PERFORMING ARTS

Guitar wizards Eddie Angel, Bill Kirchen and Mark Gamsjager joined to demonstrate their chops in the finale of their show Monday at Jammin' Java. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)
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But a highlight was his straightforward version of "You Are My Sunshine," delivered with a smile. Despite the Memphis Slim lyrics he's been singing for half a century, B.B. King must not really have the blues every day after all.

-- Dave McKenna

Paul Potts

Hype it and they will come. Paul Potts -- the sheepish cellphone salesman and would-be opera singer who won Simon Cowell's TV show "Britain's Got Talent" last summer and was handed a Sony recording contract -- played Lisner Auditorium on Monday, as part of an international tour. The rapturous response the capacity audience gave Potts's rendition of Puccini's "Nessun dorma" would have made one think Franco Corelli had come back from the grave to sing it.

No such luck. In fact, Potts's eager but meager tenor (a pleasant enough instrument for undemanding pop fare) was no match for all the repertoire he borrowed from Mario Lanza, Andrea Bocelli and the Three Tenors. But does it matter that his voice displays no discernible technique, support or skill at phrasing, that he's got a tin ear for sung languages (including, alas, English) or that his upper register strains into an unrelenting blare? Of course not. This guy's the Little Engine That Could, and his fans are happy to get onboard with no questions asked.

Potts is sharing his tour with a new ensemble called the Three Graces -- a trio of women with the genuine vocal chops, pop savvy and camera-loving looks that should take them far. Of course, their pedigree isn't retail, their first CD is only now being hyped, and Mr. Cowell hasn't informed the world they've "got talent." Accordingly, the audience was only grudgingly polite with its applause.

-- Joe Banno