Usher as Marvin Gayes. Michelle Branch as Lesley Gore. Nick Carter as Jay Black (of Jay and the Americans). It's not easy finding comteporary singers to recreate the legends of the '60s for American Dreams.
"You want people who are popular among teens today," explains the show's executive producer/creator, Jonathan Prince, "but who have enough chops as singers to honer the past. So the way you choose them is, you say, 'Who is popular today? We've got to get ratings like everybody else. And who would my 16-year-old niece here in Los Angeles like to see? But at the same time, who has the talent and the ability to be believable and to sound good, because, again, the one thing you don't want to do is cheapen our memories of how great Marvin Gaye was."
Like Ashanti, who will sing Walk On By as Dionne Warwick on Dec. 15. "It's a great song; it's a singer's song," Prince says, "You can't fake your way through that. Ashanti is remarkable."
From Soap Opera Weekly.
Also from SOW, "The List: Comments from the peanut gallery
(2) Sunday Sermon: Thanks to American Dreams and The Practice, priests and nuns are getting as much airtime on Sunday nights as mobsters, spies and pervs.
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