Paul Potts: Salesman to sensation

click for a complete Paul Potts Article from sun-sentinel.com

The import version of Welsh tenor Paul Potts' debut CD contains an unlikely candidate for operatic treatment: Everybody Hurts, a loping ballad by the Georgia rock band R.E.M. Potts not only covers the 1993 hit, he sings it in Italian. That explains the song's parenthetical subtitle, Ognuno Soffre. It doesn't explain what a former cell phone salesman turned opera sensation is doing interpreting R.E.M.

"I appreciate good music wherever I hear it," Potts, 37, said in a telephone conversation about his first U.S. tour, which begins on Saturday at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood.

Though not officially released here, Ognuno Soffre has at least one American admirer in R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills. "I think it's beautiful," Mills said in an interview (to discuss the band's upcoming appearance at the Langerado festival in Big Cypress National Preserve). "My father was a tenor ... So I really appreciate it, and I appreciate the fact that our songs can translate to other styles."

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