A powerful performance

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Unexpected sounds come out of 10-year-old BrandiJo

Kistler’s mouth all the time.

Kistler, a Costa Mesa resident who performs around the community three

or four times a week in the summer, sings the blues in a deep, full voice

that regularly surprises adults.

“She has a growl and a very big voice that you never hear in

10-year-olds,” said Kistler’s mother, Tami Jo. “When she sings, it’s so

big and so powerful, and I just know she feels it. The crowd is always

saying, ‘Look at that big voice coming out of that little girl!”’

When she’s not having singing, dancing, guitar and piano lessons,

BrandiJo is keeping busy this summer performing at numerous locations,

including Triangle Square, El Toritoand at the Costa Mesa Market Place,

where she and a friend, 12-year-old Evan Saucedo, will perform a show

called “Bubble Gum” in August.

She’s won a pilot episode of the “Gong Show,” with Tom Arnold, and

performed with B-Real, a member of the rap group Cypress Hill, on a local

television news program.

But right now, she’s looking forward to her next performance at 5 p.m.

today on the Meadows Stage at the Orange County Fair.

“I’m going to be singing close by, so everyone I know can come and see

me,” said BrandiJo, smiling. “I like people to watch me sing, and I like

to see people enjoying me. I like to make people cry.”

BrandiJo said it has always been her dream to be a singer.

“Whenever I sing, I know it is what I want to do,” she said. “I sing

every day. I love to sing for other people, to sing for myself and to

sing for God. I like getting into a song. When I sing, I feel like I am

in the song.”

She began singing when she was 4, but BrandiJo said she didn’t decide

she wanted to be a singer until she was 6.

Her love of blues didn’t hit her until one of her mom’s friends

introduced her to Etta James.

“I just loved Etta James the minute I saw her,” BrandiJo said. “I had

never heard blues before, and I just started liking it. I also like pop,

which is more boppity, but with blues you can just feel it better. I

can’t imagine ever not wanting to sing.”

When Tami Jo Kistler heard her daughter sing “Fame,” a song she

learned when she was 6, she knew she could make it as a singer but has

never forced her in that direction.

“I used to sing at weddings, and she could kick my butt,” she said.

“She sang and I saw the reaction. You could see her whole body went into

it, and I knew she was meant to sing. My mother also used to sing.

BrandiJo’s voice is deeper than mine and my mother’s voice was even

deeper. When I listen to BrandiJo sing, it reminds me of my mother.”

Chris Saucedo, Evan Saucedo’s mother, said BrandiJo’s voice is

remarkable.

“When she sings, you can see the true joy she has in singing,” she

said. “Pure joy just comes out in her voice.”

FYI:

What: BrandiJo Kistler

Where: Meadows Stage at the Orange County Fairgrounds

When: 5 p.m. Tuesday