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Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2008 > June > 30
Monday, June 30, 2008
7/1: David Archuleta never had a “first kiss,” Josiah Leming’s record deal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not surprisingly, David Archuleta told Seventeen magazine he has never kissed a girl..
And he has no celebrity crushes he’d admit. His favorite TV guilty pleasures are “Fairly Oddparents” and “Foster’s Home For Imaginery Friends.”
He’s 17 years old? As we all suspected, he still acts, looks and talks like a 13 year old!
David Cook, of course, is amusing in his Q&A. He had his first kiss when he was 12 or 13. His celebrity crush? Burt Bacharach! (hah!) His builty TV pleasure is “Mythbusters” on Discovery Channel. Favorite Web site is www.funnyordie.com
-Josiah Leming has officially signed a deal with Warner Brothers..
“Josiah’s talent as a lyricist is one of the main reasons I signed him,” says Warner Bros. Records’ Senior Vice President of A&R Perry Watts-Russell. “All of his emotions go into his songs. He has an extraordinary gift for turning his experiences into art.”
He’s working on his album now in London. If you’ve forgotten, he was the kid who lived in his car for months, insisted on singing “Stand By Me” without a backup band and cried a lot before getting bumped from the final 24.
-Sigh… I watched “Nashville Star” again—two hours! My quick impressions: Ashlee Hewitt is a pretty blonde in the mold of Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood but she lacks the vocal prowess to make up for lack of discernible personality. And sure, she played two instruments in one song, but who cares?
Coffey was called out by John Rich as not a country singer. Duh! Actually, I liked his “Hey, Good Lookin’ ” because he didn’t do that annoying vibratto as much and sounded okay. But when he did “On The Road Again,” that vibratto came back. Bleck.
Tommy Stanley is the Navy dude who is getting some sympathy votes and tonight, with his family and members of his crew in the house, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could begrudge the dude. He sounds more country than Coffey but yes, his take on Rascal Flatts makes you appreciate Gary LeVoc. He actually did well with “Tiny Dancer.” Still, I see no real star potential there.
Then there’s Pearl Heart. They are cute and sweet and sing decent harmonies but is there any real there there? They still strike me as a very good talent show act but not great recording artists or stars. Branson, here they come!
Great to see Melissa Lawson survive another week. She has the best chance of becoming a successful recording artist out of this crew. She tanked on the first chorus of Martina McBride’s “This One’s For the Girls,” missing some notes. But she ends strong and she’s just plain likable. “If Nashville Star ended tonight, you’d be the undisputed winner,” John Rich says, properly.
Shawn Mayer looks a bit like someone who should be on the “Bachelorette” or a pageant, not on “Nashville Star.” And she seems really really fake. I don’t believe a thing she sings.
Gabe Garcia has by far the best male vocal abilities of the remaining competitors and seems to have some real country feel to him. But he’s not gritty or intense enough to do “Wanted Dead or Alive.” And he lacks polish on stage. But he could win this and is improving bit by bit.
In the bottom two, Alyson Gilbert does Georgian native Trisha Yearwoood’s “She’s In Love With the Boy.” She does a solid job with the verses, misses some notes during the chorus. Jewel ain’t feelin’ it. I’m kind of indifferent. She has beautiful eyes, even when they pop out. No great surprise she went home but actually, I find her more interesting than Lauren & Sophia, who somehow survived another week.
“You come off as high school girls at a high school talent show,” said Rich, who noted Lauren & Sophia are too young for this competition and not ready to handle the music biz. Their “Because of You” was notable abysmal. The harmonies were cringeworthy. Thank god it was only 45 seconds!
Oh, and Billy Ray Cyrus’ youngest daughter Noah Lindsay reads the teleprompter better than he does!
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6/30: Kristy Lee Cook gets 19 Recordings deal, local Idols Live concert appears sold out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Following in the footsteps of Kellie Pickler (minus the personality), Kristy Lee Cook is getting a 19 Recordings/Arista record deal, according to an exclusive story in USA Today.
19 Recordings, an arm of the “American Idol” industrial complex, has only occasionally signed contestants who didn’t finish in the top 2. Daughtry is one of the few others.
Pickler has been a huge success, outselling Taylor Hicks with three top 20 country hits. Daughtry has four top 20 pop hits and more than 4 million albums sold.
Will Cook do as well as Pickler? I doubt it. But it appears they are going to release her album before the two Davids, just like Pickler. And if she can give us good songs, you never know! (They rushed Pickler’s album out but surprisingly, it wasn’t half bad. That’s a testament to the Nashville’s Tin Pan Alley of songwriters.)
Here are the details:
Her first single, “15 Minutes of Shame,” arrives Aug. 11, and the album follows in the fall. The album is being produced by Brett James, who co-wrote “Jesus, Take the Wheel” for former Idol champion Carrie Underwood. The signing marks the return for Cook, 24, to Arista Nashville. She was signed to the label as a teen but dropped before recording anything. Cook will record her album while touring with American Idols Live, which kicks off Tuesday in Glendale, Ariz., and runs through Sept. 13.
More Idol news:
-Check out Fantasia photos from around Atlanta over the weekend, courtesy of www.sandrarose.com. She looked good for her 24th birthday, especially her hair. (I didn’t hate on her dress but some folks on the site weren’t fans.)
-The Idol download and sales info last week was pretty darn slow.. Only three albums on the top 200 from “Idol” folks: two Carrie Underwood albums, Daughtry and Jordin. Jordin’s third single “One Step at a Time” isn’t gaining much momentum so far. Not sure if she’s going to have a hit out of it. If not, her effort to get to a million in sales is threatened.
Speaking of Jordin, here she is performing the song during last week’s “So You Think You Can Dance.”
-The “Idols” live tour starts in Glendale, Ariz. tomorrow. I’ll post reviews as soon as I get them. Some spoilers here but I’ll post the actual show’s itinerary by Wednesday.
Tickets for the August 18 show at Gwinnett Arena appear to be sold out, save for a few stray single tickets. Prices range from $39.50 to $68.50. That’s up from $37.50 to $54.50 a year ago. Looks like the only option now is the stubhubs of the world. I don’t recall it selling out this quickly last year. At stubhub.com, the prices range from $89 to $686 each.
