KWCUSA JUDGING PANEL
Duet Division 2019
Tara Grimmer
Tara Grimmer is a Minneapolis musician and album producer in the Twin Cities, who also frequently promotes singer-songwriters, mainly by organizing live showcases as the owner-operator of Better Than Life Entertainment. She appears on and/or has produced multiple independently-released albums, including “Number One Fan” by Fuzzy Machete and “The Age of Extinction” by Christof Rochel, both of which can be found on Apple/Amazon/Spotify/etc. She is an enthusiastic activist for the rights of immigrants, LGBT+ people, and other marginalized communities, and very proud to be a card-carrying member of the ACLU.
James Michael Dorton
James Michael Dorton comes from a family of accomplished singers, actors, stunt performers, and entertainers. He has worked in film, television, and live action shows as a performer. He has also worked as actor Keanu Reeves’ stunt man and stand-In, as a stunt coordinator for America’s Most Wanted television Show, and as a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger.
As the CEO/Owner of his own Entertainment Company DDEI for 20 years, he has worked directly with Bruno Mars and his sisters the LYLAS, Legends In Concert, and judged many singing and band competititions throughout the years, including The Miss Hawaii Teen Pageant, Honolulu’s Battle Of The Bands, and The World Singing Championships 2018.
Mr. Dorton currently works as the mascot for both the Oakland Raiders football team, the Aviators Baseball Team, and is the lead support staff of the Las Vegas Mass Choir. He lives in Las Vegas with his wife Madison.
Dana Daye
Dana Daye is a Bay Area native who sang in the Cabaret Clubs in San Francisco. She is also a recording artist who has recorded several dance music albums. Now living in Las Vegas, Dana has performed at several venues including, The Silverton, Sam’s Town, The Suncoast, The Summit, Copa Room, and Sun City Anthem. Dana performs with the LVMC as a featured singer for private and corporate events including The MGM Grand Arena, Mandalay Bay, and The Cosmopolitan.
KIMBERLY ANNAND
Kimberly originally began competing in karaoke contests in the early 90’s. These were all local competitions and nothing as big as what was yet to come, but they did help her prepare for it. She has competed in numerous National competitions and was lucky enough to travel around the US to compete.
Her first experience with KWC began in 2012. She made it to National’s in Ohio that year. It wasn’t her year to bring home the title. That changed in 2013 when she came back to KWC and she won Female US National Champion and went on to Finland to compete in World’s where she won the Bronze Medal. One week after returning from Finland and winning the Bronze Medal, she earned another title, she became a grandma for the first time.
Through all of this, Dave was at her side and her biggest supporter. They got married in August of 2014 and they continued to run their karaoke business. She was again involved with KWC that year but this time as a judge for National’s in Texas. For two years after that, she was a singer in a local band and Dave ran the sound.
In 2019, they got a show at The Metropolitan in San Andreas. The Met agreed to hold Qualifier’s so Kimberly moved from being a contestant to running the shows. Kimberly was back being a part of KWC. She has thoroughly enjoyed being behind the scenes, running the contests, promoting, coaching singer’s and being there to support them. Watching the contestants grow from shy timid singer’s to performers has been her greatest joy. The whole reason she got involved again was so other’s could experience what she experienced years ago. It was a lot of work but in the end, very rewarding.
Kimberly lives in Murphys, CA with her husband and is co-owner of Sweet Harmony Entertainment. She has been in the karaoke business for 19 years. Together they have a total of 6 kids and 3 grandchildren.
Bob Sluys
Dutch import Bob Sluys started his professional career at age 17, playing trumpet on tour for C&W superstar Roy Clark. A few years later he taught himself bass guitar and moved to LA where he spent 10 years performing with bands of all types- he even appeared in an iconic Coke commercial with Kim Carnes. As the grunge scene exploded in 1990, Bob found himself back in Seattle where he produced and directed a college version of the “School of Rock”- to this day many of his students are still performing worldwide. In 2001 Bob moved to the entertainment capitol of the world and appeared in many groups and shows on the fabulous Las Vegas strip! And now, Bob takes the occasional gig whilst mainly focusing on his real estate career. Bob has enjoyed shooting hoops, writing books - available on Amazon - mentoring budding young musicians, playing Scrabble and derives his greatest joy from . . . his daily nap!
Tuesday guest judge
Rane Rose
Rane Rose, Classical Crossover Soprano, Is a multi-talented artist, a fashion influencer and an education advocate. She was born and raised in Manila and holds a bachelor’s degree in Broadcasting, a master’s in Communication Research and a black belt certification in Six Sigma. She is the main TV Host (business & politics segment) and Co-Creator of Vegas Unlimited TV aired on The CW Channel and was also a co-anchor of a Sunday morning news show aired on Las Vegas TV station and co-hosted a family-oriented cultural and performing arts TV show. She is an editorial model and graced the front cover of fashion magazines AVANT GARDE Magazine, Parlay Magazine & MYVEGAS Magazine and was voted as one of Las Vegas’ Top 100 Women of Influence four years in a row.
(Music) Voice & musical ability: Rane Rose has a soprano vocal range of 4 1/2 octaves and is training on her 5th. She has been praised for her powerful angelic vocals which can evoke a wide array of emotions and soundscapes.
Rane Rose had performed LIVE with world-class tenors and sings in 5 languages (French, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and English) on her upcoming 3rd album, Angel of Music! All of her songs are available at all major music distribution such as iTunes, AppleMusic, Spotify, Amazon and Google Play.
Wednesday guest judge
Chris Wilson
Chris wilson is a native Texan he began singing and dancing at a very young age chris has sang all over the the world and the nation he sang along side of Leeann rimes and Scott hoying from pentatonix he started in the church and then went on to study music at Uta He also was also in shows at Sixflags over Texas and sixflags great escape and he was a lead featured singer for two cruise lines Chris is currently a lead singer for one of dallas top party bands Overdrive Texas and he is a vocal coach and dance teacher he is so excited to be here chris was a national judge for Kwc in 2017 as well as the former Texas state director in 2017 and 2018 he would like to wish everyone good luck and see u In Vagas
Wednesday guest judge
Rob GarRett
ROB GARRETT as NEIL DIAMOND
Neil Diamond is one of the biggest selling and most beloved artists in pop/rock music history.
Throughout his 50+ year career he has also established himself as being one of the top concert draws of all time.
Sadly, in January of 2018 just shy of his 77th birthday, Diamond announced to the public that he would be retiring from doing live performances after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
However, the Diamond live performance legacy continues to be preserved for audiences all over the world through longtime Las Vegas performer, Rob Garrett whose physical and vocal likeness to an early 1980's era Neil Diamond has been widely acclaimed as being "uncanny.
Like his iconic alter-ego, Garrett were born in Brooklyn, NY. In 1974 he moved from New York City to Las Vegas along with his parents, grandmother, and younger brother.
In 1980 he formed the group "Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven" and for 15 years achieved prominence as the leader and front man of one of the city’s premiere oldies and classic rock groups.
Garrett saw Diamond in his first Las Vegas concert engagement when he made his Las Vegas debut opening the Theater for the Performing Arts at the Aladdin Hotel/Casino in 1976.
“He held the audience including myself spellbound, and broke all existing Las Vegas concert records at that time,” Garrett stated. “I had been a fan since 1969 and I’d always thought that he had written some of the most poignant & passionate lyrics I’d ever heard and I knew he had a way of expressing his lyrics in a way that no other singer/songwriter had done before or since.”
In 1995, Garrett was personally hired by Paul Revere (leader/founder of "the Raiders") to portray Neil Diamond in the “Legends In Concert” show in Honolulu, Hawaii, the city’s biggest theatrical show and the world’s most popular celebrity impersonator review. What was to be a two-month “trial” engagement for Garrett ended up being a three year run.
In August of 1998, Garrett returned home to Las Vegas and continued to perform intermittently with “Legends” for another 2 years before deciding to go off on his own and create his own Neil Diamond tribute show. Since then, he has maintained a steady tour schedule while accumulating a large, loyal, following along the way to whom he is known worldwide as the ‘’King of Diamonds".
He has received numerous awards over the years including “Male Tribute Artist of the Year”.
Arguably, no other tribute act is as identified with the artist he or she emulates more so than Garrett - who has also performed his show at more venues in Las Vegas than any other tribute artist.
What makes Rob Garrett the best in the business is his reverence for Diamond, Diamond’s prolific library of music, and how he believes Diamond should be remembered.
“I refer to myself as a ‘by the book’ tribute artist,” he explained. “What that means is that I will rarely do anything on stage that he didn’t or wouldn’t do. I make it a point to not stray from his unique character.
How does Garrett feel about Diamond’s recent decision to retire from live performances? “I absolutely feel more of a sense of obligation, a good obligation, but it’s still an obligation for me,” he said. “To me, it’s something I never get tired of doing and I have every intention of keeping that legacy going. There’s a lot of people that never had the opportunity to see him live. I’m never going to play the sizes of places he’s played, but in my own little cubbyhole, wherever I am, I’m going to do my best to give people an idea of what it was like to see Neil Diamond in concert during the early to mid ’80s”. "
After seeing him 17 times, I’m pretty familiar with his on-stage persona and his personality. Hopefully it’s something I get to do for a long, long time,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 24 years, and the shows in Vegas and around the country, everywhere I go all appear to sell out, which proves that people still adore him and his music".