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E-mailSusan Boyle was bound for stardom, says voice coach
Says Scottish singing star deserves all the success in the world
“Britain’s Got Talent” singing sensation Susan Boyle, 48, is the definition of an overnight star.
But to her voice coach, the Irish born Fred O’Neil, 41, the formerly unemployed, unmarried singer deserves all the success that has finally come her way.
“I’m delighted for her,” O’Neil told our sister publication the Irish Voice recently. “When I watched her performance on ‘Britian's Got Talent’ and saw her smiling I thought she deserves this because the death of her mother just devastated her. When you’re not married and you’re the youngest child – her sisters and brothers had all moved away from home – really it was desperately hard for her.”
O’Neil says that Boyle’s grief made her decide to quit singing. “She would come on the phone to me in terrible tears and sobbing and say I can’t sing any more, I don’t want to sing, there’s nothing to sing for. It was a tragic time for her. She didn’t have a lot financially either; she was living a very basic life. So her whole life now has been turned around in a minute and a half.”
O’Neil, who trained as a singer in Manchester and Milan, was concerned about some of the mocking tone of the headlines and press reports he’d read after her initial breakthrough.
“The reason I’m talking to you is because here in Britain the press is following this other line now,” O’Neil told the Irish Voice back then. “They’re kind of making a fool of her. They seem to be going out of their way to print unflattering photos of Susan. But that’s not the artist that Susan is. Many of the photos I’ve seen don’t even look like her. There’s no point in catapulting her into stardom if all she’s going to be is an object of derision.”
O’Neil first began working with Susan in 1996 and their association continued for years after. In that time O’Neil got to know the shy but spirited singer. “Susan came to me in late 1996 and we worked together for years. I have worked with thousands of singers in my career but I very rarely meet female singers who are kind to other singers. That’s not usually what happens. She’s a very generous person to her fellow performers. To this day if she compliments me for one of my own performances I know that she’s one hundred percent sincere.”
O’Neil has some advice for the begrudgers lining up to take a potshot at her talent and her good fortune. “I think we should let the real Susan emerge, not the tabloid version. If we do that we’ll see that she’s a gifted singer.”
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