough that I would be surprised if he wasn't on American Idol next week.