Singer aces first-round audition for ‘America’s Got Talent’ show

“I never like that competition thing, but I got a hunch that I should try.”

Karla Seldon

Singer

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

vindicator entertaiment writer

Karla Seldon of Youngstown has made it past the first round of auditions for “America’s Got Talent.”

The singer with The Package band went to Chicago on Oct. 17 and auditioned along with at least 10,000 other people. She made it to the second round of auditions along with about 350 people.

Seldon sang the Etta James song “At Last” and said she knew the judges were impressed before she even finished.

“The judges can’t tell you how you did, but I could tell by the way they were looking at me,” said Seldon. “Their eyes got all big.”

Seldon will audition before the show’s three main judges — David Hasselhoff, Sharon Osbourne and Pierce Morgan — in January in Chicago. If she makes it past that audition, she will appear on the show.

Seldon said a niece prompted her to take a shot at the show.

“I never like that competition thing, but I got a hunch that I should try,” she said. After submitting a video to the show, she got a call notifying her of the Chicago auditions.

Seldon began singing in the church when she was 7, and has sung professionally in Las Vegas and on tour in Europe. She is working on a CD and has plans to shoot a video in downtown Youngstown.

Among the people she has worked with in her career is Billy Beck of the Ohio Players. Beck wrote the song “As We Lay,” which won a Grammy, and which Seldon will sing at the January auditions.