My Dream Come True

Album Review

Pat Boone's Gold Label is all about "Memories and More," offering a catalog of classic crooner performances from the '40s through the '60s by the likes of Patsy Cline, Tony Bennett, and Perry Como. The story behind 16-year-old prodigy DeHues is fascinating — Gold Label held a contest in 2000 to find "America's Next Great Crooner" and the Michigan teen's tape won hands down — but it's his voice that is truly mind-blowing, not to mention self-assured in its phrasing. Without knowing the back story, there's simply no way you'd ever suspect he's a kid. Much younger than even Harry Connick, Jr. was in the beginning. The Connick comparisons, then the early Sinatra comparisons, will no doubt become part of DeHues' story, as he tackles classics like "Night & Day," "I've Got the World on a String," and "The Way You Look Tonight" with ease, grace, and passion. He also has an affinity for Gershwin ("Someone to Watch Over Me," a soulful duet with Debby Boone) and Cole Porter. As promising as DeHues is as a crooner for the new millennium, he'd simply be a voice in the wilderness without the amazing big-band arrangements here by David Diggs and Dave Siebels, who also play keyboards. It's fun to imagine DeHues' friends listening to alt-rock and hip-hop while he's really digging this far into history. Kudos should go to his parents, Larry and Lorraine DeHues, who performed with the famed choral group Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians from 1973-1975.