Keith Urban took the words right out of my mouth.

After Anton Bushner auditioned on Wednesday night’s (Jan. 14) American Idol, Urban got a little choked up. Then told him, “You deserve to be out in Hollywood.”

Bushner had done a damn-near-perfect cover of Urban’s “Tonight I Wanna Cry.” Even countrier than the original. It was the kind of performance that made me wish he’d release a country album immediately. Because I would buy it immediately.

But I’d also probably buy albums from a handful of other contestants from the Kansas City auditions.

Like Ellen Petersen. She did the old and oft-covered “I Wanna Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” which was cool. But it was her banjo playing and yodeling that really put her over the top.

She was so good, in fact, that Urban and Harry Connick Jr. asked her to play "The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies.

Casey Thrasher did another great country song, Chris Young’s “Who I Am With You.” Thrasher was on last season, and the reason I know that is because his last tweet was from a year ago, when he wrote, “RT if I am the next American IDOL :)” I am wondering if he is related somehow to Neil Thrasher, one of Nashville’s most prolific songwriters. Anyone know?

Alexis Gomez was kind of country. Even though she said she doesn’t claim to be a country girl because, “I don’t ride horses.” Instead, she claimed to be the hippie Mexican hillbilly.

She did Little Big Town’s “Little White Church” but Urban told her that her voice didn’t feel fully realized yet.

And Ashley Lusk tackled another Little Big Town song -- their first big hit, “Boondocks.” She was outstanding. You wouldn’t even have known she was only 15 if she hadn’t done the audition with her iPhone in her front pocket.