She may be a little leery of Bradford’s cold weather, but Ayla Brown is excited to come here later this month for two shows.
From 9 to 11 p.m. Jan. 26, the former American Idol contestant will perform an acoustic set at Afterwards Lounge in Beefeater’s Restaurant. The next night, she will perform at 7:30 p.m. as the opening act for Jason Michael Carroll at the Bromeley Family Theater at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford as part of the Bradford Creative and Performing Arts Center’s (BCPAC) season.
“I’m really going to put on a heck of a show,” Brown told The Era. “I”m really looking forward to it.”
Her road so far has been a little different than the common stories of singers with one lifelong career path. “As a kid, I felt like I was gravitating toward music and sound. My mom told me I was singing or humming before I could formulate words. But I never really did anything with it when I was younger. I was in the high school choir and the a cappella group.”
But that was not the only path she followed. In addition to being an American Idol finalist in 2006, she was a full scholarship Division I basketball player at Boston College, and she was a national news correspondent for The Early Show on CBS.
“As I’ve gotten older, you learn you can use your God-given gifts to positively affect other people,” Brown said.
And that she does. She’s performed overseas three times to American troops in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt.
“I went over to Afghanistan in 2010 for the first time,” she explained. “It was my first time traveling out of the country. I was over there for 14 days. I still get chills thinking about the first time the C-130 and Osprey opened the doors to the ‘moon dust’ of Afghanistan and thinking ‘this is what our men and women go through.’ It made me have a deeper appreciation.”
Her father, former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, retired as colonel after 35 years in the Army National Guard.
“I wasn’t used to experiencing those conditions,” she said. But being there and bringing happiness to the troops “made me want to do more. It filled my heart and made me smile.”
Brown has a soft spot for children fighting battles of another kind — their own health. As a songwriter, she is a member of Songs of Love Foundation, “an amazing organization that has a group of writers who write and record songs for kids battling illness — usually cancer.”
The caregivers submit profiles to the organization with the child’s name, hobbies, friends, pets, etc. The writers will take the information and create an individual song.
“I’m working on two songs right now for kids,” Brown said. “It’s pretty life changing.”
Brown said she’s always wanted to be a role model for young girls, and that is one of the reasons she sings country music.
“When I first got off of Idol, I was doing pop music, adult contemporary. When the pop genre started changing in a way that was negative, I got out of it. When it started to get raunchier, I said ‘that’s not me.’ I went down to Nashville and I fell in love with the city and the people,” she explained. And she’s found that country music now is similar to what pop music used to be.
Brown spoke about what she learned in her time on television, especially facing the caustic Simon Cowell, who wasn’t a fan of hers.
“I learned that everyone has an opinion about how you should sound, how you should look and what you should wear — the list goes on,” she said. “Sometimes the most exciting part is experiencing things for the first time. I met a celebrity for the first time. I learned a choreographed dance routine for the first time.
“I really cherish those firsts and those moments,” she added.
