Smallscreen Features

Alexis Grace's 'Jolene' not enough to keep her on Idol, interview

By April MacIntyre Mar 21, 2009, 22:09 GMT

Alexis Grace

American Idol lost Alexis Grace this last week.

The pretty young mother from Memphis,Tennessee may be gone from Idol, but she fully intends on moving her career forward. 

Alexis Grace spoke to Monsters and Critics and other online journalists in a FOX conference call, and she shared that the elimination was hard, but she was taking the whole experience in stride.

“I’m going to go back home and spend some time with my family first.  And then I’m going to get to work and start talking about recording some music and trying to get it out there and just continue singing.” Grace noted, adding, “I learned that if you want to do anything in life, if you want to pursue a dream, that you have to work hard at it and believe in yourself for one thing and just have fun with whatever it is that you want to do." 

"And remember everything and just the little cliché things that you could say, it’s really true.  I just want to say thank you, guys, so much for your support and how you feel about me and my singing.  I’ll be back and hopefully you’ll hear more from me.” 

It was her performance of the Dolly Parton classic “Jolene” that tripped up Grace’s chances with the judges.

Grace reflected, ”I think I was just, what I was feeling the second night.  I just went up there and sang what I was feeling.  It wasn’t like I was trying to be anything or do anything a certain way.  I just wanted to show them that I wanted to stay… I probably would have done better with “Never Loved a Man,” the first one that I sang, just because it’s more my element and soul and that’s what they loved about me." 

"That’s what got some attention and I think I would have been able to showcase my voice a lot better on that song, too.  I think that 'Jolene' is a beautiful song and I love to sing it.  I don’t think it was their favorite performance, so I really didn’t get to really show them and remind them again why they picked me or why America picked me.  I probably would have chosen a different song if I could.”

Grace mused about her other song choices for country night.  “I did consider doing a Carrie Underwood song, but there were already two other people who sang Carrie Underwood, so I felt that it would be too much Carrie Underwood in one night.  So then I went with “Jolene” because that was a really beautiful song.  I loved the lyrics.  I like the singer and so I thought it was a good song for me to do.”