TAYLOR HICKS
G'day folks,
Welcome to the life of Taylor Hicks. Hicks is an American singer-songwriter who rose to fame after his win on the
fifth season of American Idol. He has an uncanny resemblance to George Clooney.
Taylor
Hicks was born on October 7, 1976, in Birmingham, Alabama. He recorded two
albums and struggled to establish himself in the music business before his big
break on the fifth season of American Idol. Three weeks after Hicks's
triumphant win, his first single, "Do I Make You Proud," debuted at
No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles. In 2006, Hicks released a self-titled
album that debuted at No. 2 charts and went platinum.
Singer,
songwriter and musician. Taylor Hicks was born on October 7, 1976 in
Birmingham, Alabama. Hicks' parents, Brad and Pamela, divorced when he was 8
years old, and he was raised by his father and stepmother Linda. Shortly after
his parents' divorce, Hicks discovered Ray Charles' music on the radio.
Charles' woe-filled voice helped him cope with the divorce. While his friends
began listening to contemporary rock bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana, Hicks
continued to prefer the retro soul sounds of Charles, Marvin Gaye and Sam
Cooke. Hicks remembers that his friends did not understand his childhood music
tastes, "but their parents did."
Drawn to
performance from a very young age, Taylor Hicks would follow his father to the
office where he worked as a dentist and offer to sing and dance for anyone who
would listen. "He thought he was the white Michael Jackson," his
father recalls. Gifted with perfect pitch, Hicks taught himself blues harmonica
and guitar at the age of 16 by playing off different sounds he heard throughout
the day. "I would find, like, the key that an airplane flying overhead was
in or the sound of a running car," he remembers. He then embarked on a
surreptitious music career, sneaking out at night to perform at local bars. His
father and stepmother discovered his secret performances when they went out to
a Mexican restaurant late one night when Hicks was supposed to be at home.
Onstage they saw a lanky, longhaired teenager wailing on the harmonica. His
father recalls staring in disbelief before calmly pronouncing, "Well,
there's Taylor."
Standing
6-foot 1-inch by the time he entered Hoover High School, Hicks was a tri-sport
varsity athlete in baseball, basketball and soccer. Hicks also developed
prematurely gray hair in high school. Many people suggested that he simply dye
his hair to hide the gray, but Hicks refused. "What you see is what you
get," he said. In 1995, Hicks graduated from high school and enrolled at
Auburn University to study journalism and business. He spent three years at
Auburn and almost completed his degree before ultimately deciding to drop out to
pursue a music career.
After
dropping out of college, Hicks spent a decade struggling to make it as a
musician. He played briefly in a band called Passing Through before quitting to
strike it out on his own. He traveled around the southeastern United States,
playing small shows in clubs and bars, and trying to land a record deal. Hicks
self-produced two albums during this period, In Your Time (1997) and Under
the Radar (2005), but a big break eluded him, and he failed to make ends
meet with the pocket change he earned from his music. Hicks took on a series of
odd jobs to sustain himself, including a brief stint playing the Easter Bunny
at a shopping mall.
Hicks'
path to stardom was born out of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Hicks
was in New Orleans for a friend's wedding the night before the hurricane, and
he received a free airplane voucher when his flight home was canceled. On an
impulse, he used the voucher to fly to Las Vegas, where the Fox reality series American
Idol was auditioning for its fifth season. A relatively old contestant with
even older taste in music, the gray-haired and slightly pudgy bar singer was an
improbable candidate for a show dominated by pop-singing teenagers.
However,
Hicks' gray hair, soulful style and complete indifference to the judges'
criticism distinguished him from the other contestants and earned him a large
and fanatic fan base. Calling themselves the "Soul Patrol," Hicks
fans organized online and clogged the phone lines during voting hours. The pandemonium
over Hicks' American Idol run reached fever pitch when Alabama governor
Bob Riley officially proclaimed May 16, 2006 "Taylor Hicks Day." One
week later, Hicks defeated runner-up Katharine McPhee to become the fifth
American Idol.
Mainstream Success
Hicks
quickly converted his American Idol triumph into commercial success.
Three weeks after the season finale, Hicks' first single, "Do I Make You
Proud," debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles. In December 2006,
Hicks released a self-titled album that debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard
charts and was certified platinum. For a recent Idol winner, Hicks has
garnered unprecedented respect from music industry veterans. He has performed
with such diverse and legendary stars as Willie Nelson, The Allman Brothers,
Jackson Browne, and Snoop Dogg.
Record producer Matt Serletic credits Hicks'
respect to the decade he spent performing in bars before making it big. He
said, "Taylor really knows who he is as an artist. There is an earnestness
to how he approaches singing and music you can't manufacture. He's sweated it
out in bars to earn that."
Despite
the fame, Hicks continues to pay homage to his musical roots. In 2008, he
released Early Works, a compilation of his pre-Idol music, and a
year later he released The Distance on his own independent record label
Modern Whomp. He has also published a memoir, Heart Full of Soul: An
Inspirational Memoir About Finding Your Voice and Finding Your Way (2007).
After
several years in the national spotlight, Hicks claims he is still the same
fun-loving, sweet tea-drinking Alabama boy he's always been. Asked in an
interview how American Idol changed his life, Hicks quipped back,
"N/A." Nevertheless, Hicks says he wouldn't trade the fame or the
decade of struggling to get there. "I'm glad this happened right now
because all of the work and time I've put in have kept me levelheaded," he
said after his Idol victory. "I've dreamed about this, and now I am
able to put some of those ideas into action."
Clancy's comment: Taylor Hicks has a lilting voice. He can sing a variety of songs from Joe Cocker to any of the famous singers from the deep south.
I'm ...
No comments:
Post a Comment