The disqualified American Idol second-season semifinalist will undergo surgery to remove a polyp on her vocal chord, The Associated Press reported Friday.
“I’ve talked to other singers who had surgery,” the 28-year-old told The AP. “One girl said her voice went up. Others’ voices got clearer. I’m just excited to see and a little nervous, of course. It’s still surgery.”
Davis — who wrapped a four-year Broadway run in Rent last May — said doctors had been monitoring the polyp on her left vocal chord and when it grew, they suggested surgery to avoid long-term damage. Davis added the condition has caused her tiredness and hoarseness after performances and thinks it likely stemmed from overuse and singing improperly.
“I was doing eight shows a week of Rent for four years. When I had a break from Rent, I was using it to sing elsewhere,” she told The AP. “Now I need a vocal coach to make sure I’m singing properly so it doesn’t come back.”
Davis’ surgery is scheduled for the end of April and it will take her roughly a month to recover, according to The AP. However the procedure won’t cause her to miss the national tour of Ain’t Misbehavin, which is set to begin this fall in New York and also include Idol second-season champ Ruben Studdard in its cast.
Davis was disqualified from Idol’s Spring 2003 second season over nude pictures she posed for at the age of 18, in which she simulated solitary sexual activity for a kiddie-porn website. Despite a petition to reinstate her into the competition, Fox stood by its decision to disqualify Davis.
Chikezie Eze was revealed to be the third finalist eliminated from American Idol’s seventh season during last night’s live results show broadcast on Fox.
The 22-year-old from Inglewood, CA was ousted from Idol’s seventh season after host Ryan Seacrest said “over 30 million” home viewer votes — “the highest this season for a single show” — were cast immediately following Tuesday night’s live performance episode broadcast that saw the Top 10 finalists perform songs from the year they were born.
“I’m just really proud to be here. I feel really blessed,” Eze said during a video montage of his Idol journey. “It’s been an amazing ride.”
Eze sang “If Only for One Night” by Luther Vandross during Tuesday night’s performance episode. Judge Randy Jackson said he “didn’t love it” and criticized it for not being “that vibey Chikezie that I love with all that energy” and instead “just kind of boring.” Paula Abdul disagreed with Jackson and said Eze did a “great job.”
“Chikezie I think you sang it well. Having said that, I thought the performance actually was very cheesy,” commented Simon Cowell. “It’s that you have to show originality. I didn’t see anything original other than somebody trying to copy the original. I don’t think that’s what you should be doing. I miss your personality now.”
On Wednesday beginning at 9PM ET/PT, another finalist will be eliminated from the competition based on home viewer votes, revealing the season’s Top 8 finalists.
Singer and “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul is set to perform at the upcoming 2008 Toyota Concert Series on “Today” in New York, NBC announced Wednesday.
Abdul’s concert is scheduled for April 25.
The series lineup includes Miley Cyrus, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Kenny Chesney, Coldplay and a “special surprise reunion concert.”
Neil Diamond, the B-52s, Donna Summer, Rihanna, Rascal Flatts, Natasha Bedingfield and Sheryl Crow are also slated to perform during the series, which runs through the spring and summer.
Attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis outside “Today’s” Window on the World Studio at 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza in New York, NBC said.
American Idol has announced third-season finalist Jon Peter Lewis, fourth-season runner-up Bo Bice and fifth-season finalist Ace Young will all serve as mentors at Idol Camp 2008.
Both Young and Lewis participated in last July’s inaugural Idol Camp, partnering with performing arts educators to teach a variety of classes on singing, dancing, acting, songwriting and audition techniques for the youngsters in attendance.
“Jon had such a fantastic experience last year, you couldn’t keep him away this year if you tried,” said Lewis’ manager Judy Lieber.
In addition to the three aforementioned former Idol finalists, alumni from the show who will participate in this summer’s Idol Camp will be announced at a later date.
Second-season finalist Kimberly Locke and fifth-season finalist Bucky Covington both taught special Master Classes last summer, and fourth-season finalist Vonzell Solomon and second-season finalist Carmen Rasmusen also served as mentors.
Idol Camp 2008 will be comprised of five two-week summer sessions to choose from, with up to 150 campers per session. Idol Camp 2008 sessions are June 15 through June 28; June 29 through July 12; July 13 through July 26; July 27 through August 9; and August 10 through August 23.
“This is everything we could’ve hoped for when we launched Idol Camp last year. Seeing the camp in session and the way the kids responded really showed everyone here that this was something that could only get bigger and we’re making sure the 2008 season is just that,” said Shannon Pruitt, Vice President, FremantleMedia Enterprises in North America.
Idol Camp 2008’s application deadline is April 18. Enrollment is open to U.S. residents who are 10- to 15-years-old and display a desire for personal growth and passion for the arts. Additional information is available via Idol’s website.
Josiah Leming is reportedly living proof that you don’t even need to be an American Idol semifinalist to snag a major label recording deal.
The 18-year-old Morristown, TN native — who was eliminated on the cusp of becoming an Idol seventh-season semifinalist — has reportedly signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. records, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported Friday.
Leming is still currently living in Morristown — a Knoxville suburb — however he’ll be moving to Hollywood “soon enough,” according to the News Sentinel. In addition to acquiring an agent and entertainment lawyer, Leming also recently purchased a new truck for his dad to celebrate his blossoming music career, according to a News Sentinel source.
Leming dropped out of school at 17-years-old and subsequently began living in his car, which he did for 10 months to a year while traveling the country and playing various shows. He auditioned for Idol’s seventh season last summer in Atlanta and wowed the judges with “To Run,” a song he wrote.
He made it through to the Hollywood Round and continued to impress the judges with both his vocal ability and piano-playing skills on “Grace Kelly.”
However he faltered badly during his final Hollywood Round performance when he was ill-prepared and sleep deprived, singing a rendition of “Stand By Me” with no musical accompaniment.
“That to me was your worst performance,” said Randy Jackson. “That was not good… I don’t know what was going on with that one. I didn’t get that one at all.”
“Sometimes we just make the wrong choices,” added Paula Abdul. “I’m a huge fan Josiah, and that didn’t work for me.”
“It took a hell of a lot of guts,” Leming told the judges.
“No, no, no… Josiah, now you’re being a teensy-weensy bit annoying,” replied Simon Cowell. “Everyone has a lot of guts to get up there, and if you’re going to dismiss the band, be really certain that you are going to deliver an unbelievable vocal. Because it just exposed you… You lost a little bit of your charm on that performance. I would put it down to overconfidence at this point — way overconfidence.”
Leming was subsequently the final seventh-season hopeful to learn he wouldn’t be a Top 24 semifinalist.
In a February 21 posting on his MySpace blog, Leming wrote “things have been insane lately” and stated media outlets and fans weren’t the only ones giving him attention.
“Next month I am meeting with many major record labels and various companies, but what I would love to do more than anything would be to put out and independent album, get it on iTunes and CDbaby, even in some stores, and do a 30-35 city tour this summer,” he wrote.
Leming went on to ask what his supporters thought of him signing with a major record label and didn’t seem too sure about the idea himself.
“The problem with signing a big deal would be the fact that they would want to change and then own my music,” he wrote. “I’m not worried about the money or the fame, I just want to make music that comes directly from my soul, and if you guys will back me 100%, I promise never to compromise that.”
The American Idol second-season runner-up’s fourth album — “On My Way Here” — is scheduled to drop May 6 via 19 Recordings/RCA, Billboard confirmed Friday.
With his role of Sir Robin in Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Shubert Theatre scheduled to conclude May 4, Aiken had previously stated he was “hoping” the album would be out May 6.
“On My Way Here” is being produced by Kipper, a U.K.-based producer best known for working on Sting’s Grammy-award winning “Brand New Day” album.
“We wanted to find someone who had a great reputation and had done stuff in the past that was kind of edgy and current,” Aiken said about Kipper during a February interview with WRAL-TV, a North Carolina CBS affiliate.
Aiken said “On My Way Here” will include “stuff that I’d imagine 90 percent of people have not heard,” adding all the album’s tracks “have to be something I’ll enjoy and that I can do well” while also fitting with the “common theme of ‘On my way here.’”
“We’ve captured some really great moments,” Kipper told WRAL-TV. “I’m very optimistic we’re going to have a record where people will go, ‘Is that Clay? Is that Clay Aiken?’”
In addition to the album’s title track, Aiken said he was also working on a song for it called “Ashes”.
“Someone told me what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” he told WRAL-TV. “[The song] talks about bad things that might happen to you. You know, there’s been some stuff that’s happened in the last five years that I would rather have not happened, but you learn from things like that.”
Aiken hinted a song he wrote with producer David Foster — “Lover All Alone” — might also be included after only previously being available as an iTunes bonus track on “A Thousand Different Ways.”
“It was my first attempt at writing anything, and David Foster wrote the melody,” Aiken told WRAL-TV. “He said, ‘Take it home and write some lyrics.’ [After seven months] I was sitting in Los Angeles, and all of a sudden, I had this idea, and I wrote it in, maybe, 15 minutes.”
“On My Way Here” will be Aiken’s first album since Fall 2006’s “A Thousand Different Ways,” which consisted mostly of covers.
Aiken is expected to embark on a U.S. tour this summer to promote the album, Billboard reported.
Amanda Overmyer, a nurse from Mulberry, Ind., has been voted off of the television singing competition series “American Idol.”
Overmyer was ousted from the show Wednesday based on viewers’ votes on the contestants’ Tuesday night performances, Entertainment Weekly reported.
After singing “Back in the U.S.S.R.” Tuesday, Overmyer said she has spent her time on the series trying “to show America what they would see if they came to my show and bought a ticket to see me.”
When “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell suggested she might be getting ahead of herself there, Overmyer said: “Even I if need to sell out a local bar in Lafayette (Ind.) That’s all I’m saying.”
Judge Paula Abdul told her, “When you connect, you are quintessential, authentic who-you-are.”
David Hernandez, an aspiring pop star from Arizona, was voted off the popular U.S. television singing competition series “American Idol” Wednesday night.
He was the first of the top 12 contestants to be eliminated, People.com said.
“Things happen for a reason,” Hernandez told host Ryan Seacrest upon hearing the decision. “We all have a plan, and on top of that, you know, you’ll see me at the top … this isn’t it for me.”
The top 12 contestants were challenged to perform songs from the Beatles songbook on Tuesday’s edition of the show, which was then voted on by 29 million viewers.
Hernandez sang “I Saw Her Standing There,” which judge Randy Jackson described as “overdone” and judge Simon Cowell said was “verging on desperate.”
Hernandez made headlines recently when it was revealed he previously worked as a dancer at Dick’s Cabaret, a male strip club in Phoenix.
“To me, Botox is no more unusual than toothpaste,” said Cowell in the August issue of U.K.’s Glamour magazine, People reported Monday. “It works, you do it once a year — who cares?”
One thing Cowell does care about is money, however he told Glamour he turned down “about $2 million” to be a Viagra spokesman, and it wasn’t because of the product he’d be pitching.
“[It was] a f**king insult,” is how Cowell characterized the offer, according to Glamour.
The sharp-tongued British judge also apparently wishes he was a little bit taller — as he told Glamour he wears platform heels that are “an inch high, maybe” — which means he’d probably still tower over Ryan Seacrest without them.
While the 48-year-old admitted to Botox and wearing lifts, there’s one aspect of his aging body that is all Cowell.
“I’d never dye my hair, although I know everyone thinks I do,” he told Glamour.
Cowell has been dating Extra correspondent Terri Seymour off-and-on since 2003 — but he hears no wedding bells in their future, apparently afraid she’ll end up sharing similar sentiments with some of his detractors.
“I don’t want to marry anyone,” Cowell told Glamour. “Because whoever marries me will end up hating me.”
“American Idol” contestant David Hernandez once entertained audiences by removing his clothes instead of singing tunes, a manager at a male strip club in Phoenix told The Associated Press.
The 24-year-old finalist from Glendale, Ariz., once worked as a stripper at Dick’s Cabaret, appearing fully nude and performing lap dances for the club’s “mostly male” clientele, club manager Gordy Bryan said Monday.
“He had the look and the type that people like, so he made pretty good money here,” Bryan said.
It’s not clear whether a history as a stripper could disqualify Hernandez from the competition. In 2003, finalist Frenchie Davis was dismissed because of her appearance on an adult Web site; but last year, Antonella Barba remained in the competition after racy photos of her surfaced on the Internet.
Fox spokeswomen Jill Hudson did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Monday.
According to Bryan, Hernandez steadily worked at the club for three years until September 30, 2007.
“He never renewed his licensing with the state, so he hasn’t been on my roster since then,” Bryan said.
Bryan said he was aware that Hernandez was a vocalist, but that Hernandez never sang at the club. Bryan said he now believes Hernandez stopped working at the club because of his participation in “American Idol.” Hernandez has never been referred to as a stripper or former stripper during the Fox singing competition.
Rumors of a stripper past — along with photos of a scantily clad Hernandez working as a bartender at gay nightclub Burn — were first posted last week on VoteForTheWorst.com, a site that encourages “Idol” viewers to vote for “the bad and truly entertaining contestants.”
“It was like moths to a flame,” said VoteForTheWorst.com founder Dave Della Terza. “As soon as I posted that, we started getting 10, 20 letters every single day from people saying, ‘Yeah, he’s a stripper in Phoenix.’”
Terza and other members of VoteForTheWorst.com community scoured MySpace, Photobucket and other social networking and photo sharing sites to find information and images of Hernandez. Terza said he contacted the club to confirm the Internet chatter, but they never got back to him.
“They said they couldn’t give me a statement before talking to their lawyers,” said Terza.
Hernandez, who originally auditioned for “Idol” in San Diego on July 30, 2007, is in the Fox singing competition’s top 16 contestants. Last week, he earned rave reviews from the judges after his performance of The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” He is scheduled to perform with the other male contestants on Tuesday’s show.
DERRIK J. LANG
AP News
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for March, 2008.
The disqualified American Idol second-season semifinalist will undergo surgery to remove a polyp on her vocal chord, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Singer and “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul is set to perform at the upcoming 2008 Toyota Concert Series on “Today” in New York, NBC announced Wednesday.
David Hernandez, an aspiring pop star from Arizona, was voted off the popular U.S. television singing competition series “American Idol” Wednesday night.
