The search for America’s next superstar is heating up for the top 20 American Idol contestants.
Judges Lionel Richie, Carrie Underwood and Luke Bryan dished on what to expect ahead of the first live show of the season — the 24th season overall and ninth on ABC — coming up next week.
“We’re going to sing. We’re doing a Lionel song, ‘Jesus Is Love,'” Luke said on Good Morning America Tuesday.
“Many of these kids come from gospel backgrounds … we all kind of honed our skills in front of the church,” Luke continued. “So when we give them the opportunity to kind of go to the faith-based night, they really embrace it.”
Carrie said it will be an opportunity for the contestants to showcase songs that truly speak to them.
“They’re songs of faith, so it could be something inspiring,” she said. “It’s still a mixed bag.”
With the judges hearing hundreds of songs throughout the course of the show, it might not be easy to choose a hit track to perform, let alone one from the catalog of a fellow co-judge. But for Luke, he said he’d easily go with Lionel’s hit with The Commodores, “Easy (Like Sunday Morning).”
“‘Easy (Like Sunday Morning)’ is just timeless, never gets old,” said Bryan.
Lionel said he would also go with Carrie’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”
Carrie, meanwhile, said it would be “impossible” to choose between Luke or Lionel’s catalogs, but gave her blessing to Lionel to record her song.
“Wait, wait. Let’s just do it together,” Lionel said.
American Idol airs live on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+, and streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
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