Elvis Blue

Jan Adriaan Hoogendyk performs as Elvis Blue. He grew up in Johannesburg, taught himself guitar at sixteen and busked on the city's streets and later in London and Scotland; his mother, a classical piano teacher, gave him his first exposure to classical music, and he returned to South Africa to study piano, guitar, singing and songwriting formally. He had already recorded five albums — three as Mono and two under his own name, among them Diep Riviere, which won an ATKV Lier award — when he won the sixth season of Idols South Africa in 2010 with 64% of the vote and shared his prize money with the runner-up, Lloyd Cele. The album Elvis Blue reached gold status 29 days after release and platinum in 2011, the first by an Idols winner to do so.