The Kelly Clarkson Show is a well-run ship. Six seasons into the Emmy-winning daytime talk show, the show’s team is only just now feeling at home. The first few seasons were filmed on its own sound stage in Los Angeles, followed by the pandemic season during which guests couldn’t be in-person. Season 5 marked its big move to the Big Apple, where it now shares a building the with NBC late-night talk shows and SNL, and now things are finally starting to feel lived in, showrunner and executive producer Alex Duda tells TV Insider. I was on set for a taping of one of premiere week’s episodes to get a glimpse behind the curtain of one of the show’s best ingredients: Kellyoke.
Kelly Clarkson performs a cover of a song she loves at the beginning of every episode. Performing with her is her band that she’s been touring with for years, who now see the talk show as home base. “Now this feels more like home because we do 180 episodes a year vs. way less touring,” Clarkson’s longtime music director, Jason Halbert, tells me as we sit on the talk show’s couch for an interview after the Wednesday, September 25 episode was filmed. “It’s a huge culture shock for us because touring is a completely different entity and mindset than television. So at first it was overwhelming and a lot of work, but we’re in a good groove now.”
Halbert says they’re “fluent” in how the show operates, but “we can never settle in because as you saw today, half the things that you saw today, I found out about this morning.” There’s always a set structure to the production, and it may surprise some to learn that the episodes are filmed mostly in order of appearance. But within that structure is the space to improvise and prep.
There are some days where Clarkson doesn’t film Kellyoke at all; she films multiple on select days to prepare for those moments. It’s their contingency plan should Clarkson’s voice need rest or she’s out sick entirely. Allergies nearly made her performance during our taping impossible. Given that she was set to sing a Chappell Roan song, and given that this would be my first time ever seeing the American Idol icon sing live, my stomach dropped when the audience’s hype man said she wouldn’t perform. But then Clarkson came out onto the set and revealed she would, in fact, be singing. She was worried about the allergies, but she still made singing look easy.
She performed “Coffee” from Roan’s The Rise of Fall of a Midwest Princess album. The day before, she sang a Kellyoke duet of “Good Luck, Babe!” with Miranda Lambert on the 30 Rock roof to kick off Season 6, which premiered Monday, September 23. In the episode I observed, Questlove showed the power of improvisation when guiding the band through a musical experiment meant to show how he comes up with ideas for songs — and how easy it can be to spark creativity (the moment produced a song so funny, Clarkson threw her shoes and bowed to her band). I tell Duda on the stage’s couch afterwards that it reminded me of the moment when Paul McCartney riffed “Get Back” out of thin air in The Beatles: Get Back documentary. Duda excitedly replies that that documentary, the rooftop concert episode specifically, inspired Clarkson’s rooftop show at 30 Rock.
“We always do a Kellyoke music video to start the season,” Duda says. Rewatching The Beatles documentary made her think, “We could do the Kellyoke up there [on the 30 Rock rooftop], but we could do the whole show up there too.” They invited past subjects of Clarkson’s “Good Neighbor” segments to attend the show, which began with Clarkson performing a five-song dance medley (Halbert can be seen in the video on the keys). Lambert also did a “Songs and Stories” segment in addition to performing “Good Luck, Babe!” with Clarkson (see the video of the duet below). Word spread fast that Clarkson was hosting a free outdoor concert.
“It became this chain reaction. [Radio host] Angie Martinez was like, ‘Hey, I hear my girl Kelly’s on the roof!’” Duda shares. “And then you see Stephen A. Smith saying, ‘I can confirm she’s up there!’ And then everybody’s texting each other, and then people start coming.”
The rooftop concert is just one way that Kellyoke is upping the ante this season. And “Good Luck, Babe!” and “Coffee” aren’t the only songs from Chappell’s album that will be performed in upcoming episodes.
“We actually have four Chappell Roan songs coming up,” Halbert reveals. “Kelly’s really into that album right now.”
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Every song Clarkson chooses is based on what she’s interested in at that moment. Few names are bigger in our current pop culture zeitgeist than Roan’s, who just won Best New Artist at the 2024 MTV VMAs. But the true musician she is, Clarkson is more attracted to the deeper album cuts, Halbert shares. That’s why she chose “Coffee.” Choosing the Kellyoke songs is relatively easy, Halbert says. It’s all based on Clarkson’s interests, her connection to the song’s story, and which tracks they can get approved by the original artist. Choosing what sections of them to sing is “the hardest part,” according to Halbert.
“I take so much ownership of it in the sense of some songs can be usually three and a half to five minutes long, and first four seasons, we [had] to get it down to a minute and a half,” he says. They can do longer snippets now, and they’re also expanding Kellyoke to include duets and solo performances from other singers in Season 6. Clarkson will duet with Keith Urban this season among others. The popularity of Kellyoke has made the Grammy-winner and the band want to share the platform.
“You’re going to start seeing some guest artists come into that spot so that we can fully shine the spotlight on them and let them do what they do,” Halbert reveals. “We have some legends doing that. We have some current celebrities, and we are going to have some up-and-comers. It’s going to be exciting to start spotlighting people in that segment.”
When creating the shortened versions of tracks, Halbert jokes that he’s “butchering somebody’s art,” adding that “people have spent time crafting this thing, and I’m like, this has to go, this has to go. What I try to do is keep the story intact.”
“If you see our catalog, like country songs specifically, I might do three verses in a row because country songs tell their story in a certain way. I try to make sure the story’s intact. That’s my most important thing,” he says. “Pop songs are a little bit easier. A lot of pop songs, they’ll sing the chorus twice. I’m like, no need to do that. Let’s save the time. And I try to work in a little feature for the band here and there, but it’s a delicate process. Sometimes Kelly doesn’t hear that until we actually work on it, and sometimes she’ll weigh in and say, ‘Oh no, that was my favorite section. Why’d you cut that out?’ And we just put it back in.”
Kelly Clarkson performs Kellyoke on the 30 Rock rooftop for The Kelly Clarkson Show Season 6 premiere kickoff (Weiss Eubanks / NBCUniversal)
Despite what the internet might think, Clarkson isn’t trying to outdo the original version. She wants to honor it, as does her band, which is why so much careful attention is put into what sections they use.
“What we hope will happen is this isn’t the definitive version,” Halbert says. “Obviously we’re nodding to another artist, so we’re hoping if you like this, it’ll drive you to go listen to that artists’ version of it.”
Fans on social media have joked in the past that singers should be scared of a Clarkson Kellyoke cover. She’s just so good, some feel she shows up the original. Halbert says that he, Clarkson, and the band are always hopeful that the musicians they cover love their renditions. When the artists share the covers in praise, like Billie Eilish and brother/songwriting partner Finneas did after Clarkson’s insane cover of “Happier Than Ever,” the team is elated.
“I don’t think we were focused on ever bettering the original, because even Kelly would say, it’s not an either-or. It’s a different interpretation of it,” he explains. “But we get super excited and we send texts to each other. Kelly’s gotten excited when an artist reposts it and says they love it. It’s nice getting the stamp of approval from somebody that you really admire and look up to.”
They get to perform the full versions of their celebrated covers on the Kellyoke EPs. The first, six-song EP came out in 2022 and features “Happier Than Ever.” There are some more full versions already released on her Sirius XM channel, Halbert notes, but they’re currently in the weeds of figuring out which songs will make it onto the second EP.
“We’re looking at some newer ones,” he says. “That’s a hard process because it’s a balance of what do fans resonate with, which I actually don’t know. So we have to do some research. And then what is the songs that we’re most excited about?”
YouTube views, show ratings, and some press spotlights help them figure out “what’s gotten some buzz,” he explains. Those numbers are just one factor of their decision-making process, “but if there’s something that’s standing out” to viewers, they certainly make note. “The Billie Eilish cover went huge, and so we were like, OK, that has to be on there.” But there are songs they just want on the EP for their own artistic expression.
“‘Fake Plastic Trees,’ Radiohead, that ended up getting the most critical acclaim on the Kellyoke album, but probably was the least critically acclaimed on the show,” he notes. “But we did that because we loved doing it. She loves performing it.”All of The Kelly Clarkson Show is a labor of love from the singer and her team. Watching a taping makes it clear that Clarkson is most interested in making sure everyone — from her audience to her guests to the crew — feel at home. As the team resets for different interview segments, Clarkson scoots up close to her guests (during my taping it was Questlove, Colin Farrell, and Bluey‘s Melanie Zanetti) and they just chat. If they aren’t friends already, it surely looks like it. And her friendly, off-camera vibe creates that warmth you see onscreen between the host and her interview subjects. Kellyoke is the cherry on the cake that you get at the very top of the show, setting the stage for a fun day of TV production.Clarkson’s “Coffee” cover debuts in the Wednesday, September 25 episode. In addition to the stars above, the episode features a jaw-dropping surprise audience giveaway that you won’t want to miss.The Kelly Clarkson Show, Weekdays, Check Your Local Listings
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