Elvis Blue

Jan Hoogendyk better known by his stage name Elvis Blue (born in George, South Africa on 28 December 1980) is the winner of the sixth season in of South African Idols.

Early life

Jan Hoogendyk^[1] is a guitar teacher who had worked with underprivileged children in his home town. In his audition to South African Idols, he said he took the name Elvis Blue from a friend, one of his former student who had died at age 11 of HIV/AIDS.. He is quoted as saying: I got the name Elvis Blue from a friend of mine, Elvis Blue he passed away about a year ago, He was 12 years old and he had HIV AIDS. And he always told me that his big dream was to be a musician one day, I always told him he had the coolest name on earth if he wanted to be a musician." ^[2] Hoogendyk added that if he plans to go far in Idols, his name would not be conducive to the English pop industry therefore he went with the name Elvis Blue as an artistic name. Elvis is married and has an 11 month old daughter, Lila.

Idols

In 2010, Elvis Blue took part in South African Idols and was announced winner on the finals held on 1 November 2010. For the finals, he sang "The Things My Father Said"^[3] written for him by song writers employed by Idols South Africa. He was awarded R250,000, a record deal, as well as a car and R50,000 worth of music equipment. Elvis received 64% of the votes.^[4] The runner up was Lloyd Cele who sang another specially written song for Idols titled "Thanks to You" also ended up receiving R250,000 splitting the grand prize. In an unprecedented gesture of friendship, Elvis and Lloyd had decided before the results of the final show to share the cash prize equally.^[5] The winning song became the debut single of Elvis Blue.

Discography

Singles

• 2010: "Things My Father Said"

Albums

• 2011: "Lightly Tread"

References

External links

• Elvis Blue Facebook page
• Elvis Blue Twitter