Dianelys Hernandez

Hernandez, who sang for Fidel Castro at the International Festival of Medicine in Havana as a child, was 16 when she defected while touring Atlantic Canada with a group of young Cuban singers. Strangers she had met a day earlier while performing on the boardwalk in Saint John took her to Immigration officials, who initially were unsure whether to grant her status as a political refugee.

“When I walked in there, the people at Immigration told me they were already looking for me,” Ms. Hernandez said. “They said, ‘Oh, we were expecting you.’ Somebody from the government in Cuba had called them and said terrible things about me, things that weren’t true, so at first they weren’t sure if they should believe a word I said.”

Eventually, however, Ms. Hernandez’s application for Immigration was accepted but, because she was a minor, she was required to move in with a family. She attended one year of high school in Saint John before moving to Toronto to study for a year at Oakwood Collegiate while honing her talent for singing at open microphones around the city.

All the while, government officials in Cuba were trying to persuade her to come home. When they couldn’t convince her, they even tried to trick her.

“At one point I suddenly got a call saying my mother was dying and that I had to immediately return to Havana,” Hernandez said. “But that made me suspicious, so I called home. My mother was drinking a rum and having a smoke when she answered the phone. She didn’t have any idea what was going on.

Trained briefly at Havana’s Conservatory of Music, Hernandez got her start singing in her family’s cramped apartment around candles made from scavenging tiny pieces of paraffin wax.

“Even though we were poor, and we had no light, no cold water, little food and what we had in the fridge was spoiling, those were still the happiest times of my life,” she said. “But unfortunately, my family couldn’t defect with me, and I miss them a lot.”

Now married to a sweetheart she met while attending high school in Saint John, Hernandez has a son, three years old, and works in customer service for one of Canada’s largest telecommunications firms. Since the end of last summer she has been busy rehearsing with her new band, Dee, and preparing to cut a demo. She hopes to tour Canada this summer and perform at jazz and music festivals across the country.

Canadian Idol’s fickle judges loved Hernandez from the first time they saw her last spring at auditions in Moncton. They continuously heaped praise upon her, even though her exotic looks and jazz-influenced vocals were not necessarily a comfortable fit for the show.

Inspired by Cuban diva Celia Cruz and a big fan of Ray Charles, Hernandez was sultry while singing “Summertime” from Porgy & Bess in Idol’s Round of 32 and saucy when doing Charles's “Unchain My Heart” while trying to earn a wild-card berth into the top 10.

“Everyone knows I sweat at the drop of a hat, but I sweat at the drop of your voice,” judge Farley Flex told her after she had concluded “Summertime.”

“By far and away, you are my favourite singer in this competition,” said Sass Jordan, another judge who has sold more than a million CDs of her own.

Zack Werner

Boos rain down like hailstones every time Zack Werner walks on stage on Canadian Idol. It’s a shame, a case of mistaken identity, because the loquacious judge is actually the nicest person in the cast. But his mouth, and razor-sharp wit, often land him in hot water with fans.

Viewers liken him to Simon Cowell, the uncompromising American Idol judge famous for lampooning competitors while pushing them out the door. But Werner, a former rock singer whose band once opened for Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam, detests the comparison.

In fact, he sparred with the big-mouthed Brit a few years ago when both were judges at a World Idol competition in London.

“I think the comparisons are completely irrelevant,” said Werner, who argued with Cowell over criticism the Canadian leveled at U.S. contestant Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol winner. “Let’s go head-to-head: I look better, I’m smarter, I’m more entertaining, I’m more Canadian, which is a great thing.

“It’s like, does he think he invented being the nasty dude? What, has he never seen The Gong Show?’ “

An artist manager and lawyer who worked for a firm in Toronto that represented the likes of Nelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne and Sum 41, Werner is easily the most friendly and outgoing member of Canadian Idol’s four-person judging panel. The others are Sass Jordan, Jake Gold, and Farley Flex.

Werner spends nearly as much time out of his seat as he does in it during Canadian Idol telecasts, often using commercial breaks to kibitz with the audience, sign autographs and pose for pictures. He is not satisfied with simply saying hello to folks sitting in sections adjacent to the judges table; he ventures so far up into the balcony at the John Bassett Theatre that he has to sprint back to his seat seconds before a broadcast resumes.

The Best of Zack Werner

“That was really odd, Daryl, but so are you. I don’t know, but you’re here for another week. You’ll do something bizarre next week.” -- To the waifish Daryl Brunt, after he sang Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” during a program that offered a tribute to pop hits of the 1980s.

“I think the arrangement was a Stevie blunder. You sang fine if you were fronting the Ice Capades.” -- To Brunt, after the 16-year-old sang “Superstition” on a show that paid tribute to Stevie Wonder.

“I think the outfit is an atrocity but above and beyond that, I think there’s nothing cool going on here. You sang fine, but it’s B-room casino.” -- To British Columbia teenager Ashley Leitao after she stumbled through “Sir Duke” during the same show. Leitao was eliminated the next night.

Rex Goudie

They came wearing ballcaps snug to their face, just like the Newfoundlander of their
dreams, clutched his picture and waved colourful posters that bore his name. They
shouted proposals, decent and otherwise, snapped countless photographs and rushed the
stage time and again, handing him roses and scraps of paper so he could sign his name.
Yep, Rex Goudie’s life, post-Canadian Idol, sure is cursed. Oh, the drudgery. Darn all of
those young women, screaming “I love you, sexy Rexy” night after night after night.
“Oh. Lord,’’ Goudie said. “You just gotta go with it, I guess.”

The runnerup to Melissa O’Neil in Canadian Idol 3, Goudie expected to be pursuing a
mechanical engineering license now, just like his dad, back home on the Rock. If not that,
the 19-year-old thought he would be joining the legion of other Atlantic Canadians seeking employment far, far from home.

“I figured I’d be in Fort McMurray (Alta.) going to work somewhere now,” Goudie said.
“But here I am. It goes to show you can’t take anything for granted. You never know
what’s going to happen next.”

Instead of toiling in the oil fields, Goudie is living in Toronto now – “It’s no place for a
Newfie” – and laying down the groundwork for a long musical career. His first CD – “Under the Lights” -- was nominated for a Juno Award (best album), and sold 13,000 copies the day it went on sale.

“It’s really weird,” Goudie said with a laugh. “I would have been happy if it sold one.”
Talked into trying out for Canadian Idol by his cousin, Goudie also received a