"Bluesy Rock God" Casey James Powers Up American Idol with Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" (Video)

Casey James Keeps His Blues Style and Hears it from American Idol Judges

Saul Relative
American Idol judge Ellen Degeneres told Casey James after his blues jam version of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" that no one would be talking about his performance tomorrow. Well, we beg to differ. It's tomorrow and "yesterday's gone" and we're talking about Casey James' performance and replaying the video, so... Playing a Lindsay Buckingham guitar and channeling the more blues-oriented former member of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, Casey James laid down some slamming Bob Seger-like vocals and some gruff inspiration as the the lead-off man for the American Idol Top 7. But the judges weren't inspired, singing a bit of the blues themselves about his performance. Judge Randy Jackson called him the "bluesy rock god" that needed to step out of his comfort zone. After complimenting his guitar playing, Ellen Degeneres not only said no one would be talking about his performance the next day but said that now was the time for him to be great. Kara DioGuardi dovetailed her critique with Degeneres, telling him that he made himself "like everybody else tonight" (being first up, "everybody else" was who exactly?), but she still believed in him. Simon Cowell thought it was a "lazy" performance. Still, lazy or not, the American Idol studio crowd certainly loved it. And yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone... so do you still believe in Casey James? Listen to and watch the video of his rendition of "Don't Stop" and judge for yourself...

Published by Saul Relative

WVU graduate, with degrees in History, English, Secondary Education, Computer Programming, and Psychology (and nearly a degree in Political Science). Originally from West Virginia, with stints in Virginia,...   View profile

15 Comments

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  • Cheryl 5/25/2010

    I, for one, LOVED IT! GO CASEY. You'll always be my American Idol!

  • Zoe Mead 5/18/2010

    Casey James should make it all the way to no.1! He is incredibly talented. Go Casey!

  • Carla Wren 4/22/2010

    I will vote for Casey 'til the very end whether it's the best performance of the night or not because his "Jealous Guy" performance alone shows that he is the best all around performer and he tries his best not to show how ill he's been. I would definitely volunteer to help nurse him back to health. I love you Casey and get well very soon!

  • Cheryl Korotky 4/21/2010

    I am a really big fan of Casey James and think he is the most talented in this season's line-up, however, even though his rendition of Fleetwood Mac's song was certainly not his best performance, it was well above Lee's who the judges gave such praise to. Lee has been consistently off-tune and Casey never is-even with his cold. I was very nervous about tonight's results because when I checked dialidol results, Casey was at the bottom. Thank God he made it!

    So what should Casey sing from Shania'a songs? Maybe, "Looks Like We Made it". He's so much better with his acoustic guitar, at least for idol.

    I'm so glad I found this site still talking about how Great Casey is!!!

    I used to think it should be a Casey Crystal final but she lost me with the crying. I really think it was all put on and she wasn't right on tune either.

    So Casey fans, please, please vote-vote-vote next week. We can't let him get into the bottom again! I personally voted for the 2 straight ho

  • blue 4/21/2010

    I thought he was great. Not exceeding himself, but not even his weakest performance (which wasn't very weak anyway, but was probably Lawdy Miss Clawdy). More importantly, everyone who followed him also did exactly what they usually do also. And some of their "usual" is so far below Casey they shouldn't even be on the same stage.

  • Joanne Light 4/21/2010

    By the way, Bravo to your perceptiveness and well written article.

  • Joanne Light 4/21/2010

    Here's the end of my commentary that got cut off.

    shell because he's not handsome enough nor "probably" not as great a songwriter to pull off the "young James Taylor introversion stage performance. You don't really want to look at Lee but you can't take your eyes off Casey and Casey is just as good a singer as Lee and has way more potential to be a star. We already have David Cook, Chad Kroeger. We don't have anyone like Casey James! Seriously!

  • Joanne Light 4/21/2010

    Whoops I posted the wrong comment! In that one I was responding to Rodney Ho's site where he lauded Lee and dissed casey. So ignore the first line please.

  • Joanne Light 4/21/2010

    Contrary to the website persons assessment, Lee's performance was highly overrated. He flubbed two lyrics; said "I am squandered my existence" instead of "I have squandered my existence" which shows that he doesn't understand what he is singing nor the English language. Also he said something "fohh" at the end instead of fighter. He chose a very emotional song so he scored on the back of the greatness of the songwriter and the melody line/lyric. His voice is irritating and his version paled immensely with the original. All I could think was how poor it was in comparison to Simon/Garfunkel. On the other hand, when Casey James was singing I never once wished I was listening to Fleetwood Mac. He did a great job with it. They said it wasn't inspirational but it's the song Bill Clinton chose as his theme song durign the presidential race!! It's not a great song so Casey didn't score any kudos but Randy saying Lee is a great artist is a joke. He has to develop a lot more and come out of his

  • Mickey 4/21/2010

    As T! said, someone who finally gets it. Casey is staying true to his style with his song choices. This was not my favorite, but I am really getting tired of the way the judges just blow him off. Casey will get my votes each and every week. Go Casey James!

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