Roy Exum
On Facebook someone wrote, “You know you are from Harlan, Kentucky, when someone is so crooked they’ll have to screw them into the ground to bury them when they die.” Then there is, “You know you are from Harlan, Kentucky, when you have ‘swum’ in a satellite dish.” And “… when your grandmother could take your face and a quart of buttermilk and run everybody out of town.”
Now guess who is from Harlan, Kentucky? If you need a hint he just passed Adele as the No.1 most-watched singer on iTunes this week.
Jordan Smith, a 21-year-old who is taking a semester off from Cleveland’s Lee College to become the most famous voice in the world, comes from the rich but poor coal country of Appalachia. Last night he was a shoo-in to top the rest of some dazzling competition on the NBC reality show, “The Voice.”
Actually, he has been the favorite from the very get-go, with hundreds of fans across America asking, “Why even continue with the competition?” The numbers tell it all. As of Tuesday afternoon – this before last night’s crowning moment -- over 21 million had watched him sing “Chandelier” on YouTube. Another 7.2 million had watched his version of Queen’s great hit, “Somebody to Love” and 6.3 million watched him perform “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”
He’s come a long way in a very short time since he was a child gospel drummer at the House Of Mercy in the nearby village of Wallins Creek. Not long ago a writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader drove to another village near Harlan, Coldiron, and talked to the biggest musical sensation since Susan Boyle, who didn’t look much like a singer when she stopped the world with her debut in “Britain’s Got Talent.”
What you need to know is Jordan is as disarming as the now-famous Boyle. He hardly looks like a Frank Sinatra or country music’s Blake Shelton, who was the first of four judges who were wowed by the high-pitched voice, the genius delivery and God-given ability that will, by all indications, make the portly, bespectacled Smith the handsomest bet in show business.
Jordan told the Lexington writer his family has been into music his entire life. “Our home was so musical – we would sing in the car together, in the shower, when I went to bed at night … it was just kind of like a very important part of my family.”
The very first thing he ever sang in public was “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” and he’ll never forget it. Neither will gobs of people who still tell him they remember the night he sang it. He was a high school sensation at Harlan County High. He said he was never bullied but did struggle “with societal expectations of what boys and men did.” His high-pitched voice made it worse so he found himself in music.
His grandfather, who lives in Augusta, heard the world-renowned Lee Singers once when they were on tour. “He knew I was really becoming interested in music … and he knew that it was a Church of God school. As a Christian, that is something I am very interested in too.”
Since he has arrived at Lee, he is obviously a featured soloist, a section leader and vice president of a traveling ensemble that was at President Obama’s inauguration and this summer performed for the Pope. And with all the success, he’ll tell you he doesn’t look the part.
"On ‘The Voice,’ they really highlighted the fact that I don't look like I sound, which is OK with me, because that's the message that I want to get across, that it's OK to be different than people expect you to be and not fit the mold," Smith told Copley, the Lexington reporter. "We live in a world that is hurting, where people disagree over things that don't matter and things that are on the outside.
"There are a lot of people struggling with who they are and finding acceptance. I am only secure in who I am because I know my identity lies in Christ and in my faith. While it took me a long time to accept that, I am very secure in that now,” he explained.
"I want other people to be able to find security in knowing they can accept themselves, and they can break the mold and be different, and that your success can be measured in the joy that you have in who you are."
Jordan didn’t just break the mold, he continued it. Last year’s runner-up on “American Idol,” Clark Beckham, was a product of Lee College’s stunning musical program and so is Phil Stacy, who performed magnificently during the sixth season of “American Idol.” Believe it or not, Stacy is from Harlan, too.
Jordan adores Harlan. “It’s a small town, and I think sometimes people have a lot of negative things to say about this area. We have issues like everywhere else,” he said gently before adding, “But I owe everything to this place, and these people, and these mountains.”
By the time you read this, Harlan’s Jordon Smith will be ‘The Voice.’ One really neat thing about winning is that he will get a chance to sing a duet with the world-famed leggero tenor, Usher. In his younger years Usher was known as Usher Terry Raymond IV. Now, what will come first? Do you think Jordan will say he’s going to school in Cleveland, Tenn., or Usher will say he grew up in Chattanooga before his family moved to Atlanta when he was 12?
You know you are from Harlan, Kentucky -- and many points beyond -- when you feel your soul soaring so fast you get the shivers when Jordan Smith sings, “Mary Do You Know?”
Click here to see the video.
What a dazzler!
royexum@aol.com