Same way everyone gets a contract: the right people heard them. I think they spent a year or two busking in Vancouver and got picked up by the West Coast star-making machinery.

Yup, noddy, some promoters are good at what they do. So? You want that, go find yourself one.   

One thing promoters don't usually do is pick people with no talent and make them stars. More often they find attractive people with certain abilities--some unchanging, such as decent vocal pitch, and charisma; some that are in vogue, which old-timey music currently is--and flatter them and try to ruin their taste so they will sell more CD's and tickets to a broader audience. But as with the BGT's, the first couple of releases are usually good.

W-O