Article from the Wake Forest Weekly Newspaper on January 13, 2012

Posted by camille in on 11:07 AM

X-Factor finalist
to channel Amy
Winehouse as part of
Saturday’s Neck of the
Woods performance.
By David Leone
Wake Weekly Associate Editor
WAKE FOREST — Camille
White has presence, and her
performance can make a large
spacious auditorium stage feel
like you’re at a crowded venue
where the singer is one step up
surrounded by people on three
sides.
So one can only imagine how
she’ll sound this Saturday at the
North Wake Artists Collective
Neck of the Woods performance
series, held in the confines of the
Twisted Vine Wine Shoppe.
camille, as she goes by (lowercase
‘c,’ included), joins perhaps
the best repertoire of acts Claire
Constantikes has put together
for the performance series, including
Wake Forest-based stand-up comic Josh Goguen; Wake Crossroads actress Colleen Ann Guest and actor Ryan Stevens performing Michael
VanRiper’s original one-act play;
and the music act Kristi Dixon
and James Yow (singing and
strumming). “With an impressive vocal range that covers five octaves, camille’s singing moves effortlessly
from soft to smoky, to strong to 
crisp,” Constantikes notes, adding the Wake Forest-Rolesville
High School senior is “a vivacious
and captivating spirit that
will light up any room.”
The 17-year-old camille has
been singing since age 13, when
her family lived in Pittsburg, Pa.
Last year, she auditioned for
the show X-Factor USA in Miami,
Fla. and made the final 35
contestants out of 8,000 vocalists
who were to perform in front of
Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and
other celebrity judges. She never
got to perform, however. Apparently, the show overbooked and  the last five people to audition
— camille was 31 of 35 — were
told they weren’t needed and
sent home. She took the disappointment in stride.
“I was ready, but I’m kind
of glad I didn’t make it on the
show,” she said. “It was actually
after the show I discovered my
voice.” Since then she’s honed her
skills, has performed the national
anthem for high school and
college games and sang a duet
with David Leathers Jr., a high
school student from Fayetteville,
whom she met while performing
for Fox50’s 2011 singing competition (both placed in the top
20 out of more than 350 ontestants).
She prefers singers who allow
her to display a range of notes,
so expect camille to deliver Amy
Winehouse and Rhianna on
Saturday, and possibly a few of
her own songs. Rhianna’s music
have an up-tempo beat camille
likes, but she also draws from  a mixture of jazz, pop, hip-hop,
rock and rhythm and blues artists.
“I also like to do old school
stuff from the ’60s and ’70s,” she
adds, including Motown and
other artists such as Anita Baker,
Whitney Houston and Sarah
Vaughn. She channeled Winehouse’s You Know I’m no Good for a performance
late last year at Wake
Forest-Rolesville High.
“Our voices are kind of alike,”
she said about the late Winehouse.
“We both studied Sarah
Vaughn, while she was alive. I
have a wide range myself and I
like to play around in songs. I
like to sing original versions but
actually put my own little spice
to it.”The schedule for Neck of the
Woods is fluidic, so camille isn’t
certain how many songs she’ll
play.She thinks she’ll go on around
9 p.m. and sing for about an
hour. For a sneak peek at her singing
visit her YouTube page at
tiny.cc/YTcamille. The event runs from 7 p.m. until about 10 or 11. The 2012 Neck of the Woods performance series is free to the public, though donations of $5 to help the performers is requested.
The Twisted Vine is located at
156 S. White St., upstairs from
the Wake Forest Coffee Company
in downtown Wake Forest.
Seating is limited. For more about the other performers and links to their websites,
visit WakeForestARTS.org