SOUL GOAL: Back in June, we chatted with singer Cheryl "CandySoul" Humphrey of North Little Rock when she appeared on -- and won -- an episode of the Alec Baldwin-hosted Match Game reboot on ABC.
Recently Humphrey made another high-profile appearance, not on TV, but on stage.
And not just any stage. Harlem's Apollo Theater in New York City, where music legends from Ella Fitzgerald to James Brown to Michael Jackson have performed.
Humphrey, who had been recommended without her knowledge for Match Game, says she was similarly nominated to perform at Amateur Night at the Apollo and received a letter of invitation.
As seen on TV's Showtime at the Apollo, theater audiences can be brutal when they don't like what they see.
"Before I got out there, at least three or four people had already gotten booed off the stage," Humphrey says with a laugh, adding, "They announced that I'm from Arkansas, and I went on out there. Usually I put on heels and a dress and all this stuff. ... I wanted to be comfortable. I put on my dashiki and I had on some tennis-shoe sandals.
"I went out there and performed 'Baby, I Love You' by Aretha Franklin."
And they loved her back. So much that at the end of the night, an applause meter deemed Humphrey the winner.
"When [the announcer] said, 'First place, all the way from Arkansas, CandySoul!' ... I started jumping in the air," she says. "People were standing up ... and the audience cheered for me. It meant so much because a lot of the people that performed that night are from New York, so they had a lot of supporters in the audience.
"I only had two people in the audience."
Humphrey won a monetary prize and an invitation to return in October. She says she's thinking on it.
For now, CandySoul is relishing an experience that was sweet.
PIE OUTCRY: And speaking of sweet, an Arkansas dessert got dissed in a Topixoffbeat.com list: "The Grossest Food From Every Single U.S. State" (topixoffbeat.com/slideshow/19296).
The state treat of their disgust: "Fried Fruit Pies."
Here's the crusty commentary: "Really, Arkansas? That's your culinary revelation? You took a pie and deep fried it? Well done. slow clap I can't say I've ever been eating an apple pie and thought to myself 'You know what this needs? About five million more calories.'"
Oh, such pie-ty.
Email:[email protected]
SundayMonday on 09/30/2018