David Archuleta Biography (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

David James Archuleta (born December 28, 1990) is an American singer. On May 22, 2008 he became the first runner-up on the seventh season of American Idol, to David Cook.

Early life

David Archuleta was born in Miami, Florida to a spanish - mexican - filipino mother (Xiomara Archuleta) along with his father; James Jeffrey Archuleta, of Spanish descent, a Honduran immigrant. He has four siblings.Archuleta's family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah when Archuleta was 13 and currently lives in Murray, Utah, where Archuleta is a student at Murray High School. He once suffered partial vocal paralysis but declined risky surgery and has said he feels he is almost fully recovered.

Archuleta started singing at age six, inspired by a Les Misérables video. "That musical is what started all of this," he said. He started performing publicly at age 10 when he participated in the Utah Talent Competition singing "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton; he received a standing ovation and won the Child Division.

Musical influences

Archuleta's mother is from Honduras, and much of the music he listened to as a child, according to an interview aired on American Idol, was Latin-influenced. She also "was big on dancing" according to Archuleta, and would "make" him dance to traditional music with his older sister. He also listened to jazz music, he said, from his father's collection as well as gospel, pop, rock and "soulful music." In a later interview, he revealed that his father was a jazz musician. Archuleta also said he enjoys Broadway musicals.

On his American Idol "Fast Facts" page, Archuleta cites his musical influences as Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder, Kirk Franklin and Bryan Adams. When asked to list his top pop artists, he cited Natasha Bedingfield, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bryan Adams, Kirk Franklin, and Robbie Williams. He also listed Tamyra Gray and Elliott Yamin as his favorite former American Idol contestants. Like Yamin and another singer he admires, John Mayer, Archuleta tries to infuse his pop selections with a soulful vibe.

Star Search

In 2003, at age 12, Archuleta sang on several episodes of the television show Star Search. He ended up as the Junior Vocal Champion on Star Search 2. On one episode, he sang against then-11-year-old Alexandréa Lushington, who also became a "top 20" semi-finalist on American Idol alongside Archuleta. Archuleta's competing on Star Search led to appearances on The Jenny Jones Show and CBS' The Early Show, and meeting the finalists from American Idol's first season, for whom he performed a spontaneous a cappella rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls.

American Idol

Overview

Archuleta won his ticket to the Hollywood final auditions (with a performance of John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change") at the San Diego tryouts held at Qualcomm Stadium July 30 and July 31, 2007. He was 16 during the Hollywood auditions (where he sang Bryan Adams' "Heaven" to unanimous praise) and because he was not yet 18, had to attend school ("doing schoolwork in the morning and then come onto the stage and then go back to the schoolwork") while a part of American Idol's seventh season. His parents were there because he was a minor. Archuleta also took advantage of the decision to allow contestants to play musical instruments when he accompanied himself on piano for his performances of "Another Day in Paradise" and "Angels."

A Los Angeles Times article speculated why Archuleta avoided singing the first verse of "Imagine": because "of his religion, he's unlikely to espouse the song's agnostic ideal . . . with the line about 'no religion too.'" Archuleta did, however, sing the entire song on Good Things Utah when he was 13. During his first performance of Imagine on American Idol, when asked by judge Randy Jackson why he didn't sing the first verse, Archuleta said the third verse was his favorite because it has "a great message." After his "Imagine" performance, the judges said he was "the one to beat".

In his finale performance he sang, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, In This Moment and Imagine. After his rendition of the three songs Simon Cowell declared that Archuleta won the evening and even David Cook thought David Archuleta nailed the American Idol Finale: "I have to concede it, the kid came out all three songs and nailed it" said Cook. In the final week of the season, Archuleta received 44 percent of the votes.

During the finale of season 7 of American Idol, Archuleta appeared in a commercial for the game franchise Guitar Hero, mimicking Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

Performances and results (during voting weeks)

Week #	Theme	Song choice	Original artist	Order #	Result
Top 24 (12 Men)	1960s	"Shop Around"	The Miracles	6	Safe
Top 20 (10 Men)	1970s	"Imagine"	John Lennon	10	Safe
Top 16 (8 Men)	1980s	"Another Day in Paradise"	Phil Collins	2	Safe
Top 12	Lennon/McCartney	"We Can Work It Out"	The Beatles	12	Safe
Top 11	The Beatles	"The Long and Winding Road"	The Beatles	3	Safe
Top 10	Year They Were Born	"You're the Voice"	John Farnham	8	Safe
Top 9	Dolly Parton	"Smoky Mountain Memories"	Dolly Parton	6	Safe
Top 8	Inspirational Music	"Angels"	Robbie Williams	7	Safe
Top 7	Mariah Carey	"When You Believe"	Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston	1	Safe
Top 6	Andrew Lloyd Webber	"Think of Me"	The Phantom of the Opera	4	Safe
Top 5	Neil Diamond	"Sweet Caroline" "America"	Neil Diamond	4 9	Safe
Top 4	Rock and Roll Hall of Fame	"Stand by Me" "Love Me Tender"	Ben E. King Elvis Presley	4 8	Safe
Top 3	Judge's Choice (Paula Abdul) Contestant's Choice Producers' Choice	"And So It Goes" "With You" "Longer"	Billy Joel Chris Brown Dan Fogelberg	1 4 7	Safe
FINALE	Clive Davis's Choice New Song Contestant's Choice	"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" "In This Moment" "Imagine"	Elton John Written by Ryan Gillmor John Lennon	2 4 6	Runner-Up

iTunes singles

Apple has joined as a American Idol season seven major sponsor with performances (videos as well as songs) made available via the iTunes Store. Although "sales of current Idol tracks are not reported or charted" by Billboard, on 5 March 2008, Archuleta's singles "Imagine" and "Shop Around" were in the top of the iTunes' Idol (season 7) releases. Billboard noted that Archuleta's "stunning performance" of "Imagine" boosted the original by John Lennon back onto the "Hot Digital Songs" top 100 (at No. 47).

Fans

Archuleta's fans have been dubbed "the Archies" and the "Arch Angels" with his "cult-like appeal" nurtured by his work on American Idol attracting a wide demographic including "grandmothers and teenage girls."

Archuleta was labeled the front-runner by both the judges and the media because of his good looks and his "pure, pop voice," which helped him build a large fan base during the competition. Billboard magazine's Fred Bronson notes "David fills a spot where there"s a void. . . . [H]e has innocence and humility." Los Angeles Times' Richard Rushfield noted that the "tween/teen girl hysteria" has only increased despite some less than amazing performances.

Archuleta seems to be sympathetic with his audience, as since his performance of "Angels" he has been responding to requests of his fans on the American Idol Forums to signal them by putting his hand over his heart. Rushfield commented on some of the girls who were standing in the front of the audience: "An hour after the show, they were still shaking, sobbing and screeching about their encounter with the Chosen One [Archuleta]." Teen-based entertainment is "surging" and the teenage voters may have accounted for the teenaged Jordin Sparks who beat out front-runners Blake Lewis and Melinda Doolittle last season. Referring to American Idol's system of popular voting for the remainder of the competition, Rushfield said, "No demographic can match the voting power of hysterically excited teen girls."

Controversy with father

After his performance of "We Can Work It Out," which judge Simon Cowell called "a mess," Entertainment Tonight reported that Archuleta was feeling pressure from his father, Jeff Archuleta, who "reportedly yelled at" his son after a recording session the previous night. Jeff Archuleta, in an interview with Us Magazine, denied the claim. A May 2008 Associated Press article reported that Jeff Archuleta had his son add a lyric from the Sean Kingston song "Beautiful Girls" into a rendition of "Stand by Me" (from which "Beautiful Girls" samples its bass line), increasing the costs for licensing, and that this had resulted in Jeff Archuleta being banned from American Idol backstage rehearsals.

Career

The three songs Archuleta performed in the American Idol Finale, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, In This Moment, and Imagine, became top-10 downloads on iTunes.

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