At least four singers from Georgia were featured during the six "American Idol" audition episodes last month. We'll see how many are shown during the Hollywood rounds and whether any locals make it to the final 40 (and ultimately the top 20, who go live in a couple of weeks.)

Without giving too much away, Georgia will have at least one person in the top 40 this year. The state has given the world Diana DeGarmo, Tamyra Gray, Lauren Alaina and Phillip Phillips, to name a few.

I've already spoken to Isabel Gonzalez, the Alpharetta High School student featured during week two, who was "nominated" by a relative and given a golden ticket at the high school by Randy Jackson.

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Christina Isabelle Pasqualone, 22, who grew up in Duluth and graduated from Northview High School, was a promising singer heard the first episode in Chicago last month. She crooned "Summertime," which she said she picked because it was something she was familiar with and sang at the Georgia World Congress Center years earlier for singer/songwriter David Foster.

“OMG,” Nicki Minaj said. “You should feel so proud… I am blown away.”

“You’re a natural singer,” Keith Urban said. “I like the vulnerability in your voice. The humanity coming through unfiltered."

She’s a Mariah Carey fan. “I want to bring that great music back," she told Carey. (She told me she likes pop rock as well as the Whitney-Mariah songbook. Her favorite "Idol"? Not surprisingly, Kelly Clarkson)

"You have it," Carey said.

She decided to go with her middle name Isabelle because there are too many Christina's in the marketplace.

Pasqualone brought up her weight issues on the show, saying she weighed as much as 200 pounds in high school but has lost a good bulk of that since then. She recently graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston.

"I want to be an inspiration and role model," she said.

At Northview, she said she was well liked as a singer and performer but never felt comfortable off stage. "I was always bigger, taller, never fit the image of that little high school girl," she said.

Her dad and brother, also a musician, still live in Atlanta.

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Matheus Fernandez, featured at the end of the Los Angeles auditions last week, was also a cast member of 2011's 'The Glee Project" on Oxygen, a fact "Idol" producers chose not to mention.

I wrote about Matheus in 2011 when he appeared on Oxgyen's "The Glee Project."

At four foot nine, he has been bullied for his height and has a bit of awkwardness about him. While he enjoyed his time on "The Glee Project," he didn't particularly like the way he was edited. "They portrayed me really weirdly," he said. (He cried a lot.) "People thought I was a cocky little bastard." At the same time, "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy said he was too shy. 

Once that show ended in 2011, he decided to stay in Los Angeles, working at a Beverly Hills Best Buy. But he didn't pursue his music career unlike many of his "Glee Project" peers. "Most of my friends thought I was stupid," he said. "Why not ride the wave?" But he felt bad about himself. He said he tried contacting some of the other "Glee Project" contestants but didn't get responses back. He felt rejected, "pathetic."

Instead, last year, he tried out for "Idol." He was worried being on "Glee Project' might turn off the producers. It didn't. He made it before the judges, sang  a soulful Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" and made it to the Hollywood rounds.

"That's one of my favorite songs," Carey said. "You hit me in the heart and you brought me to tears, which I'm holding back. I want you to know that you can sing anything to me any day of the week."

Carey's compliments of him felt like validation, he said. He cried from happiness. 

After some thought, Matheus said he didn't want to come across so negatively about "Glee Project." "Every experience makes you who you are," he said. "It needed to happen that way. It was a good experience. I learned a lot. It prepared me for 'Idol.' "

So far, his audition has been viewed 350K-plus times:

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Watch Jennifer Hudson join the cast tonight of NBC's "Smash," season two. Katherine McPhee, another "Idol" alum, stars on the show, which has been revamped a bit to get rid of some annoying sideplots and characters. (Adios, Ellis!). But the show still isn't great although Hudson, of course, rocks the singing.

On TV

"American Idol," 8 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays