Big day for Calgary singer Annie Pattison on The Next Star
By Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald August 9, 2010
The Next Star, Annie Pattison
It’s not surprising that fledgling reality TV star Annie Pattison’s list of influences tend to be on the modern and youthful side. The 12-year-old Calgarian covers songs by Kellie Pickler and Carrie Underwood. She bases her career aspirations on young country starlet Taylor Swift. Her online bio for the YTV reality show, The Next Star, even name-checks teen phenomenon Justin Bieber. But her gateway into music was a song recorded 20 years before she was born. Annie knew she wanted to be a performer at the age of four, when she watched the movie Grease. In particular, it was the scene when Olivia Newton-John croons Hopelessly Devoted to You to John Travolta. “I watched it continuously throughout the day,” she says. “Afterwards, I just started to sing along to Hopelessly Devoted to You. That’s basically when I started to sing. And then my mom signed me up for piano lessons.” Eight years later, Annie has become a seasoned veteran, performing at Hitmen and Flames games, the Stampede and, most recently, the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose. She has a YouTube channel that offers dozens of clips of her performing songs, including a few that she co-wrote herself. And today, she’ll be performing Pickler’s cheating-boyfriend song Best Days Of Your Life on The Next Star, in a round of competition that could see her chopped or going on to the show’s Top 6. Annie already knows whether she has made the cut. But under the reality TV universe’s strict codes, she has to stay mum until the Top 6 are revealed the night after her performance. “It was pretty tough,” she says. “But when it’s this important, you really have to keep your mouth shut.” Now in its third season, The Next Star is designed for performers under 16. This year’s crop has already been narrowed down to the Top 16, which also includes fellow Calgarian Kelsey Verzotti, from thousands of hopefuls. The Top 6 will be mentored for the rest of the season’s seven episodes by singer Suzie McNeil, former MuchMusic VJ Christopher Ward and music marketing guru Steve Cranwell. The winner will be declared on Sept. 26, after a live showdown in Toronto. And while Annie, who will be going into Grade 7 at Balmoral School in September, can’t say whether she’s made it to the next round, she will say that a win would give her career a boost. “I would really love to have a career of me performing everywhere,” she says. The Next Star airs Monday and Tuesday on YTV.
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