Of all the musical icons out there, few are more beloved than John Denver.
In his heyday, Denver was a singer-songwriter, actor and a humanitarian. He started a career in folk music and ended up selling more than 33 million recovers worldwide.
Unfortunately, Denver died in 1997 after going down in a plane crash of his own private plate. Regardless, his memory and his music still live on today—particularly through the people who pay tribute to him.
And that’s exactly what the performer in this story did.
The performance took place on The Voice of Holland, where the entire franchise originated.
More specifically, the clip was from The Voice Senior, a version of the show dedicated exclusively to performances from older contestants. Just like any other version of the show, it works by having singers come out and perform “blind auditions.”
As they emerge on stage, they perform to a panel of judges who have their backs turned. If they like what they hear, they can turn around and hit their buzzers to see who’s singing—and to recruit that person onto their team!
The singer in this video was Ruud Hermans, who was 68 years old.
As soon as he steps out, Hermans starts playing his acoustic guitar softly and slowly.
A moment later, he sings the first few lyrics: “Almost heaven…” Upon hearing just those words in his perfect tone of the voice, three of the judges hit their buzzers at the exact same time!
Before long, he’s setting into a faithful rendition of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. It doesn’t take long for the whole audience to be swaying and clapping along with the song.
After just a few more moments of the song, the final judge turns around as well for a full four-chair turn!
Still, the song isn’t even close to over.
As it goes on, Herman’s voice soothes the crowd and wins everybody over. Beyond the clapping, he soon has the entire crowd singing along with him as well—even the judges!
While his performance is great, the whole thing is also a testament to the power of John Denver’s song-writing. After all, how many songs are powerful enough to pull the crowd into a communal experience as this one does? And in a foreign country that the song isn’t even about no less?
When it’s finally all over, the crowd gives Hermans an enormous round of applause!
As this clip shows perfectly, sometimes a great audition relies quite a bit on song choice.
While Hermans’ voice is definitely beautiful and powerful, the best thing he did was to pick the perfect song to suit him.
From the very first notes, he had almost all the judges on his side—and then a moment later, he had the whole crowd singing along with him! As Hermans shows, John Denver’s legacy lives on all around the world—and Hermans himself is a perfect ambassador for him!
Congratulations to Ruud Hermans on his heart-warming performance! Be sure to watch the entire thing in the link below:
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