FAME and GLORY Read Free Page B

toned tummy.  The punishment for that was dressing in P.E. gear for the rest of the day.  When the males of Del Sol saw her in P.E. attire, they knew that they had missed out on a pretty good look before she had been apprehended by the fashion police.
     
    Brandee was a very good student when she chose to apply herself.  She had a natural aptitude for math and science, and probably could have gone on to college in one of those fields had she chosen to do so.  She discovered what was to become a lifelong passion though, while enrolled at Del Sol.  That passion was singing.
     
    Every high school in Las Vegas had a choral group.  Each choral group had one or two talented soloists.  No other high school had Del Sol's Brandee Alexander.  She gained local notoriety when she was only 13 years old, belting out "God Bless America" from the back of a float as it traveled down Fremont Avenue on the 4th of July.  Her local fame spread as her vocal wings spread.  She sang "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" at the Clark County Fair.  That performance was captured on local access television and was requested as a download from the station's website so often that the station’s antiquated server imploded.  Brandee was hot, and it had nothing to do with a cropped shirt or low cut blouse.
     
    While she was most prominently known as a singer, her musical gifts ranged beyond her vocal talents.  She quickly became a talented keyboardist too.  She could make a piano bend to her will.  She played jazz organ, and, later, the synthesizer as well.  She was able to play some guitar but not to performance quality as quickly as she had mastered the keyboard instruments.  Brandee had little doubt, though, that if she needed to become a guitar player to do what was necessary, she wouldn't lag too far behind Jimi Hendrix. Brandee was simply a supremely confident young lady, and it really stretched to all areas of her life. When she set her sights on a goal, that goal was half accomplished.  Happy with the response that she had received for her "God Bless America” and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" during the summer, Brandee set her sights on performing for a crowd in a place with better acoustics than afforded her by Fremont Street or the Clark County Fairgrounds.  Later that fall, she set the arena on fire performing "The Star Spangled Banner" before a University of Nevada-Las Vegas Runnin' Rebel basketball game.
     
    Lots of young ladies can sing, but Brandee was a breed apart.  Years later, Jake marveled at her clear soprano voice as she sang quietly with the radio, but she could do so much more than sing high notes and sing them well.  She had almost as much range as there are octaves detected by the ear.  She could soar to the top of the mountain like Mariah Carey.  She could dive into the valley with Patsy Cline, growling and wailing in equal parts haunting and inspiring.  It was said she could bring a tear to a dead man's eye with "I Have Never Been So Much in Love Before".  She could absolutely bring a crowd to its feet with power ballads like Heart's "What About Love", or Brandee's own composition, "Heat Beyond Fire".
     
    Brandee Alexander had always suspected what was behind the drive that pushed her in her music.  The reasons were twofold.  Much as her mother didn't want her to know, Brandee did know the lengths to which her mother had to go to keep a roof over her head before her daughter was born.  When she was 12 years old, she had found a yellowed picture of Crimson Delight in the bottom of a drawer and recognized her mother's much younger face.
     
    In addition, there was the tragic event of January 16, 2001. Brandee's father Alan had been killed by a drunk driver in a fiery car accident when he was returning home on the I-15 one rainy night. Brandee had just turned 14 years old a month before.
     
    That was a pivotal time for Debra and Brandee.  Debra grieved for her husband terribly.  She had