Clay Aiken
Clay Aiken, the runner up of the second season of American Idol, has gone on to be the bestselling male artist and second-place finisher in the history of the show. Born Clayton Holmes Grissom, Aiken was raised in North Carolina. He performed in the Raleigh Boychoir as a young child and sang with school and church choirs while growing up. He also frequently appeared in musicals, both in school and local theater productions. He was the lead singer in a band called Just By Chance and performed the National Anthem at a number of local sporting events. He attended University of North Carolina at Charlotte, though he took a break from his studies in order to participate in American Idol.
During his audition, the judges initially saw him as a nerdy-looking kid, not particularly suitable for the competition. However, they were visibly impressed with his performance of "Always and Forever" and invited him to Hollywood. While he was initially cut during the round-of-32, the judges brought him back as a wild card performer. He was popular enough to remain out of the bottom three during the run of the show, and was notable for his dramatic change in appearance (replacing his glasses with contacts and cutting his hair to the shirt spiky style that became his trademark.) He lost the competition to Ruben Studdard by a narrow margin of 130,000 votes, or about half a percent. Many fans found this margin to be controversial.
Aiken's debut album, Measure of a Man, was released in 2003. With an amazing 613,000 copies sold during the first week, it was the biggest debut album by a recording artist in ten years. A year later, he released a Christmas album titled Merry Christmas With Love, which went on to become the fastest-selling holiday-themed album in the history of Soundscan. His third album, A Thousand Different Ways, was a mixture of cover songs and original songs. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts, making him only one of four artists to have their first three albums debut within the Top 5. He has also released a Walmart-exclusive album, All is Well, comprised of four Christmas songs.
Since his American Idol win, Aiken has become a fixture on the Jimmy Kimmel show and has appeared on Saturday Night Live. He also had a limited run as Sir Robin in "Monty Python's Spamalot" on Broadway.
In 2008, Aiken released the album On My Way Here, with a lead single written by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder. Despite debuting at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, the album sold only 163,000 copies in the United States, less than one-third of what A Thousand Different Ways had sold.
Aiken parted ways with RCA after On My Way Here and released his most recent album Tried and True on Decca Records. Tried and True features Aiken performing popular songs from the 1950s and 1960s including "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and "Mack the Knife." Aiken toured in support of the album with fellow Season One finalist Ruben Studdard.
Clay Aiken Official Fan Club
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