Kelly Clarkson Biography

Kelly Brianne Clarkson (born April 24, 1982) is an American pop rock singer, songwriter, and occasional actress. Clarkson made her debut under RCA Records after she won the highly-publicized first season of the television series American Idol in 2002. She was originally marketed as a pop musician with her debut album Thankful (2003). With the release of her multi-platinum second album Breakaway (2004), Clarkson moved to a more pop rock-oriented style of music. Clarkson's third album, entitled My December, was released on June 26, 2007. Her fourth album is due in fall 2008. Clarkson has sold over 19 million albums worldwide. Clarkson is the most successful American Idol alumna, with eight of her singles becoming Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2008, she joined Vh1's list of 10 sexiest women of the new millennium at #8. She also hit #28 on Vh1's Top 30 Hottest Rock Front women.

Biography

Early life

Kelly Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas and grew up in the small town of Burleson, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. She is the third and youngest child of a first grade teacher and a former engineer. Clarkson's siblings include her brother Jason, and her sister Alyssa. When Clarkson was six years old, her parents split up after seventeen years of marriage. As a result, her brother went to live with her father, her sister went to live with an aunt, and Clarkson remained with her mother. Clarkson frequently moved around Texas while her mother managed several professions in order to support the family. The family settled in Burleson, where Clarkson's mother married her second husband, Jimmy Taylor.

While growing up, Clarkson's family had a hard time financially and often argued about money. From this experience, Clarkson learned to be financially responsible and independent at an early age. Music became her refuge after the first divorce, but she didn't embrace it as her salvation until her teens. Clarkson attended Pauline G Hughes Middle School and Burleson High School. She originally wanted to become a marine biologist. In seventh grade, a teacher (Mrs. Cynthia Glenn) overheard her singing in a hallway and asked her to audition for the school choir. Clarkson told the teacher that she had never received professional vocal training. In high school, Clarkson performed in musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Brigadoon. It was whilst at school that Clarkson first decided to pursue singing. She sang at her high school talent show, after which a gentleman shared some inspiring words with her: "God has given you this gift. You've got to sing. You're destined to sing." Clarkson did continue to sing and soon started classical training, since her family didn't have much money and she hoped that music would offer college scholarships.

Clarkson worked numerous odd jobs during and after high school, such as mowing lawns, helping her contractor stepfather build porches, and working in a movie theater starting at age 16 and until she moved to Los Angeles. She also worked for Papa John's, Subway, Six Flags Over Texas, Starbucks, and sold vacuums door to door (her latter experience which she described with a well-intended pun: "It sucked.").

Upon high school graduation, Clarkson was offered full scholarships to the University of Texas, University of North Texas, and Berklee, but decided against college because she had "already written so much music and wanted to try on her own. And she figured you're never too old to go to college."

American Idol 2002

Clarkson won the first season competition of American Idol on September 4, 2002, earning 58% of the audience vote over Justin Guarini. Choking back tears, Clarkson performed the ballad "A Moment Like This", the song written for the winner of American Idol, which would subsequently appear on her debut album Thankful. The song's music video was filmed at Pantages Theater in Hollywood, and incorporated short scenes of Clarkson performing on Idol. When released as a single in October 2002, it set a then record on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart when it rose from number fifty-two to number one. This achievement was largely due to the impact from Idol as the CD single managed to sell 236,000 copies in its first week of sales in the U.S.; it spent five weeks at number one in Canada.

2007–2008: My December

While on tour in Europe in 2006, Clarkson began writing and composing songs for her third album, My December. During the Addicted Tour, Clarkson debuted two of her songs: "Maybe" and "Yeah". Recording commenced on the album in the summer of 2006. The first single from My December was "Never Again", which made its radio debut on April 13, 2007. The song was released on iTunes on April 20, 2007, but was taken down and replaced with a notice that said that the song was not available until April 23, 2007. The single peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #8 and on the Pop 100 at #5. Following "Never Again", Clarkson released "Sober" as her next single from My December on June 6, 2007. The singles were promoted with appearances on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Clarkson also returned to American Idol on the May 23, 2007 season 6 finale for the first time since its third season, performing "Never Again" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry during a Beatles medley.

The song "Chivas" is a hidden track which can be found after the song "Irvine." Clarkson wrote the song on bar napkins before going to a concert by Los Angeles based cover band Metal Skool where she was famously seen drinking a bottle of Chivas Regal in a popular YouTube video when she was brought on stage to sing with the band.

Clarkson parted with her management, The Firm, on June 11, 2007, after the controversy surrounding My December. Clarkson would then sign with Starstruck Entertainment, run by Narvel Blackstock - the husband of Reba McEntire - on July 2, 2007. On June 14, 2007, Live Nation announced that Clarkson's summer tour — her first nationwide arena tour—had been canceled due to underwhelming ticket sales, to be rescheduled after the release of the My December album at smaller, more intimate concert environments.

Clarkson reinstated plans to tour the US during 2007 - with a much smaller tour than the one she canceled in June. Clarkson began her My December Tour on October 10 in Verona, New York in venues significantly smaller than those previously booked.

My December was officially released in the U.S. on June 26, 2007. On the date of the album's release, Clarkson appeared on Good Morning America to promote her new album. Clarkson performed songs from this new album, including the single "Never Again". Despite the controversy surrounding My December, the album debuted at #2 in the U.S. with 291,000 albums sold. This is a slightly higher debut than Clarkson's previous album, Breakaway, which debuted at #3.

On July 7, 2007, Clarkson performed on the American leg of Live Earth. Her five-set performance list included: "Walk Away", "How I Feel", "Never Again", "Sober", and "Since U Been Gone". In a July edition of USA Weekend Magazine, Clarkson reported that she tried a marijuana cookie while in Amsterdam. "It is legal there," she said, saying that she's never done "anything illegal here in the U.S. ".

Music Choice deemed Clarkson as their "Artist of the Month" for the month of August. Justin Prager, Director of Rock and Pop Programming, issued a public statement: "Kelly's relatively short career has already produced so much exciting music and she has reached millions of viewers through her vast catalog of music videos available on Music Choice. We are looking forward to helping Kelly continue to connect with her fans with this huge campaign." In light of this, Music Choice released programming detailing Clarkson's career, including a catalog of her favorite moments on screen and in production, a question and answer session with her fans, as well as Clarkson's thoughts on her career.

Clarkson was the celebrity coach for Canadian Idol during its Top 5 week of the fifth season, aired on the CTV network on August 20th, and she performed on the results show the next night. She was also awarded a Platinum Certification for shipments of more than 100,000 copies of My December in Canada. Clarkson also performed at the 2007 NFL opening kickoff where she sang the national anthem and performed songs from My December including "Never Again", "Maybe" and "Don't Waste Your Time". Clarkson also performed in the halftime show for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets game on Thanksgiving day.

My December was certified both gold (500,000 copies shipped) and platinum (1,000,000 copies shipped) on December 12, 2007, by the RIAA. It has sold over 2,000,000 copies worldwide.

2008-present:

Several demos for songs were stolen and leaked to the internet in April of 2008. Aben Eubanks, the co-writer of the songs as well as Clarkson's guitarist, stated on several blogs and fansites that the songs were stolen from him when the security on his personal webspace was breached. The names of the stolen songs are as follows: "Close Your Eyes", "One Day", "Ready", and "With a Little Bit of Luck." In response to the demos, Clarkson later said, "The fact that people have heard music that's not ready yet sucks, but I hope they like it." She is also shown on a preview for her My December Tour, singing "Close Your Eyes."

On April 19, 2008, Clarkson participated in a Papal Youth Rally at the campus of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie in Yonkers, New York during the 2008 U.S. performing a mini-concert for those in attendance. Papal Visit of Pope Benedict XVI. She performed Schubert's "Ave Maria" for the Pope later in the day following the Pope's speech. Clarkson, raised Baptist, was said to be honored by the invitation and appreciative of the rosary given to her and her band by the Pope, who were invited over by the Pope immediately following the performance for the rosary honor.

Kelly Clarkson's fourth studio album   
Album

Clarkson has said she is working on a new album due for the last quarter of 2008, and is working with producer and OneRepublic front man, Ryan Tedder. Tedder has confirmed that he is working on new material with Clarkson for her fourth studio album. Tedder told Digital Spy that Clarkson's new songs will feature big choruses" and "heavy drum programming, and he mentioned that the songs are influenced by the band Garbage, while one song will feature an experimental bridge that was inspired by Mozart, and stated in an interview that Clarkson's fourth album was "the best album yet". Also in an interview she stated that she had written a song called "Cry" with Jason Halbert.

Clarkson has stated in radio interviews that she has a sequel song for "Irvine" called "I Finally Got It Right" that she plans to have on the next album.

EOnline mentioned in an article that included statements by Clarkson that the new album will be entitled "True You", however, this was stated by the article writer and not by Clarkson herself and has never been confirmed or officially stated by her label, management, or spokespeople.

On June 3, 2008, Clarkson confirmed on her official fan club website that she has been recording more songs for her fourth album, this time with Sam Watters and Louis Biancaniello. Sam and Louis also wrote and produced the song "Anytime" which appeared on Clarkson's debut album Thankful in 2003.

As of August 4, 2008, Amazon.com lists Clarkson's album as untitled, with a release date of November 18, 2008. but no official release date has been announced by the label or management.

According to messageboards Clarkson's new single is expected to be released around the end of August/beginning of September.

Tours


Country music

Clarkson performed "What Hurts the Most", with Rascal Flatts, at ACM Awards in 2006 and returned again to sing a duet with Reba McEntire in 2007. This was her second performance on a country music award show, even though she is in the pop/rock genre. Along with her performance with Rascal Flatts, Clarkson also performed "Cigarettes", with the country duo The Wreckers during one of their shows in Texas.

Building on her country music status, Clarkson and Reba McEntire recorded an hour-long CMT Crossroads special at Nashville's famed Ryman Auditorium on February 22, 2007. It aired on CMT and MHD on June 24, 2007. Previously, Clarkson was a performer on CMT's Giants: Reba McEntire. where she sang McEntire's hit song "Why Haven't I Heard From You", introduced Dolly Parton, and later also sang Reba's hit "Does He Love You" with Martina McBride. Clarkson also appeared on an episode of McEntire's sitcom Reba, that aired on January 14, 2007.

At the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 16, 2007, Clarkson and McEntire sang a duet of Clarkson's own 2005 single, "Because of You", which also became the lead single from McEntire's album of all-star duets. The music video for this version of the song later debuted on June 20, 2007. This collaboration with McEntire earned Clarkson a CMA Award nomination for "Musical Event of the Year" in 2007 and a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Country Collaboration With Vocal" in 2008. Additionally, the song will be featured in the upcoming "Now That's What I Call Country" album, which is set to release in late August of 2008.

Clarkson was a surprise guest at the 2007 CMA Music Festival in Nashville on June 7, 2007, where she performed "Does He Love You" and "Because of You" with Reba McEntire during the internationally-renowned annual event. The performance of "Because of You" was taped and aired as part of the "CMA Music Festival: Country's Night To Rock" television special that aired on ABC on July 23, 2007.

On January 17, 2008, Clarkson embarked on the 2 Worlds, 2 Voices Tour 2008, a co-headlining tour with Reba McEntire, which is scheduled to resume in Fall 2008.

On May 18, 2008, Clarkson performed on stage at the Academy of Country Music Awards All-Star Jam with Reba McEntire and Ronnie Dunn of Brooks and Dunn. The All-Star jam is the final event of the week taking place the day after the awards show. Clarkson was not announced ahead of time for an appearance. Images of the performance can be found on various news outlets and fan sites.

Vocal ability

On an interview with Good Morning America, Simon Cowell was asked of the six American Idol winners, who he thought had the best voice. Cowell immediately answered that Clarkson did "by a mile", noting that she was "up there" with other great singers such as Celine Dion.

Reflecting back on Clarkson's performance during the Idol Gives Back special, Jeff Beck described Clarkson's voice as a "soul voice" that "demands attention".

After attending a rehearsal for American Idol's season six finale (in which Clarkson was scheduled to perform), Blender magazine described Clarkson's voice as such:
“     The Texas native has one of the great voices in pop music, a powerful and versatile instrument that’s steeped in the rhythm and blues and country music she grew up with in the South. If Mariah Carey’s five-octave voice is the equivalent of an expensively bred poodle, then Clarkson’s is a bloodhound: friendly, earthy, but fierce just the same.     ”

Discography


Albums

    * 2003: Thankful
    * 2004: Breakaway
    * 2007: My December

Kelly Clarkson Pictures ( 20 Pictures)