Locks Heath singer beats thousands in national contest

A budding singer from Locks Heath sang in a national contest and was backed by an up-and-coming acoustic musician in the top ten of the iTunes charts.

Samuel Jones

Samuel Jones beat around 1,000 other young singers to get through to the regional semi-finals in the Teen Stars competition.

The 11-year-old of Locks Road sang Bruno Mars’ Runaway Baby at Ferneham Hall in Fareham in the first round of the competition and then impressed judges with another performance of the song at the Portsmouth Guildhall.

There he had the backing from singer song-writer RemedySounds, whose real name is Josh Clark, and who has supported top artists including JLS and One Direction and came runner up in the acoustic category of Live and Unsigned in 2012.

“The first time I had to perform I was a bit nervous,” said Samuel.

“I just naturally like to sing and I’m good at it. Singing takes my mind off things and it calms me down.

“After I performed each time, all my classmates were crowding round me, asking how I did and what happened. I was really sad to not get through to the finals.”

Despite not getting through to the finals, Samuel was not too despondent and excited to have performed with RemedySounds. He said: “I felt really excited because he’s really good. My heart was pumping out of my body.”

RemedySounds – Josh Clark – and Samuel Jones

Former Brookfield pupil, RemedySounds, 23 and originally from Sarisbury Green, also had his debut EP MakingMoves last year reach 7^th position in the iTunes chart surpassing Ed Sheeran and Frank Turner.

He was so amazed with Samuel’s performance in the Teen Stars competition he asked to sing with him during the semi-finals.

“I was quite shocked to hear him sing because I think for his age his song writing was very good,” he said. “He had an excellent stage presence. I was very impressed.”

The pair reunited at last week Locks Heath Junior School summer fayre where Samuel invited RemedySounds to play for his school friends. Then Samuel took to the stage himself to perform in the talent contest.

His mum Paula said of the national contest: “I’m so very proud of Samuel. This was his first singing competition and never thought he would have got this far through the competition.

“The judges’ feedback was very positive and encouraging. Samuel was in the top scorers and was the only boy in his age group throughout the whole competition.”