‘AGT’ 2020: audition inside Kenadi Dodds, court judge and live shows

SALT LAKE CITY – When he was 4 years old, Kenadi Dodds nicknamed his stuffed animal “My Little Pony” as the big head of all his other stuffed animals.

Kenadi and his toys would regularly “act” for the overbearing pony who, in the young woman’s eyes, resembled reality competition judge Simon Cowell.

One day Kenadi’s father asked him why he had selected the pony to play Cowell.

“Because the way they sewed up the mouth,” he said. “They stitched it into a puckered face.”

From “The X Factor” to “Britain’s Got Talent” to “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent”, Cowell has always had a reputation for being hard to please. It does not stop, and it is not afraid of hurting people’s feelings.

But unlike that “My Little Pony” toy, Cowell’s face can smile.

Which is exactly what happened when Kenadi, now 15, stepped up to the “America’s Got Talent” stage earlier this year and finally faced the real Cowell for the first time.

Kenadi’s behavior was somewhat shy when speaking to the show’s judges. But the Utah singer took 180 when she broke out in “One Way Ticket to Tennessee,” a song she wrote about pursuing her dream of becoming a country star.

“Well, you’re a little firecracker, right?” Cowell told the teen during the audition that it aired on June 30. “Your voice sounds like you’re from Nashville when you sing. I love artists, especially people your age, who know what kind of lane they want to go down. “

“You know where you want to go, and I think we can help you get there.”

That was a great time for Kenadi. Yes, she believed she was capable of making the stern Cowell smile. But it had taken her a long time to get to that stage.

She had auditioned for “AGT” twice before. And she had tried “The Voice” at least three times, waiting several hours only to never pass the open audition round, where aspiring singers from all over lined up like cattle for an opportunity to be discovered.

“I’ve definitely been told ‘no’ a lot in my life,” Kenadi told Deseret News via a recent Zoom video call. “It has been such a crazy journey.”

‘A family effort’

Speaking from his home in Logan, Kenadi sat on a black sofa. A family portrait hung on the wall behind her.

He called his 9-year-old sister Alexis, one of his “best friends in the whole world”.

She spoke with pride about her younger sister, Brooklyn, 4. “She has bigger pipes than me her age,” said Kenadi with a smile.

She spoke about her mother, Brandi, who over the years has cleaned the house, kept her fed and supported her while concentrating on music. Kenadi said she could never have reached “AGT” without her mother.

And then there is her father, Chris, who years ago played Steve Wariner’s “Holes in the Floor of Heaven” on guitar for her every night before bed.

“It was sort of like the bedtime routine, where I played that song and I said, ‘Do it again. Don’t go, ”said Kenadi. “But that’s what really inspired me to play the guitar because I wanted to make music as beautiful as that song my father used to play for me.”

It is a close network of love and support. But sometimes, Kenadi has to seek help beyond the immediate family circle.

Chris Haston, NBC

Kenadi is the only one in her home who doesn’t have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare eye disease that comes in many forms for her family but ultimately makes many people completely blind. She prevents her parents from taking her to auditions, singing classes in Salt Lake City with Dean Kaelin (voice coach for David Archuleta) and other activities.

“Either we take the bus or we walk. And if it is a show that is further than that, sometimes it is difficult to find a way to get there, “she said. “Friends and family have supported us to pick us up and take us to our destinations. So yes, we have been really blessed with that. ”

Earlier this year, Kenadi’s grandmother, who lives four hours away in Roosevelt, Utah, picked up Kenadi and her cowgirl hat sisters in Logan and took them to the Miranda Lambert concert at the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake. City.

When they arrived, they learned that the concert had been rescheduled three weeks later.

Standing outside the arena, the three sisters were not going to be defeated. They decided to have fun, doing a little show for their grandmother and singing Lambert’s song “Mama’s Broken Heart”. Then, they went to the Disney store at City Creek Center, Kenadi’s “planet’s favorite store”.

A month and a half later, Kenadi’s grandmother took the family to California for the “AGT” audition. At this point in March, “AGT”, like most television productions, had stopped filming without a live audience due to the coronavirus pandemic. Kenadi waited for rows and rows of empty seats to enter, but she was not prepared not to have her family by her side.

The singer was told the night before her audition that her family would not be able to join her backstage. However, just before the audition, they got the green light to be there.

“I was sincerely grateful that they could come. Not having an audience was a bummer, but nothing would have been worse than that, “he said. “It really is an effort of the whole family.”

Hearing during a pandemic

With his family cheering from the side, Kenadi took “America’s Got Talent” on stage in his cowboy boots, dress, and denim jacket.

It only had an audience of four people: Cowell, Howie Mandel, Sofía Vergara and guest judge Eric Stonestreet. But it was the biggest stage she had ever been on.

Justin Lubin, NBC

“I don’t think I was afraid,” he said. “I think it was new, and I didn’t know what to expect. … but I was mostly excited. By doing those things, you just have to shut your nerves and remember what you practiced to get there, what took you there. ”

“It was really weird to see him so calm and quiet, you know?” She continued. “But I just stood there on that X and did my thing.”

Her eyes were locked on Cowell as he acted, determined to make him smile. She delivered such a strong country vibe with “One Way Ticket to Tennessee,” a song she and her father wrote a year and a half ago, that Cowell even told her he was surprised she was from Utah.

After his performance, and after years of auditioning for “The Voice” and “America’s Got Talent,” Kenadi finally got his “yes” from all four judges. She would go on to the next round of competition.

But from there, things took an unexpected turn. When Kenadi returned to her hotel, she received an email saying that her high school was closing. Their choir concerts were canceled. Store shelves were empty. And the production of “America’s Got Talent” stopped.

“Everything was closed,” he said.

But, like Miranda Lambert’s concert, Kenadi made the most of the moment. She joked that it would be easier to keep her hearing a secret since she would no longer see her friends. His family celebrated that night with Domino’s pizza. They wrote in their diaries. And they talked for hours about it.

“We definitely said our prayers and thank you very much,” said Kenadi. “It’s definitely not what we imagined, but it has probably been even a little bit cooler, because how many people come to ‘America’s Got Talent’ during a historic event?”

Newly discovered fame

With a series of safety precautions, “AGT” production resumed in late June, although Kenadi said he has not yet filmed another round.

According to Deadline, an episode of Judge Cuts will air on July 28. Live shows are expected to start on August 11. But the network is still figuring out the logistics of what those episodes will be like.

Meanwhile, Kenadi is adjusting to his new fame.

Justin Lubin, NBC

On June 30, 8 million people watched their hearing unfold on national television. Making yourself known nationally without being able to visit your closest friends has been a strange experience, Kenadi said.

“I still haven’t seen my friends at all,” he said. “I’ve had news of some of them on social media, but I haven’t really been able to celebrate with anyone live, outside of family and social media.”

But Kenadi has been quite busy. The sophomore at Logan’s Green Canyon High School finished her freshman year with good grades. She has been mowing the lawn and learning the art of audio engineering, hoping to one day produce her own album.

And he has written three songs since closing: a song with which he surprised his father on Father’s Day; a song called “Dancing Through the Stars” that she wrote for her 9-year-old sister, Alexis; and “My Dopamine,” a drug awareness project that she completed for her health class.

“Basically it’s about finding that natural drug without harming your body, like reading a good book. Or my dopamine is taking the stage and singing for thousands of people, “he said. “So that was really fun. And I think my teacher liked it because I got an A in her class. ”

If Kenadi won “AGT”, he said he would put some of his winnings to design his own guitar. However, regardless of how far she goes on “AGT,” she hopes the show will bring her closer to her dream of being a country star, something she imagined since 2015, when she saw Shania Twain from the front row at Vivint Arena.

“I hope my shows in the future look like a mix between Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, that sort of thing,” he said. “I just want people to be able to escape and have the value of their money. I want to have fun and put on a show. ”

And above all, he wants to make people smile.