'Idol' Digs HUDS Worker's Niece

A Harvard Dining Services worker’s niece showed that “no mountain” was too high for her as she passed the first round of the American Idol competition last night with the song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

Ayla Brown, who is the daughter of state senator Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, and WCVB-TV newswoman Gail Huff, was told on the show televised yesterday, that she would now be “going to Hollywood.”

Multiple fan sites featuring Brown’s pictures and performances are now accessible online.

Cindy A. Huff, Adams House dining services staff member and aunt of Brown, said that her niece has always been good at singing.

“She sang at the Patriots game,” said Huff, who has worked at Harvard for almost 23 years.

Huff said that after it became public knowledge in Adams that her niece was going to be on TV, several students came up to her wishing Brown good luck and saying that they would look for her on the program.

Asked what she thought of Brown’s chances in the contest, Huff laughed and said that she thought they were good.

“But I’m biased!” she said.

On the Boston auditions episode last night, the 17-year-old Brown said that she had “been singing and playing basketball [her] whole life and trying to balance the two,” and wanted to try to continue to do so as she goes on to a basketball scholarship at Boston College.

Brown’s level-headedness seemed to impress judge Paula Abdul, who ended up making the decision to let her go on to Hollywood after a split vote between Randy Jackson’s “yes” and Simon Cowell’s “absolutely no.”

“There’s something empty about it all,” Cowell said.

Despite their “yes” votes, Abdul and Jackson were also not wholly positive, and Brown may have to work hard to get through the next round in Hollywood.

“You can tell you can sing, but it was just a power voice,” Abdul said, wishing there had been more “dynamics.” Jackson agreed, saying that he wanted to see more “color” in Brown’s singing, but that “on the strength of [her] voice,” he would let her through.

A Harvard freshman living in Mower, Rachel E. Flynn ’09, has also had an American Idol experience.

“I went and auditioned about a week before I left for the Freshman Arts Program,” she said. “It was kind of intense—we were told people sleep outside so we had to get there really early.”

Flynn and a friend arrived at the Gillette Stadium at 4 a.m. in time to receive two of the few hundred wristbands given out that day to potential contestants. The wristbands enabled them to audition the next day for the competition.

Flynn never got to sing before the notorious trio of judges, though, as all contestants are vetted by producers in several rounds of pre-auditions before being allowed into the auditions that are actually filmed.

“Simon and Paula and Randy don’t actually turn up for the first week,” Flynn said.

Flynn sang Aretha Franklin’s “Think” for her main song and succeeded in the first round, but the next panel of judges were not so receptive to her talent and so she went home without her 15 minutes of fame on film.

“It was a fun experience, but I’m glad I don’t have to do it again!” she said.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.