December 2006 News Archive (Page 4)

We won't have figures for sales on the recent releases by Fantasia and Taylor Hicks until next week, but here are some current results for American Idol favorites:

Chris Daughtry: Drops from No. 3 to No. 7, but essentially sold the same amount as the prior week - 155,000 compared to 156,000. Total is now 614,000 CDs sold.

Carrie Underwood: Back to the top 10 at No. 10; up from 13, after selling 126,000 albums last week. Total: 4.1 million.

Clay Aiken: Christmas pickup beginning to show a little; up from 135 to 119 on the holiday sales chart, selling 15,000 (compared to 10,000 the previous week). Total: 441,000.

Ruben Studdard: Down from 176 to 182 on the chart; but up a bit in sales, around 8,400 (compared to about 7,200 the previous week). Total: 157,000.

Joshh Gracin will perform with Big & Rich Saturday, December 16 at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

Proceeds will benefit Children's Miracle Network and Beaumont Hospitals.

Clay Aiken is a busy man. But it's nice to know he still makes time for the kids. We just hope his presence doesn't injure them.

After all, two girls fell out of their front row seats when the American Idol runner-up strode on stage at the district high school auditorium for a Lower Nazareth Elementary School assembly.

The event celebrated 19 classmates who wrote, "Our Friend Mikayla," published earlier this year by the Bubel/Aiken Foundation, which works on behalf of children with special needs.

Mikayla Resh, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, was the subject of the biography, written and illustrated by her third-grade classmates two years ago. Her mother, Kimberly Resh, arranged the all-school assembly to thank them. The students were wide-eyed when Aiken, co-founder of the foundation, appeared.

Aiken, who was appearing Monday night at the State Theatre in Easton, read to the student body of more than 680 from the book, talked with the 19 authors, and posed for many photographs.

To Mikayla, he sang a few lines from "When I See You Smile." Then he announced a final treat: limousines to take the students back to Lower Nazareth Elementary.

In the cars, boys popped open cans of soda and girls giggled. "Is this a dream?" said one boy, Michael Allen. "It is like the first time I'll be in a limo. It is so awesome!"

This is a side of Taylor Hicks fans don't often see.

The laid back crooner got down with his bad self on MTV's Total Request Live yesterday. He was just chillin like a villian, maxin and relaxin with host Vanessa Minnillo on the show, as he promoted his latest album.

The CD, of course, hits stores the same week as that of Fantasia Barrino. But we hope there's room in Christmas stockings across the country for both these talents.

After receiving glowing reviews for her performance in Dreamgirls, Jennifer Hudson had her role truly validated this morning.

She was nominated for a Golden Globe best supporting actress award.

"I'm overwhelmed right now," the American Idol star said on the Today show immediately after the nominations were announced. "I just started screaming when they said the names."

Here's to hoping Hudson can rack up the first-ever acting award for an American Idol alum!

Sadly, the problems with Kellie Pickler and her mother are well-documented. But recent reports now state that the singer's father has sold her out, as well. Almost literally.

A source tells Us Weekly that the American Idol contestant’s father, Clyde (pictured here with his daughter) - who was released from jail in May after serving three years for assaulting a cop – auctioned off some of her belongings on eBay while she was on tour this summer.

“It was personal effects that he had from her childhood, like shoes,” says an American Idol insider. “When Kellie found out, she was crushed. Everything was gone.”

One of our favorites, Carrie Underwood, has signed up to entertain troops on her first United Service Organizations tour of the Persian Gulf.

The 2005 American Idol winner - who was recently named CMA Female Vocalist of the Year and nominated for two Grammy Awards - will perform for and meet with service members on the tour.

Exact dates and locations of her shows in the gulf region were not made public by the USO.

"They never release exactly where the tours are happening, or exactly when they're happening. All I can share is that it is sometime before too long from now. But I don't even know the exact locations that she's going in the Persian Gulf," publicist Jessie Schmidt said.

Schmidt said USO officials approached Underwood about touring the Persian Gulf region several months ago and plans have been in place "for quite some time."

"She is completely excited about it," Schmidt said. "She does have some band members that are able to go with her over there, so they're just all really jazzed.

"When she does return from the tour we can say that she's just come back, and hopefully we'll have some photos that they'll service to the press from over there as well," Schmidt said.

Underwood also was seen Monday on a segment of the Oprah Winfrey Show taped last week, performing her hit song, "Jesus Take the Wheel," and joining fellow guests Tony Bennett, Josh Groban and Michael Buble for a rendition of Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life."

She's garnering Oscar buzz for her role in Dreamgirls. And now Jennifer Hudson is giving a very friendly hello to all her fans.

The former American Idol star is seen her before entering the London premiere of her upcoming film. It als stars Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Beyonce Knowles.

With her self-titled album hitting stores today, Fantasia Barrino should be pleased about a recent review of it in The Sun-Sentinel. We've paraphrased the article below:

Fantasia Barrino wraps up a busy 2006 with her sophomore album, Fantasia (RCA). The most offbeat of the five American Idols, the people's choice of 2004 is the R&B singer with the endearingly froggy voice and a rags-to-riches biography that was, this year, literally made for television.

Star and subject of Lifetime's The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, Fantasia continues what is something of a fairy-tale run. The second album is no better or worse than 2004's Free Yourself. But it's enough, thanks to a handful of standout tracks, to keep this personably sincere entertainer safely on the show-biz treadmill for at least another year.

Some collaborators want to hide the singer's peculiar timbre and to mask the spiky anguish and urgency in her voice. The results of this airbrushing are mixed. Not The Way That I Do seems to be an effort to confuse Fantasia with Ciara, peddler of Goodies. Uneligible is a Janet Jackson layer cake, although Fantasia - all 20 or 30 dubbed tracks of her - surfs the song's fat, continuous synth line as nimbly as any dance-club diva.

Sunshine borders on psychedelia as the natural quality of Fantasia's verses is quickly submerged in waves of over-production. Baby Makin' Hips, a lope on high heels, is better at dressing up without suffocating itself. And the uptempo single Hood Boy, with its itch-scratching sample of the Supremes' Happening, sounds like a thumping Missy Elliott track - except Missy didn't write it.

Instead, hip-hop's first lady wrote and produced Two Weeks Notice, a tender R&B ballad with a soft melody and wordplay reminiscent of R. Kelly and Brian McKnight.

At the risk of typecasting, Fantasia's hardscrabble background has imprinted both sadness and determination on her voice, and when Fantasia allows those qualities free play the album shines. In the gently stubborn Bump What Ya Friends Say and the determined ballad I Feel Beautiful, Fantasia is the teacher, preacher, role model and honest-to-goodness human being that made her such an inspired choice of Idol watchers.

** We'll be sure to post other reviews we find of American Idol albums, now and in the future.

We've been following the story of a woman who was arrested and charged with stalking former American Idol finalist, Diana DeGarmo.

In an exclusive, we've received a letter from a friend of the criminal, Tanya Maree Quattrocchi. Here it is:

To Diana DeGarmo,

My name is Tanya Mamo and i writing to you in relation to the current charges you have on an old high school friend of mine Tanya Quattrocchi.

I understand that Tanya has been threatening you and causing you distress and i am sorry for that, but please don't go ahead with these charges.

As a close friend of Tanya for many years I know what she is like in terms of invading others privacy, but i assure you that she is harmless and only does it for attention. You see I'm pretty much Tanya's only friend, not a close one but never the less the only one that keeps in contact with her.

I know that this does not excuse what she has put you through but surly you can understand that your not the first person that she has ever done this too, and excuses me for being rude but just because your now classified as a celebrity now doesn't give you the right to make a big deal over having your email hacked into or getting nasty phone calls.

So please find it in your heart to go easy on her, she's not perfect but are any of us? She's made a mistake, a stupid one but still it was a mistake, but she has learnt her lesson believe me. I wish that it didn't have to come to this for her to learn her lesson, but perhaps it was the only way to get through to her.

Rest assure that she hasn't asked me to write this letter, i actually saw an article about in the local paper as i didn't realise that it was this serious.

This letter, bear in mind, does not reflect the opinion of American Idol Worship in any way. We believe those who break the law should receive a punishment for their actions.

But we respect the rights of others to make their voices heard and encourage readers to weigh in on this and other issues. Thank you.