Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Listen back to the American Idol auditions, and one of the most impressive is a version of “Summertime,” delivered in New York by Isabelle.

In fact, Isabelle has sparkled every time she’s been on the Idol stage so far.

Even when she was forced into a group performance with Charisma Monster Zoanette Johnson as a member of the PoohSnaps and belted out a snappy version of “Knock on Wood.”

Christina Isabelle Pasqualone is 22, was born in the New York area, but grew up near Atlanta.

She performed as Christina Isabelle when she attended the Berklee College of Music; she graduated in December.

On Idol, she’s simply Isabelle, having dropped her first name because there are too many Christinas in the marketplace, according to a story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

According to her website bio, she’s been singing since she was 3 and enjoyed one of her early career highlights at age 14 when she graced the stage at the Georgia World Congress Center alongside Grammy-winning singer-songwriter David Foster.

But Isabelle told Idol she also struggled with her weight during her high school years, reaching 200 pounds at one point. Because she wanted to be a singer and feel good about herself, she lost 50 pounds before heading off to Berklee.

While in Boston, she also performed with a wedding band called the FreeStyle Band, which played a wide array of pop, dance, R&B and funk music.

She told Idol she thinks the fact that she can sing so many styles of music and still sound original might help set her apart on the show.

Her idols are powerhouse female vocalists like Whitney Houston, Celine Dion … and, yes, Mariah Carey.

“My mom used to tell me when she was pregnant with me, she’d sing Whitney Houston driving home, and that happens to be the stuff that I sing most today,” Isabelle says in her Road to Hollywood video.

“I want to bring the great singers back,” she adds. “Someone who can just stand on a stage and connect to an audience without everything else around them going on, and really just make it about a voice, one voice, and make it special.”

Here are three videos of Isabelle making it special in a non-Idol setting.

“Make You Feel My Love”

“Taking Chances”

“One Plus One”