America, what took you so long?! About 20 or more years ago, a then 16 year old girl from Amsterdam called Glennis Grace won a Dutch talent show for imitators. Her live vocals were nearly an exact match to Whitney Houston. Glennis was a great fan of hers and a career full of struggles followed.
Glennis tried to become the Dutch Whitney Houston for years, but the grand vocal acrobatics couldn’t always get her in the charts. She was famous, well-known, but she just didn’t seem to quite live up to the expectation everyone had for her to become one of those Dutch breakthrough artists abroad.
We even send her to the Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago, with a grand Whitney Houston-ish song so she could show off those vocal skills, but nothing happened internationally after that either.
Throughout all of her career, she had kept her own repertoire in English. Because of her international allure and the potential of an international breakthrough, I’m sure no one even advised her to try something else.
Then, a few years ago she did a performance in an intimate setting. A smaller venue and just singing songs she liked. She sang a Dutch song, which actually led to a bigger audience in The Netherlands and a new career path. She started recording songs in her native language and Glennis found herself a whole new audience with her power ballads and up tempo mix of soul and pop music.
She was also asked to take part in, what would become, an annual event: “The Ladies Of Soul”. In this event the best of female vocal talent form The Ladies of Soul: Trijntje Oosterhuis, Berget Lewis, Edsilia Rombley, Candy Dulfer and Glennis Grace. They treat the audience to a night full of classic soul music, their own hits and special guests. This event has recently led to a potential American breakthrough for Glennis.
A video of her singing Whitney Houston’s “Run To You” during The Ladies of Soul concert, this year in February, went viral online after Nicki Minaj gave it a like on Instagram. Glennis has since been featured by a few American press sites as the woman with Whitney’s voice. Whitney fans seem to embrace her and the American music business seems to be following. Glennis has been approached by a few big American producers to work with. Very levelheadedly (which is very Dutch), she passed on all the requests to her management to filter to create a good team around her for that potential international breakthrough… finally. Sometimes, when you stop looking for something, it just comes to you.
