It’s hard not to become completely awed at listening to Courtney Hadwin’s voice, whether she’s singing an original or doing a rendition of a rock classic. Ever since US audiences set eyes on her during her performance in season 13 of “America’s Got Talent”, it’s been impossible to forget the extremely talented13-year-old girl.
Several years have passed since Courtney became viral on the internet, but her path to stardom hasn’t been as smooth as expected. That’s why in late 2023 she set up an online funding campaign to independently move her career forward, receiving the overwhelming support of her fans in response.
However, why did Courtney start this campaign, and how can everyone help her accomplish her dreams? What has she been doing these past years, and what are her projects for the future? Read on to find out!
Funding Campaign
In late 2023, Courtney Hadwin started a fundraiser campaign for costs related to her music. As she wrote on the website GoFundMe, she has recently become an independent artist after leaving the record label she was signed to for five years.
The life of an independent artist is not easy at all, especially when it comes to money. To accomplish her music dreams while preserving full creative control, Courtney set her fundraising goal at $20,000 to cover the travel expenses necessary to record an album in the US. Courtney said her new music required ‘real musicians’ to record the songs in a ‘real studio’, while revealing that she’s been working with the US-based producer Kevin Bowe.
As Courtney also affirmed, she felt ‘uncomfortable’ at asking other people for help, yet she felt that there was no other option in making her dream a reality.
Seeing the massive positive response she obtained from her fans, Courtney raised her goal to $50,000 to cover the promotion of new music, which she confirmed would be ready by early 2024.
To this date, Courtney’s fundraising is still up, and looking for people to help her afford her dreams, though that hasn’t stopped her from releasing several songs in the meantime.
What Happened To Her Previous Label?
The reason behind Courtney’s call for help is that she was no longer signed to any record label or publisher by 2023. As it happens, in 2018 Courtney was signed by the company Syco Music, funded by “America’s Got Talent” judge Simon Cowell, and partially owned by Sony Music Group, which also owned Arista Records, the other label Courtney was signed to at the time.
Courtney was only 14 years old when she was officially signed by Syco and Arista, though it didn’t take anyone by surprise to see her climb up her career so early in life. as she’d left an evident positive impression on the “America’s Got Talent” judges, especially on Simon.
Nevertheless, it seems that things didn’t go as well as expected. Despite releasing her debut single “Pretty Little Thing” in 2019 and the 2020 cover “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”, amongst others, her career was seemingly stagnant for the next couple of years. Also in 2020, Syco Music was dissolved and it’s assumed that Courtney’s contract was inherited by Sony Music.
According to Courtney’s GoFundMe campaign, she was ‘prevented by the music people (she) was dealing with’ to create the music she wanted, describing the situation as ‘very, very hard’ to deal with. It’s unclear how things went down between Courtney and her previous label, but she parted ways from them in 2023.
“America’s Got Talent”
Every good fan of “America’s Got Talent” knows that Courtney’s audition in the 13th season was memorable, to say the least. Despite her early nervousness and young age, Courtney left everyone open-mouthed with her rendition of “Hard to Handle” by Otis Redding, adding some bombastic dance moves, which gained her comparisons to rock legend Janis Joplin.
The judges were more than impressed by Courtney’s performance, with Simon Cowell describing her as a lion, while Howie Mandel gave her a pass to the Quarterfinals by pressing the Golden Buzzer.
Courtney’s second performance in the show saw her dancing while singing “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” by James Brown, once again gaining the approval of the judges, and a standing ovation from the audience. A similar scenario took place in her next two appearances in the show, when she sang “Born to Be Wild” and “River Deep, Mountain High”, respectively.
The finale had Courtney singing The Struts’ “Could Have Been Me” and Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart”, but she didn’t make it into the top five contestants. She also faced controversy, given that some viewers assumed that her shy personality was faked because she’d previously appeared in “The Voice Kids UK”, leading her family to come out in her defense.
Future Projects
Following her initial viral success, in 2019 Courtney returned to the “America’s Got Talent” spin-off “The Champions”, performing her original song “Pretty Little Thing”, but was eliminated from the contest during the first round.
In October 2019, Courtney released her extended play “The Cover Sessions”. A couple of months before, Courtney had been set to perform at the Woodstock 50 music festival, but the event was canceled after facing management issues. A similar story happened to her performance at the 2021 edition of the FM4 Frequency Festival, which was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Recording Day 2 pic.twitter.com/SsaWvtKHJo
— Courtney Hadwin (@CourtneyHadwin) May 2, 2024
After a couple of years of seeming inactivity, Courtney released her singles “Breakable”, “That Girl Don’t Live Here”, “Call Me Back”, “Monsters” and “Christmas Rock”, throughout the year 2023. These were produced by Kevin Bowe, whom Courtney described as someone she ‘liked making music with’ and ‘who believes in me enough to invest his own time’ to work with, contrary to the lack of creative control issues she had with her previous label.
All of Courtney’s songs can be found on streaming services, and on her YouTube channel, which she also uses as a vlogging platform.
Overall, it’s great that Courtney has tirelessly continued to create music, despite the difficulties she’s faced.