Blake Lewis Biography (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Blake Colin Lewis (born July 21, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter and beatboxer who was the runner-up to Jordin Sparks on the sixth season of American Idol.

Biography

Early years

Lewis was born in Bothell, Washington to Dallas and Dinah Lewis. Dinah is a former rocker who still sings and plays guitar. He is an only child and is of Welsh, German and Irish descent. He attended Kenmore Junior High and later Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Washington. In high school, Lewis participated in many high school state competitions. He also took part in numerous musicals, as well as comedy and rap videos with his friends. In many of these videos, for instance, "The Chuck Norris Rap", "The Harry Potter Rap" and "The Snakes On a Plane Rap", he portrayed his alter ego, Jimmie Walker Blue, the character he introduced during the semi-final round of American Idol.

Lewis started beatboxing at seventeen. He picked up this talent purely by ear, listening to CDs of beatboxing, after he was inspired by Matthew Selby, a former member of the Los Angeles-based a cappella group M-Pact, of which fellow American Idol semi-finalist Rudy Cárdenas was a member. Aside from singing and beatboxing, Lewis plays the guitar, keyboard, drums and has written many songs such as "She Loves the Way", "Emotional Waterfalls", "Dumpty Humpty" and "Jealousy". He describes himself as an improv musician and often uses devices such as loop pedals and the Kaoss Pad to layer beatboxing, instruments, vocals and effects to create a song live on stage.

Being a member of the a cappella group KickShaw for four years after graduating from high school in 1998, Lewis worked with the group on a 10-track album titled Put It In the Microphone but he quit the group in 2002 to became a solo musician going by the stage name BShorty, "doing drum and bass shows, and conscious hip hop shows, singer-songwriter stuff, and electronica and hip hop". He made connections with various musicians by performing regularly in many venues in Seattle such as Nectar Lounge in Fremont, SeaMonster Lounge, Lo-Fi Performance Gallery, Jet Deck in Everett (now in Mill Creek) and hosted shows like The Digital Lounge shows at ToST. Before Idol, he was working on a solo album with a number of tracks finished.

American Idol

Lewis auditioned for Idol in Seattle"despite having never seen the show before"with "Crazy" by Seal. Introducing himself as the local beatboxing champion in the audition, Lewis beatboxed along with his teammates, including Chris Sligh, Rudy Cárdenas and Tom Lowe, to "How Deep Is Your Love" by Bee Gees in the Hollywood's Week. The memorable performance received a standing ovation from the audience and Paula, who commented "that brought down the house". In an early episode of the United Kingdom edition of American Idol, Lewis recalled his first solo performance in the Hollywood's Week was "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" by The Temptations. When later he sang it in front of the other finalists, Phil Stacey felt that it was the best performance he has seen from Lewis.

Week	Song Choice	Artist	Result
Top 24	"Somewhere Only We Know"	Keane	Safe
Top 20	"Virtual Insanity"	Jamiroquai	Safe
Top 16	"All Mixed Up"	311	Safe
Top 12	"You Keep Me Hangin' On"	Diana Ross and the Supremes	Safe
Top 11	"Time of the Season"	The Zombies	Safe
Top 10	"Lovesong"	The Cure Covered by 311	Safe
Top 9	"Mack the Knife"	Kurt Weill Popularized by Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Robbie Williams and Louis Armstrong	Safe
Top 8	"I Need to Know"	Marc Anthony	Safe
Top 7	"When the Stars Go Blue"	Ryan Adams Covered by Tim McGraw	Bottom 3
Top 6	"Imagine"	John Lennon	Safe (Non-Elimination Week)
Top 6	"You Give Love a Bad Name"	Bon Jovi	Safe
Top 4	"You Should Be Dancing" "This Is Where I Came In"	Bee Gees	Safe
Top 3	"Roxanne" "This Love" "When I Get You Alone"	The Police Maroon 5 Robin Thicke	Safe
Finale	"You Give Love a Bad Name" "She Will Be Loved" "This Is My Now"	Bon Jovi Maroon 5 Jordin Sparks	Runner-up

Lewis ended up the last male contestant standing; the judges had predicted Lewis' "front runner" status early in the competition. In an exclusive interview with X17Online on March 4, 2007, Simon Cowell foresaw Lewis' chance to take the crown. After Lewis' performance of "Lovesong" by The Cure/311 on March 27, Paula Abdul said that she would love to see him in the finale. Cowell further confirmed that Lewis was the front runner of male contestants on American Idol. Lewis, upon entering the top 2 on May 16, 2007, he thus became the first ever contestant from the Northwestern United States (specifically, Washington) to compete in the finale. Lewis' beatboxing and scat singing skills had been featured occasionally throughout the competition, notably in the performances such as "Virtual Insanity", "All Mixed Up", "Time of the Season", "You Give Love a Bad Name", "You Should Be Dancing", "This Is Where I Came In" and "This Love". He had also rearranged songs including "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and "You Give Love a Bad Name". Although Lewis' first performance in the semi-final weeks, "Somewhere Only We Know", was pure singing and inspired judges to make comments about his contemporary vibe, his signature performance on the show was probably "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi. Lewis incorporated a substantial beatboxing component, making the song sound significantly different from its original version. Jon Bon Jovi, the lead singer of the band who also coached the contestants that week, noted that Lewis' rendition was "rolling the dice". All three judges acknowledged the huge risk of Lewis' arrangement, but also praised him for his originality including beatboxing. Randy Jackson believed that it was the most original performance ever on the show. Cowell even predicted that 50% of the audience "would absolutely hate it" but another half would love it. The groundbreaking performance was later ranked #6 in top 20 all-time greatest American Idol performances on AOL.com.

It is also remarkable that several original versions of song Lewis performed re-entered Billboard Hot Digital Songs chart shortly after the show. Lewis' first performance on-stage, "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane, re-entered the chart at #26 (#19 on Hot Digital Tracks chart); "Time of the Season", a The Zombies' hit in 1968, reached #67; Tim McGraw"s "When the Stars Go Blue" hit #39 (#37 on Hot Digital Tracks chart); Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" shot up to #29; "This Love" and "She Will Be Loved" by Maroon 5 jumped to #41 and #45 respectively. Maroon 5"s album Songs About Jane had re-entered the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart at #5 on June 2, 2007 as well.

Lewis claimed 311 as his all-time favorite band after his performance of "All Mixed Up". Responding to a viewer question on March 13, 2007, he had also confessed his love of "underground hip hop, electronic music" such as Common Market and Panda Conspiracy, with an addition of The Mob Law, which in Lewis' opinion, "should be signed to a major label".

While being the last two contestants waiting for the results on May 2, Lewis and Chris Richardson answered Ryan Seacrest's question about their close relationship, saying that they are best friends. Interestingly, Lewis has "Chris Sligh, Rudy Cárdenas", contestants from the sixth season of American Idol, listed as his own "American idols" on his profile on American Idol official website, while Sligh and Cárdenas also have Lewis on their lists. Furthermore, Lewis claimed in an interview with The Blaker Girls that besides Richardson, Cárdenas and Sligh, his best friends on the show were Brandon Rogers, Jordin Sparks and Gina Glocksen. In the episode of The View on June 14, 2007, Lewis said that there were "a lot of writers on the show", including Richardson, Sligh and himself.

Post-Idol

Lewis' songs from the American Idol have been on sale at the iTunes Store and the American Idol official website as Blake Lewis - EP (called a "bundle" on Idol official website) shortly after the finale of Idol, along with other songs that did not make the EP's cut that are being sold as individual singles. Figures from SoundScan which were being posted on USA Today indicated that Lewis' "You Give Love a Bad Name" was "the biggest-selling download of the season", with 192,000 copies sold.

After the finale of Idol, Lewis has made several appearances on television shows. He performed Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved" on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (combined with a snippet of U2's "With or Without You"), The Today Show, Live with Regis and Kelly and The Early Show. In the episode of The View on June 14, 2007, he sang "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane. Lewis had also appeared on Total Request Live, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet with the winner of Idol, Jordin Sparks and Larry King Live with contestants who made into the top ten of American Idol. On July 4,2007, Lewis performed "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" on Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular with Sparks and Melinda Doolittle.

Lewis took part in the "American Idols LIVE! Tour 2007" from July 6 to September 23, 2007, along with other contestants in the top ten. He revealed on The View on June 14, 2007 that all the male contestants on the show would be playing musical instruments on the tour (for the first time ever), "doing like a folk band," and that he would bring along his loop pedals for his beatboxing. He and Chris Richardson have "started working on a little documentary" on the tour and it will be published at their MySpace profiles.

Lewis was named #5 in the list of the 10 sexiest Idol contestants ever on the website during the running of the sixth season of American Idol and was ranked #21 in the list of music's 21 sexiest single men on June 11, 2007 on AOL.com. Later in the issue of People magazine on June 15, 2007, the brand-new runner-up of Idol appeared on its list of "Hottest Bachelors of 2007". He has also made a cut on the list of 50 hottest guys on ELLEgirl magazine.

2007: A.D.D.

On June 21, 2007, Lewis disclosed in his blog at MySpace that on top of the American Idol tour, he has "been in meetings with producers and writers" for his album, though his record deal with Arista Records/19 Recordings was not announced officially until August 24. Lewis has been recording his album in the studio "for all night long" since June 18. As of August 9, he has already recorded eight songs. Lewis described some of the songs he has recorded on July 16, 2007: </ref>|}} He expects to release the record on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in 2007 and entitle it A.D.D. for "Audio Day Dream".

The singer has stated in several interviews that he wants his future album to have pop, electronic and jazzy hip hop feels to it, as he classified the sound as "electro-funk-soul-pop". He has also listed his ideal choices of producers and collaborators for his album in various interviews, including "Father of Trance" BT, Darkchild, will.i.am, Pro J, DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator and Gnarls Barkley (the musical collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green). In interviews with Entertainment Weekly magazine and Entertainment Tonight, he mentioned a collaboration with Doug E. Fresh, the hip hop/beatboxing legend Lewis beatboxed with to "The Show" in the Grand Finale of the sixth season of American Idol and received a standing ovation from the judges and the audience, as well as some of his musical influences, such as Maroon 5, 311, Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and Jamiroquai.

In an interview with TV Guide on June 27, 2007, Lewis revealed that Doug E. Fresh "is in talks to beatbox on a song" and that one of his favorite producers, BT, has signed on to produce his debut album. Moreover, he is "going to have four or five people beatbox between tracks".

The CD is due out November 27th, 2007.

Other collaborations that have been revealed to date include:

Aaron Sterling, drummer;
The writing team of Evan "Kidd" Bogart (music executive and songwriter) and Jonathan "J.R." Rotem (super producer);
Ivan Koumaev and Travis Wall, contestants on the second season of So You Think You Can Dance;
Louie Bello, singer-songwriter;
Mike Elizondo, record producer;
Rich Cronin, former member of the pop trio LFO;
Ryan Tedder, lead singer of the pop/rock band OneRepublic and record producer;
Sam Hollander, writer and record producer;
Steph Jones, singer-songwriter;
Chris Richardson, fellow American Idol Season 6 finalist and singer-songwriter.

Lewis has also been trying to get some guests for the album, as he stated in an interview with TV Guide: </ref>|}}

Philanthropy

Lewis has been supporting cancer research at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle by donating 50% of the proceeds from the merchandise of The Blaker Girls. He chose to put his support behind this organization after one of his best friends and his friend's girlfriend were diagnosed with lymphoma.

Discography

EPs

Album Information
Blake Lewis - EP ¹ Released: May 22, 2007 (U.S.) U.S. Sales: 41,000 (as of July 17, 2007) RIAA certification: N/A Chart performance: #3 (Billboard Top Digital Albums chart)

Notes:

¹ Since Blake Lewis - EP was available exclusively through the iTunes Store, it was not eligible to chart on the Billboard 200. The EP has also made into the Billboard Comprehensive Albums chart at #30 and reached #3 on the iTunes Top Albums chart (#2 on the iTunes Pop Albums chart).

Singles

Year	Title	Album	Chart positions
Year	Title	Album	U.S. Hot 100	U.S. Pop 100	U.S. Digital	CAN Hot 100	iTunes Top 100
2007	"You Give Love a Bad Name" ¹	Blake Lewis - EP	18	20	9	47	4

Notes:

¹ While Jordin Sparks, the winner of the sixth season of American Idol, had "This Is My Now" as her official single, Lewis did not announce his choice of single officially, despite the fact that "You Give Love a Bad Name" was the highest-charting track among his "bundle" of songs available for downloading. Since "You Give Love a Bad Name" entered a number of charts, it is included in the table above for convenience.
² Unlike the debut songs of previous winners and runner-ups of American Idol, all five songs appeared on Blake Lewis - EP were released digitally only, not physically.
³ While not being announced as a single, "Time of the Season", the song Lewis performed in the British Invasion week on American Idol, has debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #99, the Pop 100 chart at #74 and the Hot Digital Songs chart at #70 in the issue of the charts on June 9, 2007. Several tracks by Lewis have made appearances that week on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart and the Pop 100 chart as well, including "This Love" (#2; #80), "When The Stars Go Blue" (#10; #92) and "I Need to Know" (#19 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart).

Compilations

Human Element: The World's First Human Beatbox Compilation (June 15, 2004) (under the stage name "BShorty")
American Idol Season 6: Greatest Hits (June 12, 2007)
American Idol Season 6: The Collector's Edition (June 12, 2007)

Unreleased original works

"Closer to Reason"
"Dumpty Humpty"
"Emotional Waterfalls"
"Four Letter Word"
"Give It to Me" (duet with Laura Blue)
"Jealousy"
"She Loves the Way"
"Transmission"

Guest vocals

2003: Unexpected Arrival, "Julie" (featuring Blake Lewis); "Take Control KIDS" (featuring Blake Lewis)
2007: Caleb Cunningham/K-Tone, "My Eyes" (featuring Blake Lewis)
2007: KJ Sawka, "Brotherhood of the Drum" (featuring Blake Lewis); "Move On" (featuring Blake Lewis); "WTO" (featuring Blake Lewis) (from the album Cyclonic Steel)

Footnotes

This biography article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Blake Lewis". Reality TV World is not responsible for any errors or omissions this article may contain.