Alison Jiear: "it felt like an out of body experience!"
Alison's Jiear's dream of stepping out of the shadows to become a successful recording artist in her own right could be a little bit closer as she wakes up this morning.
Her rousing performance of You'll Never Walk Alone from hit musical Carousel brought the house down on this week's show, earning the Aussie native a rapturous applause, and four very-well-deserved yeses from our Judges.
It was a moment the 50-year-old backing singer has been dreaming of for more than 30 years.
"I love doing studio singing and backing vocals, but I've been grafting away for so long and I'm still anonymous. About halfway through the song I started feeling the support of the audience and it was just incredible - like an out of body experience - I literally had to fight back the tears to finish the song!"
Alison - who counts Ella Fitzgerald, Barbara Streisand and Josh Groban among her musical influences - lost her father a year ago, and chose You'll Never Walk Alone as she wanted a song that would connect with people.
"Everyone's lost someone, and wants to feel that someone's watching over them. When I sang this on the BGT stage I felt like my dad was sitting on my shoulder watching me," she recalls.
Alison originally hails from Brisbane but has lived in Hemel Hempstead for the past 27 years, and while you may not have heard of her before, you've probably heard her voice.
"I've done all sorts of commercials," she reveals. "But putting myself in front of the Judges and hearing their comments really humbled me. You don’t realise how much you want their support until you hear it."
And if she's lucky enough to get through to the semi-finals, what can we expect next from the talented vocalist?
"I just want to keep taking it up a notch! If I get through, it will be tempting to do something different and show people a different side to me. But most of all I want to be true to myself," she explains.
"I'll pick a song that will raise the roof!"
Britain's Got Talent returns to ITV next Saturday at 9pm.
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